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Dry skin
Category: Skin, Hair & Nails · All skin symptoms
What it can feel like
Dry skin feels rough, tight and sometimes itchy, with fine flaking or scaling — worse in winter, after hot showers, and with age as the skin's oils thin. It is a skin-barrier problem: water escapes faster than the skin can hold it, and everything that strips the barrier worsens it.
Possible causes
A symptom can have many causes, and most are not serious. The lists below group conditions this symptom can be associated with — common causes first. They are possibilities to discuss with a clinician, not a diagnosis.
Common causes
Dry skin can be associated with cold, dry weather, frequent hot washing, harsh soaps, ageing, and eczema tendencies. Hands suffer most from washing and cleaning work.
Other possible causes
Very dry, widespread skin can be associated with an underactive thyroid, kidney disease, and nutritional deficiencies; dry skin with cracking and infection, or dry skin that does not respond to good moisturising, deserves a dermatological look.
Red flags — when to seek help promptly
- Dry skin with cracking, weeping or signs of infection (increasing pain, redness, pus)
- Dry skin with severe itching that disturbs sleep despite moisturisers
- Dry skin with fatigue, weight gain and feeling cold (possible thyroid)
- Dry skin in a baby that is severe from the first weeks of life
What a clinician may do
A clinician will examine the distribution and severity, ask about products, work exposures and thyroid symptoms, and advise a barrier-repair routine (rich moisturisers applied liberally, soap substitutes). Thyroid or other blood tests follow when the pattern suggests more than environment.
Related guides on MedicalVideos.com
Frequently asked questions
Why do hot showers make it worse?
Hot water and detergents strip the skin's natural oils — its mortar — so water escapes and irritants enter. Shorter, lukewarm washing with soap substitutes, and moisturiser applied within minutes of drying (soak and seal), rebuilds the barrier better than any single product.
How much moisturiser is enough?
More than most people use — for widespread eczema-prone dryness, clinicians talk in terms of several hundred grams a week, applied at least twice daily and after washing. Under-application is the commonest reason 'the cream didn't work'.
Related symptoms — Skin, Hair & Nails
Browse the D section of the A–Z list or return to the Symptoms A–Z hub.