How To Take Care of Your Skin When You're Sick: A Get-Healthy Guide

When you're sick, you usually don't feel like doing much of anything. Getting better should be your No. 1 priority and ideally, you're doing that by focusing on getting good rest, sticking to a healthy diet, drinking enough fluids, reducing pain and minimizing stress.

One organ you might not be thinking about as you're coughing, sneezing and wheezing? Your skin. But, knowing how to take care of your skin while sick is important.

Here, learn how being sick takes its toll and how to care for your skin as you recover.

The Importance of Skin Care While Sick

Being ill impacts your skin in a few ways. In particular, it's under stress as your body fights off the cold, flu or stomach viruses.

Here are some ways your skin might change or react when you're feeling under the weather.

• Dry skin: Constantly blowing your nose or rubbing the area can cause your skin to dry out and get chapped. Further, you might notice skin in other areas of the body appears drier than usual. This dryness is likely due to dehydration, given that your body is using up a lot of fluids to fight off that illness.
• Red skin: If you have sensitive skin, it can become red and inflamed when you're sick. Or, your skin can get chapped and turn red from constant contact, like rubbing a runny nose or washing hands frequently. Skin may also become blotchy as a reaction to your body fighting off an infection.
• Rashes: A viral exanthem rash can accompany a viral infection and shows up like blotches, bumps or spots on the skin, according to The Cleveland Clinic. While it tends to appear on the face or trunk, the rash can start anywhere on the body and then spread. This type of rash may or may not be itchy.
• Itchy skin: The body's nervous system is out of whack while you fight off illnesses, and it can result in itchy skin. Other health problems, like shingles or psoriasis, can also cause itchy skin.

How To Care for Skin While Sick

A light touch, hydrating ingredients and soothing properties go a long way toward helping your skin stay healthy while sick.

Think gentle, hydrating products: Pick up tissues with lotion or aloe to take care of your skin. Your raw, red nose will thank you. Using other paper products on your skin? Look for products with moisturizing, gentle or soft properties, such as ultra-soft bath tissue. Your sensitive skin needs the extra TLC.

1. Wash Hands Often With the Right Soap

Use an antibacterial hand soap or a liquid hand soap that's formulated for sensitive skin. After washing, pat your hands dry with a soft towel to avoid aggravating skin. Follow it up with a moisturizer. (When soap and water are not available, opt for an antibacterial hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.)

2. Nourish Skin

Keep a healing hand cream with aloe near your bed or next to the couch you're napping on as you recover. It can help prevent dry hands from getting chapped or cracking after all that hand washing.

3. Shorten Hot Showers

Another way to take care of your skin while sick is to replace long, hot showers with shorter ones to avoid drying out the skin barrier. If you want to break up a cough or congestion with a steamy shower, run the hot water in a closed room and sit for a few minutes on the toilet or edge of the bath while breathing deeply.

4. Consider Sensitive Skin Issues

Someone who has sensitive skin might experience more redness due to illnesses wreaking havoc on their systems. Products made with antioxidant-packed plant extracts may help soothe and calm the skin. Honest Face + Body Lotion in Truly Calming Lavender is made with naturally derived ingredients and healing elements like calendula, jojoba oil and vitamin E.

5. Avoid Big Changes

Now is not the time to kick-start a 10-step Korean skin care regimen or begin an anti-aging routine with products that use ingredients like salicylic acid, retinols or exfoliating agents. Wait until you're back to feeling 100% healthy to address skin concerns with new routines. Wash your face with a gentle cleanser. The Cetaphil Gentle Cleanser can be a great option for sensitive skin. Pamper your dry skin or sensitive skin with a relaxing, moisturizing face mask, like this Neutrogena Moisturizing Hydro Boost Hydrating Face Mask.

6. Keep Clean

It can be a challenge to drag yourself to the shower or bath, but we promise that it'll help you feel better afterward. Make sure to use a gentle, moisturizing cleanser. Products with fresh citrus scents or menthol-based shower products might help you feel more alert and break up congestion.

7. Protect

Protect your skin during this health-taxing time with products that soothe the skin, like those containing glycerin, hyaluronic acid or ceramides, suggests Schweiger Dermatology Group.

8. Add More Moisture

In addition to drinking plenty of water, help your body seal in moisture with soothing lotions, petroleum jelly for your nose and lip balms made with petroleum jelly or lip-repairing ingredients that work quickly. Get a small container that you can toss once you're on the mend, so you don't dip into that contaminated packaging again.

9. Use a Humidifier

For a natural way to help add moisture back to skin, especially if you're dealing with sensitive skin, a humidifier can do just that. The Vicks humidifier is great to run when you're sick, especially if you can add Vicks Waterless Vaporizer Scent pads with soothing menthol vapors that can help with coughing and congestion.

10. Hydrate from the Inside Out

Use a nasal moisturizing spray to relieve dryness and soothe nasal passages. Each sick member of the family should get their own nasal spray to avoid spreading germs!

11. Protect Your Skin From Nature

If you have to go outside, covering yourself with a broad-spectrum SPF 30+ sunscreen can help prevent sun damage that could further harm the skin on your hands and face.

12. Avoid Touching Your Face

Try to keep your hands away from your nose, mouth and eyes as best you can to try to minimize the spread of germs. In general, practice keeping your hands off your face every day to help stay healthy and reduce bacteria on the skin.

Be Good to Your Skin

Now that you know how to take care of your skin while sick, you can focus on healing your body and taking it easy until you feel 100% better. Your body is working hard to fight off the infection, so be gentle with it inside and out. Take care of your whole body health — and your skin — by drinking plenty of water, using gentle products, keeping your hands clean and stocking up on all sick day essentials at Rite Aid.

Clinically reviewed on Sept. 11, 2023.