Cold-Weather Training Skincare for Teen Athletes

When practice moves inside in November, the skincare routine your teen athlete used for summer stops working. The sweat is different. The air is different. The skin's response is different. Here's what changes and what to do about it.

The shift from outdoor fall sports to indoor winter sports isn't just a temperature change. It's a complete environment change for the skin.

• Outdoor fall practice: cool air, real sweat, post-practice rinse-off within an hour
• Indoor winter practice: heated gym, sweat that sits on the skin, longer time between practice and shower, recirculated indoor air that's already drying out the skin

The combination is harder on the skin than either season alone. The sweat stays on the surface because the air isn't pulling it off. The heated gym is drying out the barrier at the same time.

This is why some teen athletes have their worst skin in February, not July. The summer routine handled summer sweat. The cold-weather routine needs to handle a different problem.

Three things happen to skin during indoor winter practice:

1. Sweat sits instead of evaporating. The gym is heated but not humid. The sweat that would normally wick off the skin in cool outdoor air just pools on the surface.
2. The skin barrier is already compromised. Indoor heating before practice started was already drying out the skin's surface. The sweat sitting on compromised skin traps bacteria and irritants against it.
3. Time between practice and shower is longer. After indoor practice, the gap between getting out of practice and getting home to shower is the damaging window.

The combination is a recipe for breakouts on the back, chest, and shoulders, places that didn't break out during outdoor season.

The summer post-workout routine was built around the assumption that the kid would shower within an hour. In cold weather, the priority is showering as soon as possible after practice. The fix when showering at school isn't an option is what happens in the locker room, before the gap between practice and shower starts.

JB SKRUB Body Wash Junior fits in a gym bag and replaces the locker room soap, which is harsher than what the kid uses at home. If there's time to shower at school after practice, that is the first move. Face Wash Junior handles the face.

JB SKRUB Face Pads aren't just a summer product. They're the post-practice step that works in any season. One pad, wiped across the face and any other sweaty area, chest, back of neck, shoulders, before getting dressed. The pad picks up the sweat, oil, and bacteria that would otherwise sit on the skin.

Follow the pad with JB SKRUB Body Spray on the underarms, and anywhere else the smell is going to build during the ride home. The spray is anti-odor, not a cover-up, so it knocks out the bacteria that cause the smell instead of masking it. By the time the kid gets in the car, the practice is off the skin and out of the air.

This is the step most teen routines skip because they're tired and want to get dressed and go. It's also the step that prevents most of the cold-weather breakouts that show up on the chest and back, and stops the smell from following the kid into the car, the bus, or the kitchen at home.

The pads work in a locker room without a mirror. Twenty seconds and the most damaging sweat is off the skin. The spray takes another ten.

The locker room soap is almost always harsher than what your kid uses at home. Hard soap, high pH, sulfates. These harsh soaps strip the barrier leaving dry, itchy skin. If your kid is showering at school after practice, the bar soap in the locker room is undoing the work the home routine is trying to do.

JB SKRUB Body Wash solves this. It's sulfate-free and available in a travel size that fits in a gym bag.

Cold-weather sports bring equipment that wasn't part of the summer routine. Hockey helmets, wrestling headgear, football pads, lacrosse helmets. All of them trap sweat against the skin in places the kid can't easily reach.

Two things help:

1. A clean towel in the bag. Wipe down under the helmet, headgear, or pads immediately after practice. Don't get dressed over the sweat. The towel takes 30 seconds and prevents most of the bacterial buildup that causes the chest and back breakouts.
2. Face Pads for the chin strap area. The chin strap is where most winter sport breakouts concentrate. One pad wiped along the strap line after practice clears the bacteria that would otherwise sit there for hours.
3. Body Spray under the gear. The smell that builds under a helmet or pads is the same bacteria that builds on the skin. A quick spray along the neck, chest, and under the arms after the towel wipe kills the bacteria before it has time to set in. The kid walks out of practice smelling like practice, not like the gear closet.

• Before practice: wash face, put moisturizing lotion on, already part of the morning routine
• Shower at school when possible, with Face Wash Junior and Body Wash Junior
• When showering at school isn't an option: face pad wipe, body spray on neck and underarms, towel off under gear, use body spray, change out of practice clothes
• At home (the sooner the better after practice): wash face with Face Wash, shower with Body Wash, Body Spray after the shower, face pad across the T-zone, lotion on damp skin within 30 seconds

That's it. The same products, used at slightly different times. The biggest change is making the post-practice shower a priority and using the locker room as a bridge when it isn't possible.

Indoor winter sports are harder on teen skin than summer outdoor sports, mostly because the sweat sits on the skin longer and the skin barrier is already compromised from indoor heating.

• Shower at school when possible, with the Junior sizes
• Face Pads right after practice when a shower isn't possible, before getting dressed
• Face Wash, Body Wash and Body Spray Junior sizes for the locker room
• Face Lotion at home, on damp skin, as soon as possible after practice

Same products as summer. Different timing.