What Your Skin and Scalp Need as the Season Turns to Fall

There's a morning every fall here on the Bay when you step outside and something is different. The air doesn't wrap around you the way it has since May. It's a little lighter, a little cooler, and for the first time in months, you might actually think about grabbing a jacket on your way out the door.

Have you noticed that your skin feels that shift, too? Maybe it's a little tighter after you wash your face at night. Maybe it looks a bit duller in the bathroom mirror, or your moisturizer seems to just sit there instead of sinking in the way it did all summer.

It's something I see in the treatment room every year around this time. Skin that felt perfectly happy in July starts arriving a little drier and a little duller, with a layer of buildup sitting on top. Nothing is wrong. The season has changed, and the skin is simply responding to it, the way it always has.

The thing is, we don't usually think of ourselves as seasonal. We swap out our wardrobes and trade iced coffee for something warm, but our skincare routines tend to stay exactly the same from January to December. And somewhere along the way, most of us started treating November as the start of winter, or at least the start of the holidays. But November is still fall. The calendar may already be racing ahead to Christmas, but your skin is still very much living in autumn.

So in this post, I want to slow down and look a little closer at what's actually happening. We'll talk about what summer leaves behind in your skin and scalp, how Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have understood this season for thousands of years, and the fall-harvested plants I reach for in the treatment room and in my own products. By the end, I hope you'll have a clearer sense of what your skin might be asking for right now, and why.

Your Skin Has Had a Long Summer

Let's start with where your skin has been. A Texas summer asks a lot of it. There's the sun, of course, but there's also the heat and the humidity, the sweat, the sunscreen you reapply all day, and that constant swing from a steamy parking lot into a freezing air-conditioned office. Your skin has been quietly protecting you through all of it, and one of the ways it does that is by holding on to its outer layer of cells a little more tightly. By the time September rolls around, that outer layer tends to be thicker and duller than it was in the spring.

Then the air starts to change. The humidity that was quietly keeping your skin hydrated drops off, and skin that had plenty of moisture from the environment starts losing it faster than it can replace it. So now you have dryness underneath and buildup on top, which is exactly the combination I see walk through my door every October and November. It's also why your moisturizer can feel like it's not working: it can't get past the layer that summer left behind.

And your scalp is skin, too. It's been dealing with the same sweat, the same sun, and in most cases a fair amount of product and dry shampoo, so it goes through this same shift. We just tend to forget about it because we can't see it.

How Ayurveda Sees This Season

Ayurveda has a beautiful word for adjusting your life to the seasons: ritucharya. Ritu means season and charya means routine or regimen, and the whole idea is that our bodies are part of nature, so when nature shifts, we shift with it rather than pretending nothing has changed.

Ayurveda divides the year into six seasons rather than four. Autumn, or Sharad, runs roughly from mid-September to mid-November, and late autumn, or Hemanta, carries us from mid-November into January. What I find so interesting is that the classical texts describe early autumn as a time when Pitta, the fiery dosha of heat and inflammation, can actually flare. After months of accumulated heat, the strong autumn sun can tip it over. Anyone who has lived through a Texas October already knows exactly what that feels like. Our "fall" sun is no joke.

Then, as the air turns cooler and drier, Vata begins to build. Vata is the dosha of air and space, and its qualities are cold, dry, light, and constantly moving. In the skin, that looks like dryness, flakiness, rough texture, and dullness. In the scalp, it can look like dryness and itchiness. And energetically, Vata season can feel scattered and restless, like your mind is running three steps ahead of your body.

Which brings me to the holidays. Somewhere around the first week of November, many of us slip into a low hum of urgency: the shopping lists, the travel plans, the parties stacked back to back, the feeling that there's always one more thing to get ready. If you've ever felt that, you've felt Vata energy at its fullest. Ayurveda even teaches that the mind tends to chase whatever is already pulling it out of balance, while the body keeps quietly asking for the opposite. Isn't that fascinating? The busier we get, the more busy we seem to crave, and the more our skin and nervous system ask us to slow down.

So Ayurveda's guidance for this season comes in two movements: first, gently clear and cool what summer left behind, and then ground, warm, and nourish as the dry air settles in.

The TCM View: The Season of Letting Go

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) arrives at a remarkably similar place through a completely different lens. In TCM, autumn belongs to the Metal element, which is connected to the Lungs and Large Intestine. Here's the part that made me sit up the first time I learned it: in TCM, the skin and body hair are considered part of the Lung system. The Lungs are said to govern the pores and the protective energy, called Wei Qi, that circulates at the surface of the body between the skin and the muscles, guarding the boundary between you and the outside world.

The climate of autumn in TCM is dryness, and dryness is said to injure the Lungs first. That shows up as dry skin, chapped lips, dry hair, and, if you pay attention, a skin barrier that just feels more reactive than it did a few months ago.

Metal also has an emotional and energetic side. It's associated with grief and letting go, which makes sense when you look out the window and watch the trees release their leaves. It's also associated with organization, setting limits, and protecting boundaries.

And then, right in the middle of the season of boundaries, we hand ourselves the most boundary-less six weeks of the entire year. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think it's an invitation to notice.

These are traditional frameworks, not lab results, and I hold them that way. But when two systems this old, from two different parts of the world, both point to dryness, the skin, and the need to slow down and protect yourself in autumn, and that lines up with what I see on my treatment table every single year, I pay attention.

Clearing What Summer Left Behind

This is where the fall harvest comes in, and it's one of my favorite things about this time of year. Many of the plants that ripen in autumn happen to be exactly what skin needs right now.

Pumpkin, papaya, apples, pears, and pomegranate all contain natural enzymes and fruit acids that help loosen the bonds holding dead skin cells together. Fruit enzymes in particular work by digesting the proteins in that outer layer of buildup, which is why they're often gentler than scrubs or strong acids. They don't need to scrape anything off. They just help skin let go of what it's finished with. (Metal season, again.)

There's some lovely research on this, too. In one study, people who used a serum with a high concentration of proteolytic enzymes twice a day for three months saw improvements not only in the surface of their skin but in the deeper layers as well, and the researchers noted the results looked strikingly similar to what you'd expect from higher concentrations of alpha hydroxy acids.

Here's how I use the fall harvest:

• My Pomappeach mask brings together pear, apple, and pomegranate fruit enzymes for an exfoliating mask that brightens up that dull post-summer layer.

• My pumpkin enzyme serum gently resurfaces the skin over time, so it's a nice way to keep clearing buildup at home without overdoing it.

• In the treatment room, my pumpkin enzyme mask is my deeply exfoliating option, with a little bit of glycolic acid for skin that needs more help. For skin that's more sensitive, or just wants something lighter, I use my fruit enzyme mask with papaya and aloe, which works as a light peel.

One honest note: glycolic acid and other alpha hydroxy acids make skin more sensitive to the sun while you're using them and for up to a week after you stop, according to the FDA. And as we already established, our fall sun is still strong. So if you're exfoliating this season, sunscreen isn't optional. Your newly revealed skin deserves protecting.

Calming and Nourishing as the Air Turns

Once you've cleared the way, the second half of the season is about calm and nourishment. This is where a few more fall plants come in.

Lemon balm is one of my favorite herbs, and no, it's not just because its botanical name is Melissa officinalis. (Okay, maybe a little.) It's rich in rosmarinic acid and has been studied for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which is why I put it in my lighter moisturizer for acne-prone skin and rosacea. Those skin types often get caught in the middle this time of year, still a little reactive from summer heat but starting to feel the dryness of fall, and lemon balm helps skin look and feel calmer without weighing it down.

Rosemary and calendula come together in my oil for acne-prone skin. I know oil for acne skin can sound backwards, but acne-prone skin still gets dry, especially after exfoliating, and when it does it often responds by producing more oil. Giving it the right kind of nourishment can help it settle.

Pomegranate shows up twice in my fall lineup. Beyond the fruit enzymes in the Pomappeach mask, I use pomegranate seed oil in my Angelica Primrose Infused Oil for skin that is going through perimenopause, along with phytoestrogens from plants. Pomegranate seed oil is unusual: most of it, around 73% in one analysis, is punicic acid, a fatty acid that's almost unique to pomegranate. As estrogen shifts during perimenopause, many women notice their skin getting drier and thinner, and then fall dryness lands right on top of that. This is the oil I reach for when skin needs deep, steady nourishment.

And a little bonus from TCM: pears are one of the traditional foods recommended in autumn to moisten the Lungs and counter dryness. So if you want to support your skin from the inside out this season, a ripe pear is a pretty lovely place to start.

Don't Forget Your Scalp

Everything we've talked about for the face applies to the scalp, too. It's been through the same summer, it builds up in the same way, and it feels the same dryness when the air changes. In TCM, body hair belongs to the same Lung system as the skin, so it's all part of one conversation.

That's one of the reasons I put rosemary in my shampoo. Rosemary is a fall-harvested herb that has been used in scalp care for centuries, and it pairs beautifully with the other herbs I formulate with to cleanse without stripping. It's also why my scalp rituals follow the same seasonal logic as my facials: a gentle scalp exfoliation to clear what's built up, an herbal steam, warm oil worked slowly into the scalp, and a final rinse with an herbal hair tea. It's the fall reset your scalp didn't know it needed.

Moving With the Season Instead of Against It

You don't need to overhaul your entire routine to move with the season. Most of the time it's a few small, intentional shifts: clearing away what summer left behind, adding a little more nourishment, protecting your skin from a sun that hasn't quite gotten the memo that it's fall, and giving your scalp the same attention you give your face.

And maybe, as November arrives and the holiday list gets longer, it's also noticing that this is the season of letting go and setting limits, and asking yourself which of all the things actually need to be yours this year.

So here's my question for you: what is your skin telling you right now? Is it dull and holding on to summer? Drier than usual? A little more reactive? Your body is incredibly intelligent, and it's usually communicating something useful.

If you'd like help figuring out what your skin needs this fall, I'd love to see you for a facial so we can look at it together. Find out which one is right for you here. And if your scalp has been carrying the season too, you can explore my scalp rituals here.

References

• FDA. Alpha Hydroxy Acids and Guidance for Industry: Labeling for Cosmetics Containing Alpha Hydroxy Acids.

• Topical proteolytic enzymes affect epidermal and dermal properties. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 2007. PubMed

• Cold-Pressed Pomegranate Seed Oil: Study of Punicic Acid Properties. PMC9501365

• Świąder K. et al. The therapeutic properties of Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.): Reviewing novel findings and medical indications. 2019. Journal of Applied Botany and Food Quality

• Mayway. The Change of Seasons: Preparing for Autumn

• Phoenix Medical. Autumn in TCM: A Season of Transition

• Ayurvaid. Ritucharya

• Mount Madonna Institute. Transitioning to Fall: Ayurvedic Seasonal Routines