Humidifier as a skincare product

I bought a small humidifier two winters ago because the apartment was very dry and I was waking up with a dry throat. The humidifier was thirty euros, an ultrasonic model, white and roughly the size of a large coffee mug. I put it on my desk. I did not think of it as a skincare product.

Within about three weeks I had noticed that the skin on my hands and face — but mostly my face — was visibly better than it had been at the same point in the previous winter. The change was not dramatic. The skin was simply less dry, less prone to the small flaky patches around my nose, less tight by the end of the day.

What is actually happening

Heated indoor air in winter has a relative humidity of, in many flats, around twenty percent. The skin barrier is most stable at a relative humidity of around fifty percent. When the air is very dry the skin loses water continuously through the upper layer, and the moisturisers and serums that you have applied are working against a constant deficit. The humidifier reduces the deficit.

It is the equivalent, in skincare terms, of fixing the leak in the bucket instead of pouring more water in. The serum and the moisturiser do less work when the air is helping you instead of working against you. The skin barrier rebuilds itself more efficiently.

What I have learned about the device itself

A small humidifier in one room does not change the humidity of the whole apartment. It changes the humidity in the small bubble around the device, maybe a metre or two. I keep mine on my desk, which is where I sit for most of the day. The bubble around me is at roughly forty percent humidity even when the rest of the apartment is at twenty.

It needs to be cleaned. Weekly. Otherwise the ultrasonic mechanism aerosolises whatever bacteria has grown in the standing water, and that is not what you want to be breathing. The cleaning takes three minutes. I do it on Sundays while I am making coffee.

What does not work

The very small USB humidifiers sold for desks do not produce enough moisture to make a difference. The whole-house humidifiers built into the heating system are not a thing in most European apartments. The single ultrasonic unit, between thirty and sixty euros, is the cost-effective answer, and it should be in the room where you spend the most time, not in the bedroom.

If your winter skin has been getting worse, before you buy another serum, buy a humidifier. The skin will respond faster than it will to any active I have tried, and the device costs less than a single bottle of mid-range moisturiser.