It's impossible to avoid all environmental stressors that can dehydrate your skin, but it's important to recognize some of the main ones. These include:

Pollution: Pollution can dehydrate skin and compromise your skin's moisture barrier (which helps protect skin and maintain hydration), resulting in rough, dull skin.

Blue light: Screen time can affect skin. Blue light can lead to dehydration.

Air travel: Flying isn't so friendly to your skin. The dry atmosphere in airplane cabins can dehydrate skin, leaving it looking dull and dry.

Weather: Your skin can get dehydrated with shifts in weather, like windy days or cold temperatures, which is why your skin might feel drier during the winter.

"Dehydrated" and "dry" might sound synonymous, but when it comes to skincare, their definitions separate like oil and water—quite literally.

Dry skin lacks adequate oil and water. As a result, dry facial skin can feel rough and look dull.

Dehydrated skin may have sufficient (or even excess) oil, but it lacks water. Without enough water, skin’s protective moisture barrier can become compromised. Skin looks dull and feels tight. Fine lines and wrinkles may look more defined and prominent.

All skin types can experience dehydration from lack of moisture. Keep your skin hydrated with a moisturizer for your skin type. Using a moisturizer consistently helps keep skin looking soft and healthy, and strengthens the barrier for more resilient skin.

When you have the right ingredients for dry skin in your daily skincare regimen, boosting your skin's hydration for a more youthful glow is much easier. Here’s what to look for.

• Hyaluronic acid: Hydrates and plumps skin.
• Aloe bioferment: This ingredient exclusive to Clinique helps skin retain moisture. We start with responsibly grown organic aloe and concentrate it 500 times (yes, 500). It then gets fermented so those molecules are broken down into smaller, more absorbable elements for your skin.

A strong moisture barrier helps keep moisture in and harmful irritants out. As skin gets older, its barrier can weaken, leaving it vulnerable to moisture loss and environmental irritants. Clinique’s high-performance moisturizers help strengthen the skin barrier, leaving skin feeling soft, supple, and hydrated. Our iconic Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion+™ rapidly strengthens the skin barrier and instantly boosts skin's moisture by 119%.

For dry skin, it’s essential to cleanse and exfoliate skin before applying moisturizer. Gentle exfoliation clears away dead skin cells that can be a barrier to moisturizer absorption. After skin is exfoliated, moisturizer sinks right in to rehydrate skin. To exfoliate, try Clarifying Lotion or a gentle scrub like 7 Day Scrub Cream. Moisturize at least twice daily. Moisture Surge™ 100H just might be Clinique’s best face moisturizer for dry skin—it delivers fast-acting, long-lasting hydration in a refreshing, lightweight formula. For a more intense moisture treatment, add a hydrating mask to your routine. Moisture Surge™ Overnight Mask deeply nourishes skin while you sleep. Shop all Clinique moisturizers or try our quick Skin Diagnostic to get a customized routine for your unique skin.