Over the years, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard the same advice given to women whose skin has become dry through midlife.
Add a moisturiser and make it a richer one.
It is not bad advice. In some cases, it is exactly what the skin needs. Yet I increasingly found myself wondering why so many women were still uncomfortable.
If moisturiser was the answer, why were they still searching?
It was a question I asked myself, too.
As I moved through perimenopause and menopause, my own skin began to change. At first, it was subtle – my cheeks felt drier than usual, and the comfortable window after cleansing seemed shorter than it once was. Products I had used happily for years began to feel different.
The changes were not dramatic, but they were persistent.
I found myself reaching for richer products because dryness seemed to be the obvious problem. Sometimes they helped for a while, but often the comfort did not last. Occasionally, a cream that should have felt nourishing left my skin feeling strangely overwhelmed and suffocated, as though it had been given more than it knew what to do with.
What interested me was not simply that my skin felt drier. It was that it felt less resilient.
A windy day seemed to affect it more than it used to. When something irritated my skin, it took longer to settle. Ingredients that had never caused problems before could suddenly leave my skin feeling unsettled.
As someone trained in nutritional therapy, I knew enough about physiology to suspect that there was more happening beneath the surface than a simple lack of moisture. The deeper question was whether I was trying to solve the wrong problem.
When we talk about skin during menopause, dryness tends to dominate the conversation. It is certainly common, but it is only part of the picture.
Oestrogen influences many aspects of skin function. As levels decline, the skin gradually produces fewer of the lipids that help maintain barrier integrity. Sebum production often slows, and the processes involved in retaining water become less efficient. For many women, this is when skin begins to feel less forgiving than it once did.
What fascinated me was how often these changes were discussed as though they affected everyone in exactly the same way.
Menopause is not a skin type
Some women notice significant skin changes during perimenopause and menopause. Others experience very little difference, or find that the changes arrive slowly enough to be difficult to separate from ordinary ageing, stress or the way life happens to be at that time.
This is one reason I am cautious about blanket advice.
Two women of the same age can have entirely different experiences. Hormones matter, but they are not the only influence on the skin. The way we live, recover and care for ourselves over many years also plays a part.
The answer is rarely as simple as applying a richer moisturiser.
It is also worth acknowledging that skincare is only one part of the story. Research suggests that hormonal changes themselves contribute significantly to the dryness many women experience, which is why some women notice improvements in skin comfort after starting hormone replacement therapy. Whether HRT is appropriate is a personal medical decision, but skin changes are a valid part of that conversation and deserve to be taken seriously.
Regardless of those choices, the skin still needs support.
When I began looking more closely at what was happening to my own skin, I became less interested in adding more layers and more interested in understanding what my skin was trying to tell me.
Moisture is only part of the story
One of the things I gradually came to understand was that moisture and comfort are not always the same thing.
Skin needs water to function well, but it also relies on a healthy barrier to help keep that water where it belongs.
As oestrogen declines, both of these systems can be affected. The skin may become less efficient at retaining water, while also producing fewer of the lipids that help support the barrier itself.
This is why midlife skin can sometimes feel confusing.
A woman may describe her skin as dry when, in reality, it is dealing with more than one challenge at the same time. Skin can be dehydrated, meaning it lacks water, while also becoming drier because it is producing fewer of its own protective oils. The two are related, but they are not identical.
Part of the confusion comes from the fact that we use the word moisturiser to describe products that may be doing quite different jobs.
Some ingredients, such as glycerin, help attract and hold water within the outer layers of the skin. Others help reduce the rate at which that water escapes. Then there are ingredients that support the skin's lipid structure, including ceramides, fatty acids and certain plant oils.
All of these approaches can be valuable. The important thing is understanding that they are not interchangeable.
A skin that is short of water may respond beautifully to humectants. A skin that has lost some of its natural lipids may need a different kind of support. During midlife, many women find themselves dealing with both.
The more I studied skin physiology, the more I came back to the barrier itself. Not because barrier repair had become a popular phrase, but because it explained so much of what I was experiencing.
When the barrier is compromised, water escapes more readily. The skin is more likely to react to things it would once have tolerated. Recovery can take longer, and comfort becomes harder to maintain.
Seen through that lens, a moisturiser is no longer the whole solution. It becomes one possible tool within a much larger conversation.
The step we often overlook
When skin feels uncomfortable, it is natural to focus on the products we apply after cleansing.
Cleansing is easy to overlook because it seems so ordinary, yet it is where the relationship with the skin begins each day. This is why I often encourage people to begin there.
If a cleanser leaves skin feeling tight, stripped or depleted, every product that follows is working to compensate for that disruption. For skin already navigating hormonal change, that can become a difficult pattern to break.
A well-formulated cleanser should remove makeup, SPF and the day itself without leaving skin feeling compromised. Comfort should not be something we try to restore afterwards. It should be considered from the very beginning.
This realisation changed the way I approached formulation.
What shaped Hux + Mū
When I began developing SOW and CULTIVATE, I was not trying to create a routine with as many steps as possible.
I was trying to understand what my skin kept asking for.
SOW began with a simple question: could cleansing remove what needed removing without taking everything else with it?
That question led me towards ingredients such as marshmallow root, glycerin, saccharide isomerate and prebiotic inulin, chosen to support hydration and comfort throughout the cleansing process. Alongside them are nourishing seed oils, including oat, coriander and pequi, together with Dunaliella salina, a microalgae naturally rich in antioxidant carotenoids.
The intention was never simply to cleanse. It was to support the skin throughout the cleansing process, so that the barrier did not feel as though it had to recover afterwards.
CULTIVATE emerged from a similar line of thinking.
Before I considered a single active ingredient, I spent time thinking about lipids. I thought about the essential fatty acids, ceramides and seed oils that could help skin feel more comfortable and supported.
My nutritional therapy training had already taught me the importance of fats within the body. The more I explored skin physiology, the more I recognised that the same principle applied here. Before asking skin to do more, we need to consider whether it has the resources it needs to function well in the first place.
I did not create only two products because I ran out of ideas. I created two because I became increasingly interested in what happens when we stop adding and start paying closer attention.
A different starting point
If your skin has been feeling dry, reactive or increasingly difficult to understand, it may be worth stepping back before introducing something new.
A more edited routine can be valuable because it allows us to see more clearly what the skin is responding to.
Perhaps start with your cleanser. Then spend a little time noticing how your skin actually feels, not only immediately afterwards but later that day and the following morning. Comfort has a way of revealing itself when we stop judging the skin too quickly.
It can also be helpful to ask whether the products you are using still suit the skin you have now. Our skin changes as we move through life, and a routine that once felt right may need to change with us.
Most of all, give yourself permission to approach your skin with curiosity rather than criticism.
Midlife skin is not failing. It is adapting.
Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is stop asking it to behave as it once did and begin supporting it where it is today. In my experience, this is where comfort begins.
Further reading
If this idea resonates, you may enjoy reading more about skin strength in midlife, ceramides and barrier support, or the relationship between nutrition and skin health. Together, they explore many of the questions that shaped both my understanding of changing skin and the philosophy behind Hux + Mū.
If you are looking for a practical place to begin, you can explore the Core Ritual, created around the same principles discussed here: gentle cleansing, lipid replenishment and steady support for dry, sensitive midlife skin.
A note on the information shared here
This article is intended for educational purposes and reflects my experience as a natural skincare formulator, alongside my training in nutritional therapy (DipION) and many years teaching yoga and working in complementary wellbeing practices.
I am not currently practising as a registered nutritional therapist, and the information shared here should not be taken as personalised nutritional or medical advice.
Skin changes during midlife are influenced by many different factors, and individual circumstances vary considerably. If you have concerns about your skin, hormones or general health, please speak with your GP or an appropriately qualified healthcare professional.