Your skincare routine should change with the season. 5 swaps to make during the dry months

SALT LAKE CITY — If you've noticed your skin suddenly feeling tighter, looking duller or your makeup isn't laying right on your skin, your skincare products may not be the problem.

Beauty expert Megan Moore said it might actually be the season. We know Utah in general is a dry climate, but with the seasonal shift, it's stepped up.

"As soon as we turn on the heater, it's just like that much more that we're dealing with," Megan explained.

She recommended getting ahead of the seasonal changes now.

"Let's not wait till December so we're trying to play catch-up," she emphasized. "Start now changing that routine so your skin never gets to that bad point where you're all of a sudden panicking."

_Find the products Megan recommends here._

Swap your foaming cleanser for a creamy one

The first adjustment starts with your cleanser.

"We want to drop anything that's sudsy or kind of a gel formula," Megan said.

When it's warmer foaming cleansers are great, but as the weather cools they can strip away moisture your skin needs.

"Switch to something creamy, milkier cleansers that are gonna be much more hydrating," she explained. "We never want to feel, like, tight or stretched or dry after a cleanse. That's how we know we've gone too far."

Stop relying on humectants alone

You're probably already using products with hyaluronic acid, and Megan said that's still a good thing.

"A humectant is really cool," she explained. "What it does is it grabs moisture from the air and brings it into the skin."

She said that it's a great part of the process, but it's often not enough. While humectants pull moisture into the skin, they don't necessarily keep it there.

"A lot of times what happens is after a couple hours, that moisture that we've brought in, it dissipates," Megan explained.

Hyaluronic acid is a good first step to hydration, not the entire solution.

Trade lightweight lotions for barrier-supporting creams

Once you've drawn moisture in, the next step is important. Megan said to swap lightweight lotions for a richer cream.

"We really need to go to work with something that's gonna hold the moisture in," she explained. "We're gonna go something richer, more emollient.  It's gonna have lipids, which are fats."

The lipids do the work to hold in the moisture so you don't lose it a couple hours after you've applied it.

Ease up on exfoliation and strong actives

"If you're using anything that's active, so maybe it's a prescription retinol or a retinoid," Megan said, "if you're using a lot of acids, or maybe even a scrub, you may want to experiment with cutting back on how often you're using them."

You don't have to stop using them completely, just reduce your frequency. If you're doing it every other night, maybe try twice a week.

"That can be really, really drying for skin and make it hard for makeup to lay right," Megan explained.

Add a personal humidifier to your bedside while you sleep

"A bedside humidifier, it feels a little bougie," Megan said, "but honestly, it makes a huge difference once the heat is running."

As the indoor air gets drier, a humidifier brings some of the moisture back to the environment while you sleep.

"You wake up already feeling that moisture so your products don't have to do as much work," she said. "I think it's 100% worth it."

Find more beauty advice from Megan on Instagram, @beautysnoop.

This story originally aired on KSL TV and has been reformatted for a digital audience using artificial intelligence.