By Gretchen Oppenheim
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Five Elements—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water—are used to understand how nature and our bodies function together in harmony. These elements are more than metaphors. They’re deeply tied to the seasons, human emotions, virtues, organs, and energetic patterns that influence how we live and how we age.
In holistic skincare, the Five Elements approach helps us to understand how to treat the skin according to the season, in a way that aligns with what your body naturally needs. If you think of the body like a garden, it requires different care in spring than in winter, and your skincare should reflect that. Winter invites us to slow down and replenish our energy stores. This is the season to rest and lean into the quiet rhythms that restore our deepest vitality.
The winter season invites you to go inwards
The season of winter belongs to the water element and it is a turning point energetically, as the rhythms of nature shift to stillness, preservation of energy and inwards reflection. Here’s how Chinese Medicine explains the key properties of this season, and what to focus on.
Energy: Rest, Stillness, Inner reflection
Emotions: Fear, Uncertainty
Virtue: Wisdom, Knowing Thyself
Facial zones: Chin (texture, redness, breakouts), under-eyes (darkness or very white, hollowing, puffiness)
Skincare Focus: This is your time to rest and restore both energy and body. Do less, rest more. For your skin: Hydrate, rest, and protect your skin barrier. Avoid overworking or overstimulating treatments. Just like seeds buried in winter soil, allow your skin to collect energy for a healthy spring renewal.
How to Support Your Skin in the Winter Season
1. Keep Skincare gentle and easy:
This is the season to store energy, and the same goes for skincare: stick to gentle products that hydrate and provide nourishment to your skin. Go easy on exfoliation and aggressive treatments. Now’s the time to protect your skin and its valuable energy bank during so it remains strong and healthy for the seasons ahead. Remember, Winter is the season to collect energy, not spend it. For treatment add-ons this season, I recommend Celluma LED light therapy and warm oil massage. These restore the skin cell energy, warm the body and help the body lean into deep rest.
2. Deeply Hydrate the skin
Keep your skin glowing and radiant by bringing hydration deep into the skin with serums that hydrate both the water and the ceramide layers of the skin. Lack of hydration can result in devitalized, compromised skin so it’s important to preserve the skin’s hydration levels to leave the skin healthy, plump and smooth in appearance throughout the colder season. Two incredibly hydrating products I recommend are:
• Laurel Skin Hydrating Elixir 1 or 2 – Expertly formulated, water based hydration mists that are essential to use with any oil based serum or in addition to any regular moisturizing cream. Water is the true hydrator for our skin so if you use an oil based moisturizer or serum, it’s essential to add a water based mist to get the full range of hydration protection for your skin. Laurel Skin Elixirs are a very unique product, made with over 20 whole organic plants. They are a hybrid of a mist and hydrating serum all in one, simulateously bringing lasting hydration and nourishment to the skin in a few easy mists.
• Biologique Recherche Gel ADN Silkgen – a fresh moisturizing gel enriched with plant-based DNA and silk extract, this gel preserves the moisture level of the epidermis leaving the skin rehydrated and radiant with vitality. With its fresh, thirst quenching texture, Gel ADN Silkgen brings quick moisture to the skin and protects against external stress factors. I love layering this gel with my regular moisturizer in the especially cold, crisp days of Winter.
3. Protect and fortify the skin barrier
Give your skin a coat of protection from environmental factors, with protective, nourishing cream. I personally recommend Osmosis Beauty Enrich cream, an antioxidant rich restorative cream infused with raspberry seed oil and blueberry to hydrate, smooth and protect the skin barrier. A client favourite all year round as a night cream, but especially valuable in the Winter both day and night.
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The Deeper Invitation of Winter
Beyond skincare, the Winter season invites stillness, reflection, and deep replenishment. It’s a time to listen inwardly and restore your reserves before spring’s renewal. Here are some journaling prompts to help you lean into rest and listen to your innate inner wisdom:
• Where in my life am I being called to slow down or pause?
• What does true rest look and feel like for me right now?
• What would it feel like to give myself permission to do less — and trust that it’s enough?
• How can I hold space for potential without forcing it into form?
• What would it feel like to trust that stillness is also growth?
Go Deeper with Gretchen
Gretchen Oppenheim is a Holistic Skincare Therapist and Intuitive Practitioner. After working for years in luxury spas, she witnessed first hand how the beauty industry is often more disempowering than it is empowering. Today, she offers a unique blend of Qi Gong + Energetic Chinese Medicine with skincare therapy, to support radiance on all levels. Gretchen offers holistic facials at Wildflower Beauty Bar, all of which include a personalized skincare plan and intuitive facial reading. Learn more or book an Intuitive Facial.
