Skin drier than it used to be? Blame the shower before you blame your age

A customer rang me last month, a bit frustrated. Sixty-two, never had a skin problem in her life, and now her shins itch every night and her forearms look like crepe paper. Nothing had changed. Same shower, same soap, same forty years of routine.

That is usually the giveaway. The routine did not change. Her skin did.

Your skin makes less of its own moisturiser now

Skin has always looked after itself with a thin film of oil called sebum, plus a layer of fats and ceramides sitting between the surface cells like mortar between bricks. That combination holds water in.

Both go quiet with age. Sebum output peaks somewhere in your twenties and drops off steadily after thirty, and the fall is sharper for women, particularly after menopause. Researchers put the decline at roughly a third per decade for women and a quarter for men. Meanwhile the outer layer loses a good chunk of its lipid content compared with younger skin. Less oil on top, less mortar underneath, and water simply leaves faster than it used to.

None of that is a problem you caused. But it does mean the soap that suited you at thirty-five may be far too brisk at sixty.

What the shower is quietly doing

Most supermarket bars and body washes clean with strong synthetic detergents. On young, oily skin they are fine because the oil comes back within the hour. On older skin there is less to come back, so every wash sets you a little further behind. Add a hot Australian winter shower, ten minutes long, and hard water in some parts of the country, and you have a skin barrier that never quite catches up.

The tight, squeaky feeling people were once taught to associate with cleanliness is actually the sound of a stripped surface. If your skin feels tight when you step out and you need cream within five minutes just to be comfortable, the cleanser is doing too much.

Three things worth trying this week, none of which cost anything:

• Turn the temperature down a notch and cut the shower short. Warm, not hot.
• Save the soap for the parts that need it. Underarms, feet, groin, hands. Your shins do not need lathering daily.
• Pat dry rather than rub, and put your balm or butter on while the skin is still damp so it has something to seal in.

Why a tallow bar behaves differently

Tallow is rendered beef fat, and the reason it suits mature skin is not sentiment. Its fatty acid profile sits close to the fats human skin makes for itself, oleic and palmitic and stearic, along with small amounts of vitamins A, D, E and K that come along with the fat. Skin recognises it and takes it up readily, so a tallow bar cleans without scouring the surface bare.

There is also superfat, which is the deliberate excess of fat we leave unsaponified in the bar. A 3% superfat gives a lighter, cleaner rinse suited to oily skin. A 6% bar leaves more of that fat behind on the skin. For skin that has stopped making enough of its own, that extra few percent is the whole point.

If you are starting somewhere, start with the Gentle Soothing Soap Bar. It is unscented, 6% superfat, and made for exactly this situation, no fragrance to react to and enough fat to leave skin feeling comfortable rather than tight. The plain Just Tallow 6% is the same idea if you want the most stripped-back bar we make.

If you would rather have a little scent, the Traditional Homesteaders Rose bar is also 6% and was put together with dry, ageing skin in mind. And since hair thins and dries on the same timeline as skin, the Tallow Shampoo and Conditioner Bar runs at 8% superfat for dry and mature hair.

Give it a fortnight

Skin that has been over-cleansed for years does not settle down in two days. Most people notice the difference somewhere in the second week, usually as an absence, the itch is not there at bedtime, or they realise they have not reached for the moisturiser after a shower.

Every bar we make is hot-processed in small batches here at Fulham Homestead in Victoria, from Australian grass-fed tallow. If you are not sure which one suits you, send us a message and tell us what your skin is doing. We would rather point you to the right bar than sell you the wrong one.

Have a look through the range, or start with the unscented bar and see how the fortnight goes.