How to winter-proof your skin

It’s around about now that winter bodies kick in.

Winter skin. Winter pallor. Winter scaliness and flakiness. (Peel tights off. Hello, legdruff. Ugh.) Just as we career towards party dress season, the skin on our body rebels. ‘Well, whaddaya expect,’ intones a pallid calf funereally, ‘when you haven’t so much as scrubbed or creamed me since August?’ Then a bloated tummy picks up the baton: ‘And what have you done for us lately?’

It’s easier, isn’t it, to largely ignore what lies beneath our clothes? Our comforting cashmeres and supple leathers? We operate, don’t we, on a need-to-know basis? Which is fine until we find ourselves standing in front of the mirror in a posh frock with parchmenty limbs and crepey chest and let’s not even talk about our feet. Except let’s. Seeing as we’re here. I certainly won’t tell anyone we had this conversation... because it’s a bit yucky. Which is fine, seeing as we’re troubleshooting.

After months or years of toenail polish, the nails themselves will often protest by turning yellow. So we keep painting and they keep yellowing. It’s a fungus. Apologies if I offend you, but it is. It’s also easily solved with a paint-on treatment such as Boots Fungal Nail Treatment Solution, which leaves us only with the cracked, goatherd heels which are also — let’s face it — a bit yellow. Flexitol cream applied at night, under socks (sexy), should soften them within three days, allowing us to move on, gently, up the leg.

Now, I don’t know about you but I may or may not get dry, rough ankles. And elbows. And cuticles. For which I wheel out the Darphin Aromatic Renewing Balm, which is basically a wonderful-smelling essential oil treatment that sorts everything out with no fuss and a fair bit of French flair. Calves, however, need a more consistent kind of love. Rough love. Exfoliating love. Ameliorate is the lactic acid-laden, life-changing body range for sensitive skin or, in fact, any skin. Particularly chicken skin — if you have it you’ll know what I’m talking about. The body scrub is a good place to start and the body lotion will help with everything from bumps to ingrown hairs (again, sexy). But if that all sounds exhausting then just leap into a bath laced with its Softening Bath Milk Oil, just to get your skin on your side again. After your very bad behaviour of the past couple of months.

And, did you say pigmentation? Well, what with retinol hanging around as a bit of a buzz word, you could take a look at Paula’s Choice Resist Retinol Skin-Smoothing Body Treatment. This no-nonsense stuff harnesses key anti-ageing and transformative ingredients commonly found in facial skincare products but directs them towards the rest of the body to help reduce patchiness and firm things up slightly.

Speaking of firming, we find ourselves back in France at the mercy of Clarins, that elegant beauty house, and its always-excellent Huile Anti-Eau Contour Body Treatment Oil, which boosts circulation, banishes bloat (use it on your tummy) and generally tones. It’s a delight to use and, I ask you, do Parisian women retain water? Eau, no. The advice on the packet tells us to follow its application with a cold shower. Ahahahaha. Sorry.

Upwards to the décolletage. Or chest. Which blotches up nicely when covered up and central heated or wintrily assaulted. Give it some love by taking your facial moisturiser downwards, extending your body cream upwards or getting hold of a targeted treatment such as Perricone MD’s Cold Plasma Plus+ Neck & Chest, which uses peptides to strengthen damaged skin, alpha lipoic acid to reduce wrinkles (like those pillow lines that last for hours once you’re over 35) and Vitamin B3 to banish hyperpigmentation.

So now you’re exfoliated and softened and scented (did I mention the sheer deliciousness of Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse, which smells out of this world and also makes you glow) and firmed and creamed and... what? You’re still not happy? Well. I guess it’s time to wheel out the big guns. Alleven Colour Shield is apparently what Beyoncé uses. It’s body make-up, basically. But it’s so damn good, shouldn’t come off on clothes and, if it does, washes out. It sprays on, creating a kind of imperfection-blurring golden hue that is going to have the lot of us bare-legged and bare-chested year-round. Who runs the world? Exactly.