Cracked lips, scaly skin, and dried out cuticles.

Aaah, winter.

In the cold months, weather can be rough on the body.

It can lower both your health and your self-esteem, making the winter months nearly unbearable.

Here are a few tips and products to prevent the discomfort that comes with the cold weather.

Chapped and cracked lips

When faced with snow and ice, the air dries out and your lips shrivel and crack.

The best way to avoid this is to drink a sufficient amount of water and wear plenty of lip balm.

According to Healthline, the amount of drinking water that we should consume per day from ages 14-18, is about “64 to 88 ounces, or 8 to 11 cups.”

Matt Turner, senior, suggests a routine for dry lips this winter.

“If your lips dry out, put Vaseline on them at night and some lotion, too,” Turner said.

Lip balm has moisturizing agents that allow your lips to maintain healthy amounts of moisture.

However, according to Time magazine, you shouldn’t lick your lips before applying lip balm.

The balm can actually trap your saliva and cause the already weather-worn lips to dry out even more.

Saliva has enzymes within it that begin the process of digestion in your mouth and can cause damage to your lips.

Scaly, dry skin

The best way to prevent dry skin is to moisturize and exfoliate.

When you’re in the shower, take a washcloth or loofa with you. It is important to exfoliate the surface of the skin, which is made up of dead skin cells.

The outer layer of skin is called the stratum corneum. We slough off a total of two ounces of dead skin a month, or one and a half pounds per year.

Junior Dyllan Florida uses an exfoliant regularly.

“A nice exfoliation face scrub is good for dead skin,” Florida said. “I personally recommend a natural sugar scrub (for the face). As for the body, I would get a nice cocoa butter lotion.”

After one of those long, warm showers we all seem to enjoy in the winter, you should always apply lotion without strong fragrances to your entire body. This helps trap the water on the surface of your skin, where the cells in your skin can soak it up.

Junior Audriana Counelis moisturizes her face every day.

“I always moisturize my face after washing it and before bed every day,” Counelis said. “Sometimes, if I feel like it’s worse than usual, I use a face oil before I go to sleep.”

Dry hands and cuticles

We use our hands for everything. They are a necessity in our lives.

Fingers are important, and when the cuticles around our nails dry out, they can crack and open up our bodies to infection.

This is a dangerous situation as we depend on our digits to hold onto everything.

To prevent this catastrophe, be sure to apply lots of low-fragrance lotion or cuticle oil to keep your nails and cuticles moisturized all winter long.

Junior Shelby Price, an aspiring cosmetologist, prevents dry cuticles by caring for them regularly.

“I soak my fingers in a finger bath and use cuticle oils on them,” Price said.

Bloody noses

In the winter, this becomes a more common issue among healthy individuals.

The air is dry and the transitional skin within our nostrils is made of a similar tissue to that of the lips.

When it dries out, it cracks.

When we blow our noses, we could be unleashing more than we bargained for.

The best way to avoid a bloody nose is to run a humidifier in your home and bundle up while outside.

I run my humidifier in my bedroom so that my nose isn’t drying out at night. This way, during my days at school, I don’t have to worry about rushing off to the bathroom, clutching my nose for dear life.

Sore throat

Aside from a bloody nose, a sore throat is the next worst thing, in my opinion.

Sleeping with your mouth open can cause your throat to feel as if it is on fire.

To soothe a sore throat, gargle with warm, salty water. This won’t cure the problem but will soothe it for sure.

Another way to ease the pain is to suck on cough drops.

While they help to stop the tickle in your throat when you have a cough, they also soothe sore throats. Many cough drops, such as Halls, contain Menthol, which acts to numb the throat.

Influenza

Yes, flu season is upon us once again and is ready to overtake anyone who crosses its path.

The most important part of combating the flu is to get your annual flu shot. This helps to arm your body against the harmful illness so that your immune system isn’t weakened as much as it normally would be.

Other factors in your line of defense should be hand-sanitizing and washing your hands after you go to the restroom and before you eat.

No matter how clean you are, you are almost always touching someone or something.

This means you’re constantly picking up new germs and exposing yourself to a plethora of illnesses.

Whether you feel ill or not, be sure to cover your nose when you sneeze and your mouth when you cough.

Spreading an infection you may have to someone else is almost as bad as getting it.