Putting lotion (hand or sunscreen) on exposed skin will help prevent windburn and help you feel a bit warmer. Plus, no dry skin!

What I did when I was working on aircraft in Alaska was to put Vaseline(tm) on my face/ears/neck. It prevented chapping from cold and wind.

Can´t find any writing in english so you have to take my word for it.
Here in nordic countries it is now recommended by doctors (and armed forces medical service) NOT to use any grease on your face when outside in cold. Only accepted grease is your natural oil i.e. do not wash face before going out.

Because moisture from skin can´t evaporate because of the vaseline and therefore cause more damage by freezing than without vaseline.

I try to avoid using lotions or creams that contain alcohol (a surprisingly great number of them do). Cerave brand is pretty good for cold weather protection. Mary Kay has some decent stuff too.

I only put salve on lips and boo-boos. If I am on snow in sunshine, I use sunscreen.

Well .. My family Made our way thru a snowstorm in the midwest today. Brother in laws van was running fine, but would not start after a lunch stop at a restaurant. Problem was solved by injecting a fuel additive into the gas tank.

When hot engines cool off in freezing weather, water in the gas lines can freeze to ice. Some water enters the gas tank as snow or ice on the nozzle of the gas pump. The additive (HEAT or Mag1) gets into the fuel injection system and gets fuel flow going again. Its amazing how well it works. :-)

Its worth having a container of that stuff in your car if you are driving in freezing weather.

Pete

Another cold weather tip, be careful crossing bridges made from structural steel. Structural steel will become very brittle below temperatures of -50C.

An earthquake such as a new Madrid fault earthquake during this arctic vortex could be particularly devastating.

Well ... Monday morning at 6am and i am down at the ER with my wife. This situation is a dead wringer for all those travel emergenices we keep talking about on this forum. The whole region in the Midwest is frozen with a polar air mass. Temperature here is minus one degrees, and thats without wind chill (which was bitter last night). By the way, if you ever get stuck like this ... Use a spare T-shirt as a scarf. The wind last night almost froze my face off. And in the middle of this ... My wife gets a severe dental pain condition. Its still amazing to me how badly the "system" handles some problems. Transportation on roads was nonexistent last night. Emergency dental - forget it. They are all asleep in their beds. The hospital can probably give better pain meds .... Maybe.

For those of you who are preppers. Only three things helped my wife last night - and not much. Motrin, ice, and soft food. Its a very good idea to have some mash potatoes in your emergency food kit ... Can be eaten even when mouth pain is very high. Motrin will cut severe pain just a little bit. Ice is helpful on infections and tooth problems.

We learned an inportant family lesson from this. Situations do come up where over the counter meds do not cut it ... For handling severe pain. We will solve that problem in the future some way. You might give that some thought yourself. :-)

Pete

Found some writing on the subject.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10998829

I echo Herman30's warning. I found out long ago that adding any moisture to your skin (vaseline or moisturizers) caused increased heat loss while feeling warmer. A number of studies have been done that show this quite conclusively. Still good for windburn though, just not in very cold weather.

AFLM,

Almost none of the locations in the South 48 are seeing temps (it must be the temp, steel does not respond to wind chill) low enough to have steel problems. Those places that are knew about it when they built the bridges.

Respectfully,

Jerry

So ... back on the skin protection topic. What about plain old petroleum jelly? That was an old trick used by college students in freezing climates. Back at my alma mater in the Midwest, the students held a special ceremony each year. On the coldest night of winter (yes ... Night), they would strip off their clothes and run laps around a course. Some rode bicycles,some jogged. All they wore were shoes and a woolen beanie on their heads. To stop their private parts from freezing off, they used to coat them in petroleum jelly. True.

Good or bad???

I dunno. Never heard any horror stories of frostbite where it hurts the most. :-)

Pete

Herman30...very valuable information. Thanks for posting it.

It depends on how you are using it. For severe dry skin, the dermatologist told me the greasier the better. Vaseline Lip Therapy looks like they just packaged standard Vaseline in a different container.

One recommendation I´ve heard here is to apply vaseline or whatever lotion you want, the evening before going out. That way it is absorbed by the skin during the night keeping it moist without a layer on top of skin.

I suspect the safest way to keep exposed skin from frostbite is, don't leave it exposed. Cover it with a fleece facemask or mil-surp. headcover.

Jpicket ... Problem happens with minimum gear. You have one facewrap, two gloves. By accident, you lose one glove. There is no replacement. If you move your facewrap to your uncovered hand, you get frostbite on your face.

It does pay to have backup gear. But sometimes that doesnt exist.

Not trying to be contrary here ... Just pointing out that urgent situations do come up where people are missing essential kit.

Pete

Every winter, on the coldest Yukon day, I test my outfit on my 2km walk to work. Besides the obvious warm clothing mentioned above, my favorite item are my clear goggles for eye protection.

Well hydrated skin functions better than dehydrated skin. However, applying lotion to exposed skin in extreme cold temperatures is not recommended. Apply the lotion at night and indoors to keep the skin healthy.

I have been advised to not wash vigorously in cold weather. Let the oils accumulate of the skin. Presumably it will help a bit...

What happens if you do that? Does the lotion freeze on your face before it gets absorbed?

[quote=BingleyWhat happens if you do that? Does the lotion freeze on your face before it gets absorbed? [/quote]

Several things happen. One is that most of the lotions (not the vasoline) contain water. The evaporation removes a hugh amount of heat. Some also have a high heat transfer rate and increase heat loss. The lotion or petrolium based products add or stop removal of water from the skin, increasing heat loss (think wet insulation) and increasing the amount of frozen water which increases damage. The most insideous and possibly the most important is that many make the body feel warmer and decrease concern and attention to frostbite. Because of the lack of attention, it is not noticed and corrected before it causes serious problems.

Respectfully,

Jerry

All I can say from my four years of being in a flightline environment in Alaska is that I never had a problem with chapped anything when using Vaseline. However, to each his own.

MoBOB,

Great for chapping, a potential problem for frostbite. Not the same problem and a contradictary answer. I like Vaseline lip balm for chapped lips in cold weather, it does not harden like many others. I am just very careful of frostbite when I use it.

Respectfully,

Jerry

I took care to cover using appropriate clothing (the Air Force provided some pretty good stuff), but there were times when your cheeks (face) just ended up being exposed. I hated the windburn/chapping of the face. Frostbite? Well, I suffered the effects of that because of poor/inadequate footwear as a kid. My hands? The work on aircraft in the 1980's in northern Maine did not help much. Did you ever try to safety wire cannon plugs with the lousy leather gloves with wool liners? Can't be done. The liners alone were useless because wool is no good for gripping small wire and the cold goes right through. We weren't authorized flight gloves. So, it was barehanded misery. Now, any time the temp drops below 50 my feet and hands are shot. But, I still prefer the northern climes.