8 Reasons Winter Is Simultaneously the Best and Worst Season for Beauty
It's the most wonderful/flakiest time of the year.

Pro: Your skin is drier and therefore less reactive.
Unlike in the summer, when an extra 1/116th-teaspoon of moisturizer could cause an eruption of milia and those weird sacs filled with clear liquid. (Pus? Sorry.)
Con: Your skin is drier and therefore itchy/red/flaky.
This is what the truth/getting older feels like: like your body's largest organ shrunk in the wash and is now a size too small for your frame, so you keep rubbing it because scratching makes scary micro-tears and the lotion you put on too late sting.
Pro: Everything is drier, so less risk of frizz.
What hot weather does for texture, cold weather does for smoothness. (Truly—this reporter, who has been blessed with a head full of cowlicks, dared to cut bangs for this very reason. They're staying down well, thank you.)
Con: But static.
It can be cute? In a windblown-dandelion, "I just touched a Van de Graaff generator" kind of way?
Pro: Color in your cheeks...
Health! Youth! A hardy constitution! (Could be faked and/or augmented with some blush.)
Con: And in your nose and eyes.
Nose isn't so bad, unless it's just at the tip. (A flush across the bridge, on the other hand, is super cute.)
Pro: Looking like an ice princess...
All pale and sparkly and untouchable.
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Con: But having the disposition of the White Witch.
Because it's cold AF, you can't feel extremities (that's a sign of hypothermia, isn't it?), and there are meddling kids threatening to usurp your power, etc.
That's about right.
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Chelsea Peng is a writer and editor who was formerly the assistant editor at Marie Claire. She's also worked for The Strategist and Refinery29, and is a graduate of Northwestern University. On her tombstone, she would like a GIF of herself that's better than the one that already exists on the Internet and a free fro-yo machine. Besides frozen dairy products, she's into pirates, carbs, Balzac, and snacking so hard she has to go lie down.