Have you neglected your skin and now have sun damaged, older-looking skin? Well, don’t stress there are steps you can take to reverse the damage.
If you protect your skin internally and externally, it enhances the look and gives confidence. So, we’ve put together our top six beauty rules that almost every expert and dermotologist we’ve ever spoken to has told us we MUST do. If you ensure you follow these six skincare rules, we promise you’ll feel the difference in no time.
1. Use Vitamin A
Vitamin A, used topically, has been proven over the years to improve skin tone and texture as well as helping with abnormal pigmentation. Vitamin A can be too strong for some skin and often must be gradually introduced. Sometimes doctors and their patients desire quick results, then apply too much vitamin A, too frequently, and are turned off because their skin becomes red and flaky and looks worse than it did to start with! So use in moderation for best results.
2. Exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate!
Exfoliating daily can have a huge impact in the texture and brightness of your skin, because it clears away the dead skin, pollution, and environmental toxins that accumulate on the surface of our skin every day. Exfoliating not only deeply cleans, but it accelerates cellular renewal, kick-starts collagen production, and preps the skin to better absorb products.
3. Cleanse your skin every day but avoid cleansers with soaps, detergents and alcohol
These ingredients strip the skin of its natural hydration, open up the moisture barrier (a protective layer of hydration in the outermost layer of our skin) and confuse its natural sebum (facial oil) production. Essentially, they’re drying and disruptive to your skin’s natural balance. I suggest investing in a soap-free cleanser that exfoliates the skin with physical, natural chemical or enzymatic exfoliation, to clear away dead skin cells and deeply clean while maintaining hydration in the skin. How you’ll know it’s working: it won’t leave your skin feeling tight and dry, but rather soft, refreshed and dewy.
4. Maintain a healthy diet
Add fish, green tea, chia seeds, sweet potato, yogurt and chocolate to your diet. All these foods if you have them in moderation will help your skin lit up like never before.
5. Never Forget SPF
You might think the only damage that the sun can do to your skin is burn it, but the truth is, it’s literally destroying your skin. Are we being dramatic? No! 90% of how your skin ages is down to sun exposure. Your skin is constantly exposed to the sun which results in the UVA rays penetrating into your skin, damaging collagen, and leading to deep wrinkles and sagging skin– so here’s why wearing sunscreen is super important.
6. Know Your Skin Type
Understanding what your skin needs, means you can find the best products that will work for your skin. Everyone’s skin is unique, and even though it changes over time, there are certain ‘skin type’ categories you can use as guidelines to help you find skincare that works for you. Depending on whether your skin is, dry, normal, oily, acne-prone, sensitive or aging, you should be using very different products. It may also be dry during the winter and oily during summer, which is why you should switch up your skincare as weather changes.
