How To Treat Dry Winter Skin Without Causing Breakouts

Last Updated on September 30, 2026 by Giorgia Guazzarotti

It happens every year. As the temperatures plunge down and freezing winds hit your face, your skin turns into a dry and flaky mess. Ugh. You throw an arsenal of facial oils, balms and rich creams at it to try and fix it, but now your skin’s breaking out like crazy, too. Double ugh. Isn’t there a way to treat dry winter skin while avoiding breakouts?!

Yes. The trick is to give your skin the extra hydration it needs without smothering it in rich products that can trigger breakouts. Think gentle cleansing, lightweight hydration, a moisturiser that won’t clog your pores and salicylic acid to keep them clear. Here’s how:

Why Is My Skin Dry In Winter – And Breaking Out Too?

Winter is brutal on your skin. Cold weather, harsh winds and indoor heating all weaken your skin barrier and make it lose moisture faster, which is why your face suddenly feels tight, rough and flaky. So you do the obvious thing: reach for richer creams, balms and facial oils. And then the pimples show up.

Annoying? Absolutely. But it makes sense. Dry skin still needs moisture, but if your pores clog easily, throwing the richest products you can find at the problem can swap flakes for breakouts. The answer isn’t to stop moisturising. The American Academy of Dermatology actually recommends moisturiser for acne-prone skin because acne treatments and harsh skincare can dry and irritate it even more.

The trick is to repair your skin barrier and give your skin enough moisture without drowning it in products that are too rich for it. That’s what this routine does.

NOTE: If your dry skin isn’t prone to breakouts, disregard this post and check out The Best Skincare Routine For Dry Skin instead. For rich creams/balms/oils to break you out, your skin must produce excess oil. If this isn’t the case, you’ve got nothing to fear from them.

Struggling to put together a cost-effective routine that banishes acne? Download your FREE “The Ordinary Anti-Acne Skincare Routine” to get started:

The Best Skincare Routine For Dry Winter Skin Prone To Breakouts

1. Gentle, pH Balanced Cleanser

If you’ve got dry winter skin prone to breakouts, cleansing is probably the most dangerous step in your skincare routine. Harsh cleansers with irritating ingredients (yes, sodium laurYL sulphate, I’m looking at you) or a high pH strip too much oil from your skin and disrupt its protective barrier, leaving it as dry as sandpaper.

How do you know you’re using a harsh cleanser? Simple. If your skin feels tight and uncomfortable after cleansing, your cleanser is too harsh. Switch to something gentler. A low pH foaming cleanser or cream cleanser are your best bets here. They remove all traces of dirt and makeup without drying out your skin.

Best picks:

• CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser ($15.99): A cream cleanser loaded with ceramide to remove impurities while strengthening your skin’s protective barrier. Click here for the full review. Available at Boots, Cult Beauty, Look Fantastic, Sephora, and Ulta.
• Corsx Low PH Good Morning Gel Cleanser ($14.00): A gentle pH-balanced (5.5) foaming cleanser that gets rid of excess oil and impurities without drying out skin. Click here for my full review. Available at Sokoglam and YesStyle.
• Paula’s Choice Skin Recovery Softening Cream Cleanser ($24.00): This moisturising cleanser uses a mix of surfactants and natural oils to remove impurities and makeup from skin, leaving it soft and clean. Available at Paula’s Choice.

Related: Why You Should Switch To Low pH Cleansers Now

2. Exfoliate The Right Way

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I recommend glycolic acid for dry skin. The smallest member of the AHAs (Alpha Hydroxy Acids) family, glycolic acid dissolves the glue that holds skin cells together so they can slough off faster AND hydrate skin to boot.

But once breakouts enter the mix, you need to switch to salicylic acid, pronto. Salicylic acid dissolves the glue that holds skin cells together, too. But, unlike glycolic acid, salicylic acid penetrates deep inside your pores and removes all the crap that’s clogging them up and giving you those nasty breakouts.

If you really, really, really want to keep using glycolic, then find an exfoliant that has BOTH acids. I can’t stress it enough: salicylic acid is the ONLY thing that can keep your pores clean from within. Use it.

Best picks:

• Drunk Elephant T.L.C. Framboos Glycolic Resurfacing Night Serum ($90.00): Best if you want your exfoliant to multitask. It pairs glycolic acid with salicylic acid, so it tackles clogged pores, rough texture and dullness in one hit. Available at Sephora, SpaceNK and Ulta
• Paula’s Choice Skin Perfecting 2% BHA Liquid Exfoliant ($37.00): Best all-rounder for gentle exfoliation. The 2% salicylic acid gets straight to work on blackheads, clogged pores and excess oil without turning your routine into a chemistry lesson. Available at Dermstore, Paula’s Choice, Sephora, SpaceNK
• The Inkey List Beta Hydroxy Acid Serum (£12.99): Best budget pick. You get 2% salicylic acid plus zinc PCA and hyaluronic acid, so it helps with oil and congestion without making your face feel like sandpaper. Available at Look Fantastic

Related: Glycolic Acid VS Salicylic Acid: Which One Is Right For You?

3. Use A Hydrating Serum

Your skin can never get enough moisture in winter. As soon as the temperatures start to fall, add a hyaluronic acid serum to your skincare routine, pronto. Hyaluronic acid is a moisture magnet that can attract moisture from the air into the skin and keep it in. It’s so powerful, it can hold up to 1000 times its weight in water. The best part? It works well both in high and low humidity conditions.

For best results, pick a serum with several forms of hyaluronic acid. You see, hyaluronic acid itself is too big to penetrate your skin. It sits on its surface, hydrating only the superficial layers. Smaller molecular weights of hyaluronic acid (that’s hyaluronic acid chopped down into smaller pieces) can penetrate deeper into the skin, keeping every layer supple and hydrated.

Best picks:

• NIOD Multi-Molecular Hyaluronic Complex ($43.00): Still one of my favourite hydrating serums when my skin needs a serious moisture boost. It has more than a dozen forms of hyaluronic acid. That’s a lot of moisture! Available at Cult Beauty and Niod
• The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 ($9.90): A cheaper, fuss-free option if you just want extra hydration without blowing half your holiday budget on a serum. Available at Sephora, SpaceNK, The Ordinary and Ulta
• Paula’s Choice Hyaluronic Acid Booster ($39.00): A good option if you want hyaluronic acid plus barrier-supporting ingredients in the same formula. Available at Cult Beauty, Dermstore, Paula’s Choice

Related: Why You Should Add Hyaluronic Acid To Your Skincare Routine In Winter

4. Use An Oil-Free Moisturizer

Natural oils and butters (think Shea, cocoa, coconut & co) are so moisturising because they create a barrier on the skin that keeps moisture in. If moisture stays in, your skin won’t dry out. Problem is, if your skin produces a little too much sebum, the rich textures of these oils and butters can clog the pores and give you breakouts.

Enter oil-free moisturisers. They use moisture magnets like hyaluronic acid to attract moisture from the skin + a mix of synthetic emollients to lock them in. Their lighter textures give your skin all the moisture it needs without getting trapped in the pores and clogging them up.

Bonus points if your moisturiser contains what Paula Begoun calls skin-identical ingredients. This is stuff includes ceramides, urea and cholesterol, all substances that make up your skin’s natural protective barrier. By adding them back into your skin, you’re patching up the holes the dry winter weather made in your protective barrier – without causing breakouts.

Best picks:

• Paula’s Choice Clear Oil-Free Moisturizer ($42.00): A lightweight moisturiser with nicinamide and ceramides to strengthen the skin’s protective barrier without adding more oil to it. Available at Cult Beauty, Paula’s Choice and Sephora
• CeraVe PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion ($19.99): It uses humectants that hyaluronic acid and glycerin to attract water into your skin and ceramides to moisturise skin without adding more oil to it. Available at Boots, Cult Beauty, Dermstore, and Ulta.
• Drunk Elephant Protini Polypeptide Cream ($72.00): Drunk Elephant Protini Polypeptide Cream ($68.00): A lightweight cream that plumps up wrinkles and gives oily skin all the moisture it needs. Available at Cult Beauty, Sephora, and SpaceNK

Related: What Are Oil-Free Moisturisers And Why Should You Use Them?

5. Still Dry? Add Moisture Without Replacing Everything With A Rich Cream

Is your oil-free moisturiser not doing the job as well as you’d hoped? It may be time to add a facial oil to your skincare routine to seal that moisture in. The best oils for dry winter skin prone to breakouts are those that resemble human sebum. Your skin instantly recognises them so they sink in quickly. Plus, they trick your skin into thinking it’s pumped out enough oil already.

Squalane oil and jojoba oil are the oils that are pretty much identical to human sebum. I also like rosehip oil because it helps treat acne, too. FYI, out of these 3, squalane oil is the only one that’s non-comedogenic. This doesn’t mean the others will clog your pores. They usually don’t. But everyone skin’s different so if yours doesn’t respond well to jojoba or rosehip, go with squalane.

Best picks:

• The Ordinary 100% Organic Cold-Pressed Rise Hip Seed Oil ($10.90): available at Asos, Cult Beauty, SpaceNK, The Ordinary and Ulta
• Good Morning Pure Cold-Pressed Rosehip Seed Oil ($10.00): available at Ulta
• Pai Skincare Rosehip Bioregenerate, Rosehip Seed and Fruit Universal Face Oil ($34.00): available at Cult Beauty and Dermstore

Related: What Are The Best Oils For Breakouts Prone Skin?

What NOT To Do If Your Skin Is Dry And Breaking Out

When your skin is dry AND breaking out, it’s very easy to panic and start throwing everything at it. Don’t. Here’s what makes things worse:

• Don’t scrub the flakes off. Your skin barrier is already struggling. Scrubs, cleansing brushes and rough washcloths will only irritate it more.
• Don’t exfoliate more because you’re breaking out. More acid does NOT mean fewer pimples. If your skin is already tight, red or stinging, back off.
• Don’t switch to a harsh acne cleanser. That squeaky-clean feeling isn’t your pores getting cleaner. It’s your cleanser stripping away too much oil and making the dryness worse.
• Don’t drown your face in thick creams and oils. Dryness doesn’t automatically mean your skin needs the richest thing you can find. If your pores clog easily, that can trade flakes for breakouts.
• Don’t add five new products at once. If your skin gets worse, you’ll have no bloody clue which one did it.

FAQs

Can I Still Use Retinol If My Skin’s Dry And Breaking Out In Winter?

Yes. Retinol is one of the few anti-aging ingredients worth sticking with: studies show it can boost collagen and reduce wrinkles. Problem is, it can also dry out and irritate your skin. Not ideal when winter has already done half the job for it. If your skin starts peeling, stinging or getting red, use retinol less often until it settles down. Then build back up again. No need to bin a good ingredient just because the weather turned against you.

Should I Change My Entire Routine Or Just Add/Swap A Few Products?

Just fix what’s broken. If your cleanser’s making you tight and dry, change that. If your moisturizer’s too heavy and clogging you, swap it. Add salicylic acid if you don’t have it. Add hyaluronic acid. Don’t dump your whole routine in the trash and start over with ten new things because then you won’t know what’s helping and what’s making it worse.

Why If My Skin Is Both Oily AND Dry At The Same Time?

Your moisture barrier’s shot so water’s escaping but your oil glands are working overtime trying to protect what’s left. Your face is basically in crisis mode pumping out oil while also being dehydrated. Fix the dehydration with lightweight hydrators and your oil production will calm down once your skin stops panicking. Here’s how to treat dehydrated skin

What Should I Use If Rich Moisturisers Clog My Pores But Gel Moisturisers Aren’t Moisturising Enough?

Get something in between. You don’t need a weightless gel that disappears in 30 seconds. And you don’t need a tub of butter either. Look for a lightweight lotion or cream with glycerin, hyaluronic acid and ceramides. You get the hydration and barrier support without smothering your face. Basically: more moisturising than a gel, less greasy than a balm.

Should I Stop Salicylic Acid If My Skin Is Dry?

No. Not unless your skin is telling you to. Salicylic acid is one of the best things you can use for breakouts because it gets inside the pores and clears out the crap clogging them. A 2024 randomised trial found 2% salicylic acid significantly improved mild-to-moderate acne. But if your face is peeling, stinging or feeling raw, stop piling acid on top of irritation. Use it less often until your skin calms down.

How Can I Tell Whether My Moisturiser Is Causing My Breakouts?

If the breakouts started soon after you introduced it, that’s your first clue. Stop using it and see what happens. If the breakouts calm down, you’ve probably found the culprit. And don’t obsess over ingredient lists trying to find one “comedogenic” ingredient to blame. A product can look perfectly innocent on paper and still break you out. Here’s how to tell if you’re experiencing a purge or a breakout – and what to do about it.

The Bottom Line

Listen, your skin’s dry and breaking out because you’re doing too much or using the wrong shit. Those heavy creams everyone swears by? They’re suffocating your pores. That foaming cleanser that feels so clean? It’s stripping your face raw. You need to hydrate without smothering and clean without destroying. Gentle cleanser, salicylic acid for the clogs, hyaluronic acid because it’s the only thing that hydrates without weight, light moisturizer that actually sinks in. Add oil if you’re desperate but make it squalane or something that won’t trap more crap in there. Stop making it complicated, stop buying everything, just do these five things and your face will figure itself out.