This One Humidifier Saves Me From Dry Skin When I'm Working From Home
It’s with a heavy heart that I must report: The $500 Dyson humidifier is a godsend. I realize that a near-prohibitively expensive device being actually worth its price is the last thing anyone wants to hear. But even if out of morbid curiosity, hear me out.
The effects of dry winter air can be devastating. For those living in colder climates, each day spent exposing your skin to harsh, sub-optimal humidity can contribute to cumulative damage on the skin surface. Fine lines that result from seasonal stresses can compound and result in fully fledged wrinkles and other markers of premature aging.
The season’s Death Eater-dry grip is well-known to experts. Double board-certified facial plastic surgeon Dr. Lesley Rabach tells InStyle, “In winter, the air humidity levels outside are lower than in other seasons, and our heating systems cause the air inside to be very dry as well. This causes moisture loss to the outermost skin layer, causing it to be dry. When the outermost skin is dry, it can’t do its best job, which leads to peeling and cracking, furthering moisture loss. Dehydrated skin appears more wrinkly.”
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Due to this, I’ve spent the last six New York winters experimenting on my own skin out of necessity, trying to find the keystone that would prevent my face from entering crisis mode. As an editor who covers beauty, I’ve had unmatched access to top-tier products and treatments, from La Mer and Sunday Riley to microneedling and dermalinfusion appointments. What I’ve learned along the way is, yes, pricey products work better (especially from organic-minded brands), and getting regular professional treatments can make an enormous difference.
But before I get doxxed for suggesting everyone budget in $1,000 a month for spa services and lotion, what I’m actually saying is: Skincare can help provide a barrier to the cruel, moisture-robbing nature of the environment, but the best defense is to change the environment itself. A good humidifier can be twice as effective as high-end skincare, and only requires a one-time investment.
“Humidifiers are one of the best ways to give your skin a moisture boost overnight, especially because it is a time where we are naturally getting dehydrated (as you're not drinking water overnight!),” says Dr. Rabach. “So a humidifier will also over time help your body be better hydrated, as less moisture will leave from your skin into the air, allowing your body to have a better flow of blood through the tissues, bringing in nutrients and taking away waste.”
Effectively, the positive impact of using a humidifier snowballs. The more you use it, the less stressed out your skin will be, and the fitter it’ll be to maintain a healthy status.
Dyson AM10 Humidifier
Shop now: $499; amazon.com
Since using this humidifier almost nightly for the past two months, I��ve managed to completely circumvent all of the dry-weather issues that typically plague me. In conditions under which I once performed 12-step nightly routines, only to wake up with a dried film of product on my face, I have now cut down to essentially my summer ritual. Rather than falling into the trap of over-exfoliating due to dry-skin build-up, I’m back to a healthy cadence of once-weekly peels.
What’s more, I don’t have to deal with dry, bloody nostrils each morning, and I haven’t woken up with a sore throat since first running the device. Dyson’s scientist-designed humidifier converts my apartment into a Rainforest Cafe of sanitized, life-giving moist air, and I honestly doubt I’d be able to replicate my success with a lesser model.
Dyson’s ultrasonic humidifier uses high-frequency vibrations to atomize water particles through the air, which makes it much less noisy than its evaporative counterparts. Its proprietary Air Multiplier technology — modeled after airplane jet engines — amplifies mist 17 times, distributing its reach even into the far corners of a space. And water in the tank is filtered through ultraviolet light, killing 99.9 percent of all bacteria.
Sitting in the far corner of my bedroom, the Dyson looks like a space-age sculpture rather than a hunk of plastic (my air conditioner, by contrast, is a massive eyesore).
Yes, it’s expensive. But for me, every day spent deliberating on the Dyson humidifier was a day I could have had with moist, healthy skin instead. Shop the missing piece to your winter skin puzzle for $499 at Amazon.com.
