10 Reasons Women Up North Switch From Lotion to This Body Oil When the Heat Comes On

1. It isn't age. A heated house in winter can be drier than the Sahara

After sixty winters up north, I know the scene by heart: the stove is going, the house is cozy, and every woman at the kitchen table is rubbing her shins. Here's why. Cold air holds almost no moisture. When the heat warms it to 70 degrees, whether it comes from propane, oil, pellets, forced air or a wood stove, the humidity inside crashes, and by January a heated house can drop to 15 or 20%. The Sahara averages about 25%. A wood stove, which pulls cold outside air in to feed the fire, can push it even lower.

Air that dry pulls water out of everything it touches, day and night: the top layer of your skin, and the lotion you put on it, which is mostly water to begin with. That's why lotion feels good for an hour and quits by lunch. ADIRA Botanical Body Oil contains no water at all, so it has no water to lose. Smoothed onto damp skin after your shower, it seals the shower water in and stays put, even with the heat running all night.

2. Those exfoliating towels bring the winter flakes back faster, and worse

When your shins start flaking, the natural thing is to scrub: a rough washcloth, a sugar scrub, one of those exfoliating towels you see all over Facebook every winter. It feels like progress for a day. But those flakes are the outer layer of your skin, and that layer is held together by its own fats. Every hard scrub and every long hot shower sends more of those fats down the drain, and with the furnace running all day, they don't come back before the next shower. So the flakes come back faster.

“But doesn't an oil just sit on the surface?” Yes, and that's exactly where winter dryness lives. The top layer of skin is built like a brick wall, and the mortar between the bricks is fat. ADIRA puts back that kind of fat. Squalane and jojoba are close cousins of the oil your skin makes on its own. Sunflower and rosehip bring linoleic acid, a building block of the skin's barrier. Rice bran and argan add plant sterols. Lotion adds water that leaves. Scrubbing strips what the heat already took. ADIRA puts it back. Put the towel away and seal instead.

3. Your shins stop snowing flakes onto your dark slacks

Shins get it first and worst after 60, and most women blame their age. There are very few oil glands on the lower legs, so when the air turns dry, that skin has nothing to fall back on. It goes tight, ashy and scaly, and by December there's a little snowfall of white flakes every time you pull off your slacks or your long johns.

Smooth two or three pumps of ADIRA down both legs after your evening shower, while the skin is still damp, and that tight, pulled feeling eases within the first few days. Give it a minute before you pull your dark slacks on: no oil marks. Shins look visibly softer and smoother in 3–4 weeks, right about when the first real cold snap hits. Try the one-shin test on night one: your usual lotion on the left shin, ADIRA on the right. At bedtime, run your hand down both and let your own shins decide.

4. Hands that don't feel like tree bark by Thanksgiving

Carrying in wood. Shoveling the walk. Dishwater, hand soap, and mittens that never quite dry out. Winter hands get washed all day and baked by the heat the rest of the time, and by Thanksgiving the knuckles look rough and ashy and your fingertips catch on every sweater.

Rub what's left on your palms into the backs of your hands and around your knuckles after every shower, and again at bedtime. It sinks in within about a minute, so nothing ends up on your phone, your crossword or the pages of your library book. Softer hands by Thanksgiving, when the grandbabies want to hold them.

5. Winter nights stop turning into 2 a.m. scratching sessions

Winter itch is worse at night, and anyone who's lived through a northern January knows it. The bedroom is warm and bone-dry, the electric blanket or the space heater is running, and the lotion you put on at ten has evaporated by two. That's when the dry skin on your legs starts to itch and itch and itch.

ADIRA has nothing to evaporate. Put on after an evening shower, it sinks in and it's still there at 2 a.m., keeping the skin on your legs soft and comfortable, so you can sleep instead of scratching. It's worth keeping a second bottle on the nightstand for your shins and the backs of your hands.

6. It isn't the wool making thighs itch in the church pew. It's the dry heat

When the winter itch isn't on your shins, it's on your thighs, hips and lower back, right where the long underwear, the wool sweater and the waistband of your lined jeans rub all day. The wool gets the blame. It's really the dry heat: skin that's bone-dry fights with every seam, and you're scratching through three layers in the church pew.

Smooth what's left on your palms over your thighs, hips and as much of your back as you can reach. Because it's absorbed in about a minute, you can pull your long johns on right away, with no oily spots on the wool or the thermals and nothing slippery under your clothes.

7. It takes 90 seconds in a cold bathroom, and you can dress right away

Nobody wants to stand around in a towel when the bathroom is 62 degrees and the tile feels like ice. Lotion makes you wait: it stays tacky, and your nightgown sticks to your legs.

Shower. Pat off lightly so your skin is still damp. Two or three pumps, smoothed on in long strokes. ADIRA on damp skin spreads further and sinks in within about a minute, with a hint of vanilla. Then straight into your flannel, with nothing greasy on your sheets, your robe or your long johns.

“Can't I just use the baby oil or coconut oil in the cupboard?” Baby oil is mineral oil: it sits on top like plastic wrap and stays slippery on your flannel sheets. Coconut oil turns solid below about 76 degrees, so in a 62-degree bathroom you're chipping it out of the jar. ADIRA is a blend of squalane, jojoba, sunflower, rosehip, rice bran and argan, picked to put back the fats the dry air takes, and it stays liquid in a cold bathroom. That's the difference between an oil you put up with and one you'll actually use every night.

8. Start before the first fire and you're two weeks ahead of the itch

Every January, the same question gets typed into a lot of search bars up north: does winter itch go away? It does. In April, when the furnace shuts off. Most of us wait until the itch shows up, and by then the dry air has had a two-week head start.

That's why women who've been through enough winters start in late September or October, before the first fire. You'll feel the difference within the first few days, and by the first hard freeze your shins and hands look visibly smoother (usually 3–4 weeks in). Heat already on? Start tonight. The coldest, driest weeks are still ahead, and you'll spend them keeping soft skin soft instead of chasing flakes.

9. Three bottles for only ten dollars more than one: $19.97 a bottle

Add up the winter pile under your sink: the big tub of thick cream, the anti-itch lotion, the udder balm, the exfoliating towels, the sugar scrub. Over a whole winter it can easily cost more than three bottles of ADIRA, and all of it either evaporates, scrubs away what your skin has left, or leaves a greasy film on the flannel.

One bottle of ADIRA on its own is $49.90. With this week's Fall Sale: Buy 2, Get 1 Free, you get three bottles for $59.90, only ten dollars more than one: $19.97 a bottle, shipped free. One for the bathroom, one for the nightstand, and one for the man who splits the wood (or your sister two towns over). Stocked up before the snow, so there's one less reason to drive into town on icy roads.

10. Try it through the holidays. If your skin doesn't look and feel better, it's a full refund

Switching from lotion after forty winters is a leap, so ADIRA takes the risk off the table. Use it every evening through the first hard freeze and the holidays. If your skin doesn't look and feel better, you get a full refund within 90 days. It's a one-time purchase: no subscription, nothing that renews on its own.

So the only real risk is waiting. Every week the heat runs before you start is another week of flakes on your slacks and scratching at 2 a.m. Take the three bottles while the Fall Sale is on, and if you love it, send the link to your sister, the one who didn't move to Florida.