In the Rotterdam Study, physicians examined the skin of 5,547 people aged 51 to 101. Sixty percent of them had dry skin, the proportion rose with every additional year of age, and women were affected more often than men. That survey, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, changes how the subject should be discussed. After 50, dry skin is closer to the rule than the exception.
What changes underneath is reasonably well described. The outermost layer holds less lipid and fewer water binding molecules than it used to, and it repairs itself more slowly. In women, something additional happens around menopause. This article follows that sequence, then turns to a question that brings many readers here: the ceramides that decline with age can also be taken by mouth, three placebo-controlled trials have measured what happens, and the material behind that research is in our own skin supplement at the studied dose. Our article on what ceramides are and how the barrier is built covers the chemistry.
The skin barrier at Health Royals
Beauty Complete contains Ceramosides™, the plant ceramide from Seppic, at 30 mg per daily dose, the same raw material and dose as in the largest study further down this article. It sits alongside Cartidyss® fish cartilage collagen 500 mg, Hyabest® hyaluronic acid 120 mg, vitamin C 60 mg, vitamin B2 1.4 mg and biotin 50 µg. Riboflavin and biotin contribute to the maintenance of normal skin.
Why does skin get drier with age?
Because the outermost layer of the skin contains less lipid and fewer water binding molecules than it once did, and because it rebuilds itself more slowly after anything disturbs it.
The stratum corneum is the top fraction of a millimetre of the skin: flat cells without a nucleus, packed in a continuous lipid matrix that makes the layer watertight. In a 2020 review in Aging, Wang and colleagues summarise the measurements made on older skin, and the headline figure is blunt: the aged stratum corneum shows more than a 30 percent reduction in total lipid content compared with young stratum corneum.
Two other changes matter as much. Aged epidermis produces less filaggrin, the protein that is broken down into the small humectant molecules called natural moisturising factor. And skin surface pH, mildly acidic in young adults, begins to climb at around 55 years of age. The enzymes that assemble barrier lipids work best in acid conditions, so the two findings travel together.
The same review notes that stratum corneum hydration rises over a lifetime to a peak at about 40 years and declines after that. It is a slow drift, noticeable when a cold winter, a new medication or a hot shower habit pushes the skin past the point where it can compensate.
One thing does not simply rise with age: transepidermal water loss, the water that evaporates through the skin. The Aging review reports baseline water loss lower in aged skin than in young skin in a number of studies and comparable in others. What is consistent is that when the barrier is deliberately disrupted, by repeated tape stripping for example, recovery is significantly delayed in older people. The useful mental model is not a leaking barrier but a barrier with less reserve: it holds under ordinary conditions and takes longer to come back after detergent, wind or a long hot shower.
Why does dry skin so often start around menopause?
Because the skin's lipid production tracks oestrogen, and both the ceramides and the sebum change when oestrogen falls.
The clearest measurement comes from a 2022 study in Scientific Reports by Kendall and colleagues. They tape stripped the skin of 7 premenopausal women, mean age 43.7 years, 11 postmenopausal, mean age 55.1 years, and 10 postmenopausal women using hormone therapy. Several ceramide classes were significantly less abundant after menopause, the remaining ceramides had shorter chains, and serum oestradiol correlated positively with both. In the women on hormone therapy the profile resembled the premenopausal one, and keratinocytes given 10 nanomolar oestradiol in cell culture produced more of two ceramide classes.
The study shows a clear biological link between oestrogen and barrier lipid composition.
Sebum moves in the same direction. A 2022 review in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology reports that sebum output in men remains almost unchanged into the eighth decade, while in women it begins to decline with menopause, after a peak at around 40 years of age. That asymmetry is why midlife dryness is so much more often a female complaint.
How it feels is a separate question. In a 2025 survey in Post Reproductive Health, 50 women attending a menopause clinic were asked about skin symptoms. Every one reported at least one, 76 percent reported dry skin and 78 percent reported itch, with a mean Dermatology Life Quality Index score of 5 out of 30. The wider hormonal picture is in our article on what happens in the body during menopause.
What happens to the ceramides in the skin over time?
They fall, in every class measured, and they fall further in winter than in summer.
The reference study is still Rogers and colleagues in Archives of Dermatological Research in 1996. Forty nine women aged 21 to 60 were sampled at the face, hand and leg, in three age bands. All lipid classes decreased with increasing age, most markedly the ceramides, and total lipid levels were about 30 percent lower in the oldest band. A separate seasonal arm of 26 women found a 20 percent decrease in ceramide 1 linoleate in winter compared with summer.
The direction is the same study after study. That makes the next question a natural one: if the lipid that declines is a ceramide, can ceramides be supplied from the inside? That has been tested in humans, and it is where our own reasoning about raw materials begins.
What did the studies on ceramide capsules measure, and why did we choose a plant ceramide?
Three placebo-controlled trials on the same kind of plant lipid extract measured skin hydration with instruments, in women with dry skin, and Health Royals chose the material behind the most recent of them, at the dose it was studied at.
The material is a polar lipid extract from wheat, sold in supplements as phytoceramides, meaning plant ceramides and their related lipids. Guillou and colleagues, in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science in 2011, gave 51 women aged 20 to 63 with dry to very dry skin either 350 mg of wheat extract oil or placebo for three months. Corneometry readings, an instrument measure of hydration, rose on the arms and legs.
Bizot and colleagues, in Cosmetics in 2017, randomised 60 women aged 30 to 60 with dry skin to an oil form, a powder form or placebo for 60 days, at a dose of 1.7 mg glucosylceramides plus 11.5 mg digalactosyl diglycerides. Hydration and elasticity readings rose and water loss and roughness readings fell in the active arms.
Kern and colleagues, in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology in 2024, ran the largest of the three: 72 women with dry, wrinkled skin in three groups of 24, each including at least 10 postmenopausal women, taking the oil form, the powder form or placebo for 56 days, with hydration, water loss, elasticity and surface profile measured. In the postmenopausal women taking the powder form at 30 mg a day, the study reported roughly 17.8 percent higher skin hydration and 17.0 percent lower water loss through the skin after 56 days compared with baseline.
That material is Ceramosides™, and it is the plant ceramide in Beauty Complete. We chose it for three reasons. It is a defined extract from a named plant source. It is made by a specialist manufacturer that publishes human data on its own material; Health Royals works with specialist manufacturers, researchers and supplier networks so that such documentation exists before a raw material is chosen. And it was studied at 30 mg per day, which is the dose in Beauty Complete. For us, the ingredient cannot be separated from its source, manufacturer and studied dose.
A higher number is not automatically a better or more evidence-based dose. What matters is the specific raw material and the dose that was actually studied. Two to three months of daily use, the span of the trials, is also why the jar is made to stand out on a shelf rather than disappear into a cupboard.
Ceramosides is one of six ingredients. Beauty Complete contains Cartidyss® fish cartilage collagen 500 mg, made by Abyss Ingredients in Brittany; Hyabest® hyaluronic acid 120 mg, bio-fermented by Kewpie in Japan to a defined molecular weight; Ceramosides phytoceramides 30 mg from Seppic; vitamin C 60 mg as PureWay-C; vitamin B2 1.4 mg; and biotin 50 µg. The three named materials sit at the daily dose used in their own human studies. The three vitamins sit at a nutritional level.
What have the studies on plant ceramides shown?
All three placebo-controlled trials reported higher measured skin hydration in the women taking a defined plant ceramide, and in the two most recent, water loss through the skin also fell. The most recent and largest trial was carried out on Ceramosides™ at 30 mg a day, the same raw material at the same dose as in Beauty Complete.
The trials ran for two to three months, and that is the time frame for anything taken from the inside. Skin renews itself at its own pace, and what counts is a daily routine.
Vitamin C contributes to normal collagen formation for the normal function of skin, and riboflavin and biotin contribute to the maintenance of normal skin. All three are in Beauty Complete, as 60 mg vitamin C in the form PureWay-C, 1.4 mg vitamin B2 and 50 µg biotin.
When is dry skin something other than dry skin?
When it persists despite care, itches without a visible rash or arrives with a new prescription; the same large study that counted dry skin also lists what travels with it.
In the Rotterdam analysis, eczema was by far the strongest association with generalised dry skin, at an odds ratio of 7.04. Diuretics came in at 1.37, statins at 1.28 and smoking at 1.27, and diabetes was associated with localised dry skin at 1.22. Each year of age added about 4 percent to the odds, and women had roughly 50 percent higher odds than men. Daily use of a cream was associated with less localised dry skin, at 0.77, an observational finding.
Persistent dryness is sometimes a symptom rather than a state. 1177 says to contact a health centre if you have tried to relieve the symptoms for about a week without success, or if they are getting worse. Itch without a visible rash is worth showing to a doctor.
What actually helps dry skin day to day?
An emollient and gentle washing on the surface, and a well chosen supplement from the inside. The two complement each other.
That is what the trial literature supports. A 2024 randomised phase 3 study in Dermatology and Therapy, testing an emollient with 15 percent glycerol and 10 percent paraffin in moderate to severe xerosis in kidney disease, reported a treatment response in 60.2 percent of patients against 41.0 percent on vehicle. The authors open by stating that topical moisturisers and emollients "are the mainstay of basic therapy for conditions associated with xerosis (dry skin)".
The rest is simple habits. 1177 notes that soap removes some of the skin's natural fat, and recommends oil or a washing cream instead, with a moisturising cream or lotion once or twice a day. Shorter, cooler showers help for the same reason. Indoor heating in a Swedish winter deserves attention, given that ceramide 1 linoleate measured 20 percent lower in winter than in summer in the Rogers data.
Inside and outside are not rivals. The cream works on the surface, on the day it is applied. What is taken by mouth is slower, followed in the trials over two to three months, and only makes sense used every day. That is the logic behind one considered skin supplement rather than a shelf of single ingredients: fewer jars, more thought.
Our skin page collects the wider context. Beauty Complete contains Ceramosides™ phytoceramides 30 mg per daily dose, Cartidyss® fish cartilage collagen 500 mg, Hyabest® hyaluronic acid 120 mg, vitamin C 60 mg, vitamin B2 1.4 mg and biotin 50 µg, every dose printed on the label. We have done the selection so that you do not have to. You can stop looking.
Further reading
- Guide: skin from within
- Guide: menopause and midlife
- Hyabest®: the hyaluronic acid in Beauty Complete, and what the studies measured
- Skin biology: layers, collagen and the skin barrier
- Menopause: what happens in the body, the stages and when to see a doctor
- Cartidyss®: the fish cartilage collagen in Beauty Complete, and what its study measured
Sources
- Mekic S, Jacobs LC, Gunn DA, Mayes AE, Ikram MA, Pardo LM, Nijsten T. Prevalence and determinants for xerosis cutis in the middle-aged and elderly population: a cross-sectional study. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, volume 81, issue 4, pages 963 to 969, published online December 2018. PubMed
- Wang Z, Man MQ, Li T, Elias PM, Mauro TM. Aging-associated alterations in epidermal function and their clinical significance. Aging, volume 12, issue 6, 2020. Aging
- Wang Z, Man MQ, Li T, Elias PM, Mauro TM. Same paper, open access copy in PubMed Central. PMC
- Rogers J, Harding C, Mayo A, Banks J, Rawlings A. Stratum corneum lipids: the effect of ageing and the seasons. Archives of Dermatological Research, volume 288, issue 12, pages 765 to 770, 1996. Springer
- Kendall AC, Pilkington SM, Wray JR, Newton VL, Griffiths CEM, Bell M, Watson REB, Nicolaou A. Menopause induces changes to the stratum corneum ceramide profile, which are prevented by hormone replacement therapy. Scientific Reports, volume 12, article 21715, 2022. Scientific Reports
- Hou X, Wei Z, Zouboulis CC, Ju Q. Aging in the sebaceous gland. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, volume 10, article 909694, 2022. Frontiers
- Salih H, Schaedel Z, Hum O, DeGiovanni C. Results of a patient survey exploring skin symptoms in a menopause clinic. Post Reproductive Health, volume 31, issue 3, pages 159 to 161, 2025. SAGE
- Bravo B, Penedo L, Carvalho R, Dal Vesco C, Calomeni M, Gapanowicz D, Kemen E, Paes R, Renke G. Dermatological changes during menopause and HRT: what to expect? Cosmetics, volume 11, issue 1, article 9, 2024. MDPI
- Guillou S, Ghabri S, Jannot C, Gaillard E, Lamour I, Boisnic S. The moisturizing effect of a wheat extract food supplement on women's skin: a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, volume 33, issue 2, pages 138 to 143, 2011. PubMed
- Bizot V, Cestone E, Michelotti A, Nobile V. Improving skin hydration and age-related symptoms by oral administration of wheat glucosylceramides and digalactosyl diglycerides: a human clinical study. Cosmetics, volume 4, issue 4, article 37, 2017. MDPI
- Kern C, Dudonnee S, Garcia C. Dietary supplementation with a wheat polar lipid complex improves skin conditions in women with dry skin and mild to moderate skin aging. Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, volume 23, issue 4, pages 1320 to 1330, 2024. DOI
- Szepietowski JC, Kemeny L, Mettang T, Arenberger P. Long-term efficacy and tolerability of an emollient containing glycerol and paraffin for moderate-to-severe uremic xerosis: a randomized phase 3 study. Dermatology and Therapy, volume 14, issue 11, pages 3033 to 3046, 2024. Springer
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