Winter Skincare | Sulphate Free Soaps for Dry, Cracked Skin

Love love this product! It really does what it says on the bottle

In a recent post, I wrote about the LOC method for the skin in which I shared the importance of locking water based body moisturizers with oil or butter so that our skin stays moisturized all day long.
Another way to keep ashy skin and cracked skin at bay during this cold weather is to opt for sulphate free body washes, which can be found in health food stores or any store that sells organic products.
Like many people, my skin usually gets very dry in the winter time, but the winter of 2012/2013 left my skin in the most driest state I've ever seen it, I mean my skin looked like crocodile skin!

my "crocodile" skin last winter :(

Rather than crying and reassessing my diet, I decided to experiment with soaps and creams, until I finally got to trying out "Live Clean" body wash, a sulphate free soap that doesn't dry out the skin. Since this soap wasn't very fantastic, I decided to go back to my regular soaps, though I eventually had to listen to my skin as it was suffering from the extreme cold we've been experiencing lately. And so I decided to try out "Nature's Gate's body wash. This soap has been very good to me in the past few weeks that I've been using it and it has brought my skin back to it's normal velvety smooth feeling.

This soap doesn't lather as much as sulphate based soaps and it doesn't leave the skin feeling tight afterwards. If anything, it leaves the skin feeling soft and a bit slippery after use. Because of this, I don't have to use a lot of cream to compensate for the excess loss of my skin's natural oils. Also, I haven't used the LOC method where I would apply a mix of lotion, glycerin and oil or butter on my skin after taking a shower. Instead, I would simply apply my body lotion when the temperature is mild and if i'm going to be out of the house for a long time or if the weather will be very cold, I will then apply oil or butter for extra barrier and protection.

Product Find Canada: "Nature's Gate 1L body wash can be purchased at Winners, Marshalls or at your local health foods store. I purchased mine from Marshalls for $10, an awesome deal if you think about all benefits. I mean, think of all the extra lotion and oils you'll be saving by not using expensive fancy sulphate based shampoos.

Do you have issues with dry skin in the winter too? If so, what do you do to solve this problem?

 Do you use sulphate free shampoos, if so, what is it called?