When a person's skin becomes dry, the top layers of the skin are damaged and dying. It may feel rough to the touch, tight, and even sore, and most of all it won't look healthy. Although there are many causes of dry skin, most of the time it is down to lack of basic skin care and environmental factors which are to blame.

There is no magical instant fix or quick cure for dry skin other than to begin taking the best care of your skin right away. If you follow the advice in this article and begin taking the best care of your skin, any damaged or dry skin ought to heal and become much healthier within a few weeks to a month and you will really notice a difference in how your skin looks and feels.

Skin usually becomes dry because of a lack of sebum. Sebum is the natural protective oils which the skins pores secrete to protect our skin from the elements. If the production of sebum drops off, particularly if our diets aren't good, or as we get older, our skin can become increasingly dry as our skin finds it increasingly difficult to retain moisture and grow healthy. The key to keeping skin healthy is to give it as much of a helping hand in as many ways as possible.

You can do this by:

- Moisturising regularly, particularly after bathing or shaving will help protect your skin from the elements, keep it soft supple and moist. Moisturising is particularly important before going out in the cold, as this is where the most damage usually occurs.

- Bathing properly without excessively hot water, flannels and harsh shower gels or soaps. The above combination can wash and scrub the sebum oils from the skin almost completely, leaving your skin completely vulnerable to drying. The idea is to bath to clean, but work with your skin, not against it. Use lukewarm water, a skin friendly soap such as Dove or Olay, and avoid scrubbing utilities. The same goes for drying with a towel, pat yourself dry don't scrub.

- Using a humidifier whilst you have central heating on can help to prevent the central heating from drying out your skin. This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons so many people suffer from bad skin during the winter, even if they don't go out of the house much.

- Eating a good diet is all important. You're skin can only be as good as the nutrients your body supplies it with, after all. Eating a good balanced diet with plenty of Vitamin A, B and C and sulphur minerals will make your skin much healthier.