Caring for your skin when you’re sick

Caring for your skin when you're sick should be about skin health, not beauty standards.

Let’s be real: caring for your skin when you’re sick often takes a backseat. If your nose is blocked and your head is pounding, the last thing you want to think about is whether your skin is flawless.

Caring for your skin when you’re sick shouldn’t be about meeting society’s standards for ‘good enough’. When you’re sick, focus on making yourself more comfortable. Don’t worry about dark circles, blemishes or spots. Just pull that blanket around your shoulders, brew a warm drink and start soothing your skin. Keep moisturiser next to your tissue box.

The first casualty of cold and flu season is the nose. Even the softest tissues can cause raw, chapped nostrils after prolonged use. Once your nose is chapped, it can take a long time to heal. Caring for your skin while you’re sick can minimise discomfort.

Prevent chapped skin by applying moisturiser to the nose area before blowing your nose. The moisturiser will act as a small buffer between your nose and the tissue, minimising irritation. Soothe the skin by applying another generous layer of moisturiser.

Your current moisturiser is perfectly fine to use, or you can consider switching to your winter moisturiser for an extra hydration boost. If your winter moisturiser isn’t cutting it, look for products with highly moisturising oils like avocado oil or argan oil, and soothing butters like shea butter.

Use a heavy hitters like Complete Moisture for its unique blend of hydrating oils with small-molecular hyaluronic acid (smaller molecules means easier penetration) and Hyadisine, a marine-based ingredient with amazing water retaining capacity. Wash your face in bed.

Caring for your skin when you’re sick shouldn’t interrupt your sleep. Let yourself doze the day away and keep an easy, wipe-off cleanser nearby with a stash of cotton puffs.

Water can irritate chapped skin even more, so opt for a soothing cleanser in balm or cream form. Their Cleansing Balm can just be gently dabbed off the skin, leaving your skin clean without stripping it of what little moisture it has left.

Hyaluronic acid will be your hero. Chapped skin occurs because the skin is unable to retain water. Help your skin heal by layering products with hyaluronic acid, which helps your skin retain moisture.

Tap a moisturising toner into your skin like the Hydrating Toner, which blends fruit and plant oils with hyaluronic acid. They made it with a spray nozzle so it would be easy to apply anywhere — and that includes in bed with the flu!

Follow the toner with a serum like Think HA, which contains multiple types of hyaluronic acid to really get moisture back into your skin. It’s light enough to layer over and over again under your moisturiser of choice.

Indulge yourself. Gel masks are a summer staple, but their light texture makes them perfect for soothing your skin when you’re ill.

If your face is feeling particularly warm, putting a bottle of the Collagen Gel Mask in the fridge can deliver a refreshing hit of cooling hydration to irritated skin.

Information including product recommendations provided with permission from Fountain Cosmetics.