Angela Higgins

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Habits You Need to Stop For Better Skincare

habits-to-stopMost people have the idea that having clear and healthy skin costs a fortune. But, this is a misleading concept used for marketing skin care products and treatments. You may use the most expensive skin care products money can buy, but these can’t guarantee a blemish-free and clear complexion. Why? Because skincare does not start with the products you use or the skin treatments you undergo. Skin care depends on your habits and their effects on your skin. Below are some habits you can do without to achieve better skin:

Dehydrating your skin

You can slather on jars after jars of moisturizers on your face but these won’t do any difference on your skin if it is dehydrated internally. The most it can do is give you an oily sheen and some zits. Not drinking at least eight glasses of water daily can dehydrate your skin and make it lose necessary moisture. Lack of moisture can make your skin lose its elasticity and suppleness. This can lead to a condition known as “elderly itch.” With this condition, your skin becomes rough and dry, hence, making it itch. This can lead to premature aging of the skin which can give it a leathery appearance.

Washing your skin excessively

Ideally, your skin should only be washed at least once or twice a day. Washing your skin more than twice daily strips it off the necessary oils needed to maintain surface moisture. Aside from stripping your skin off its natural oils, overwashing can lead to irritation, dryness, and skin conditions like eczema.

Foregoing sun protection

Your moisturizer container may proclaim that is has SPF 15 but this is not reason enough to forego applying sunscreen or sunblock. For total protection, your skin needs at least SPF 30, more if you are going out between 10am to 4pm when the sun’s rays are at their strongest. Even if the day is cloudy, make it a point to wear sun protection since UV rays can penetrate clouds. Overexposure to the sun, can cause skin discoloration, sunburns, dryness, and other skin conditions. Use sunscreen on your face, lips, and other exposed body parts. Additional sun protection like hats, sunglasses, and umbrellas can also be used.

Touching your skin frequently

Your facial skin is very sensitive compared to the skin on the rest of your body. Touching it frequently such as by picking, rubbing, or scratching can irritate it and cause breakouts. Your hands also come into contact with a lot of surfaces and can transfer bacteria on your skin which can lead to cystic acne. Facial skin is also delicate since it is prone to sagging and wrinkling when touched frequently.

Using the wrong products

Just because a product worked well on another person, it does not mean that it will work great for you too. Choosing an inappropriate product for your skin type can worsen your skin’s condition. For example, using an oil-based product for oily skin will make it oilier and prone to more breakouts.

These are just some habits that can damage your skin. To prevent your skin from aging prematurely or breaking out, be sure to improve your skin care habits. Good skin care habits coupled with the skin care products can make your skin healthier and better.

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Reduce Wrinkles: Do Skin Tighteners and Skin Creams Really Help?

You’ve probably tried everything you can think of to reduce wrinkles. Line erasers, anti-wrinkle eye creams, wrinkle erasers, skin creams, Botox – you may have even tried yelling into the mirror, “Be gone, ugly wrinkles!” But when that didn’t work, maybe you gave up. Maybe you feel there’s no hope in seeing those wrinkles disappear. Well, don’t give up. Here’s why…

reduce-wrinklesThere are several things you can do to help reduce wrinkles. There’s no one magical formula, but it’s a combination of things – lifestyle, food and drink, amount of sun exposure, vitamins, facial rejuvenation creams, and even the position of your body while sleeping! It sounds like a lot of work, but most of these involve simple things you can do each day to help reduce and prevent wrinkles. Here are some brief pointers.

Daily Lifestyle and Wrinkles

Several things you do in your daily life could be causing excessive wrinkles to appear. For instance, if you are under continuous stress, expect more wrinkles. You should do whatever it takes to reduce stress – even change jobs if necessary. It’s not worth losing your health or good appearance! Another important factor is your intake of liquids, particularly water, throughout the day. Drink water every day to help hydrate your body and skin. Dried-out skin will wrinkle more easily.

Eat a healthy diet abundant with fruits and vegetables, and schedule your meals and exercise each day. Staying on schedule with healthy eating and exercise has been proven in studies to reduce stress.

Also, try to get a good night’s sleep every night. While sleeping, lie on your back instead of on your face. Wrinkles can form overnight as you sleep! Also, avoid smoking, alcohol, and excessive sun exposure. If you work outdoors, wear strong, protective sunscreen on your face and hands.

Anti-wrinkle Creams

There are many facial rejuvenation creams, anti-wrinkle eye creams, line erasers and wrinkle erasers on the market today. There are even affordable Botox alternatives that work just as well. These can help to reduce wrinkles if they contain the right combination of vitamins to help revitalize your skin. A number of studies have shown that applying vitamins to the skin may significantly reduce wrinkles and help repair skin damage.

The key vitamins to look for in a skin cream are Vitamins A, C, E, and K. One reason is because these contain antioxidants, which help to eliminate toxins from your body and reduce signs of aging. Antioxidants rid your body and skin of free radicals. Free radicals can cause aging, cellular damage, and even skin cancer in some cases.

Vitamin K can lessen the look of aging lines on the skin by building up the skin around the lines or wrinkles, causing them to disappear. Vitamins K and E are also good for scars and stretch marks.

When choosing an anti-wrinkle eye cream, skin cream, or wrinkle eraser, look for products with all of these vitamins combined for the best results.

As you can see, wrinkles don’t have to control your life (or your face). You can reduce wrinkles significantly by combining a healthy lifestyle with vitamin-rich skin creams and wrinkle erasers. Start turning back the clock today!

The Aloe Source has a few items that might help out. Give our Anti-Againg Kit  a try, each item in the kit is sold separately as well.  Happy Shopping!

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Beyond Vanity: Skin Care is Imperative to Health and Wellness

beyond-vanityWhile feminists and critics sneer at beauty for being only “skin deep”, the continuous growth of the cosmetics industry proves that an increasing number of people are really taking effort, time, and money to invest on various beauty regimen and skincare. Nowadays, women are not the only ones who get conscious of their looks, but even some men, particularly the younger generation, have become advocates of pampering skincare.  Skin care goes beyond vanity and is more important then you think.

Some people, however, are too absorbed in their busy lifestyles that they have no more time left to engage in proper skincare. Economy also plays a great deal on why people would refrain from availing those skincare services being offered in the media. The hard times take its toll on your skin. It is no longer as supple as that of a baby and has become thinner and wrinkled with age. Your skin is drier due to less oil production from the sebaceous glands and the decrease in the number of blood vessels has made your skin lackluster without youthful glow.

Bacteria:

There is more to skincare than just a case of vanity. Unknown to many, all human beings, whether healthy or not, probably have some Staphylococcus aureus bacteria on their skin. These bacteria, simply called staph, are usually found in your nose or throat and may not really cause much problems except for minor skin infections. The skin serves as the body’s first barrier against these bacterial infections. This is why it is important to have healthy skin in order to ward off bacterial infections. Once the skin is broken, cut or wounded, you are at risk for infection. Once these bacteria gets to burrow deeper into your skin and penetrates your body into the bloodstream, urinary tract, lungs, and heart, these seemingly harmless bacteria can become life-threatening.

History showed that most cases of fatal staph infections in the past have occurred in people who have been in the hospital or those who are suffering from chronic illness and faltering immune system. However, recent development proves that an increasing number of otherwise healthy people who have never been in a hospital are also acquiring these lethal staph infections.
Moreover, the usually powerful antibiotics no longer have an effect in fighting against certain strain of destructive bacteria that have evolved over time. Although as of now, most staph infections are still manageable and can be successfully treated, sooner or later, there will come a time that a new and deadlier strain of these bacterial infections will become resistant to most currently available skincare and medications.

Sings of Bacterial Infections

The signs and symptoms of bacterial infections depends on the condition and affected area of the infection as well as the nature of illness if it is a direct infection from staph bacteria or from toxins produced by the bacteria. They may range from mild skin infections to food poisoning, deadly pneumonia, surgical wound infections, and endocarditis which is a lethal inflammation of the heart valves. Most skin infections caused by staph infections include the following: boils , cellulitis, impetigo, scalded skin syndrome, follicilitis, hordeolum, among others.

Most skin problems would require clinical care by medical professionals but it helps to take note of the following tips:
· Make sure to always clean and cover areas of skin that have been injured.
· Do not share towels, sheets, clothing until the infection has been fully healed.
· Do not touch to avoid spreading it to other parts of your body.
Always remember that cleanliness and good skincare hygiene is not just a form of vanity but it is a way of keeping your skin healthy and strong to be able to protect you in warding off bacterial infections as well as preventing many skin problems.

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Squeezing Pimples, Why you need to stop!

squeezing-pimplesSqueezing pimples or zits, as they are commonly called, can be painful and cause serious damage. An enduring myth about acne is that squeezing blackheads can clear up the acne faster. This myth is not only false, but following this advice can also cause long-lasting harm to the skin.

Different kinds of blemishes:

Pimples can be classified into two types. There is the non inflammatory type, which is essentially whiteheads and blackheads, also called closed comodones and open comodones respectively. Whiteheads are plugged follicles below the surface of the skin. Blackheads on the other hand are enlarged plugs that look like minute black spots and push through the skin’s surface. Then there are the inflammatory types which are further classified into papules, which are pinkish in color and tender to the touch; pustules, which are small and round lesion like pimples with a red base and a yellowish centre; and nodules or cysts, which is the most severe form of acne, and are large and extremely painful and tend to leave scars.

Blackheads:

Squeezing blackheads is more likely to harm than heal. As tempting as it can be, squeezing comedones can injure the sebaceous follicle and the tissue around it and force the contents, the bacteria, deeper into the skin tissue and also force its contents to extrude to the skin surface. This can result in inflammation of the skin. Also, scientific evidence suggests that blackheads not be removed by using blackhead extractors that are so commonly available on the Internet or magazine ads. A fully developed blackhead will not become inflamed if left alone.

Whiteheads:

Moreover, squeezing whiteheads can be potentially even more damaging. Whiteheads, also called sandpaper comedo, are so small that they can hardly be seen, and are more likely to be felt as roughness on the skin. a whitehead is more likely than a blackhead to become inflamed, and further evolve into a pustule or a papule.

When whiteheads naturally evolve into papules or pustules, they should be treated by a dermatologist. Acne can be severely exacerbated if you attempt to squeeze the inflammatory type of lesions. Also whiteheads are so small, that there is hardly any content in it to squeeze out so overall the whole squeezing experience can be rather unsatisfying!

Our Solution:

The Aloe Source Clarifying Spot TreatTo help keep your skin from scaring and heal the pimples faster we recommend trying our Clarifying Spot Treatment.  Our Spot Treatment is a potent solution containing camphor and salicylic acid to penetrate deep into pores, while aloe vera and willowherb extract help soothe and protect skin.  The Salicylic Acid removes the pore-clogging dead skin cells , while the Camphor helps clear up any problematic areas. This product works great and you only need a small amount to achieve results.

To maintain great skin with less blemishes try our Clarifying Kit, everything you need from cleansing, toning, and moisturizing your skin to help lessen pimples.

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Total Skin Care: What Your Skin Needs

total-skin-careIt is a fact that not everyone knows how to take good care of their skin. Knowing as well as maintaining the essential needs of the skin are very important in keeping the skin looking healthy and beautiful. Probably the best way to keep your skin healthy and young-looking is to provide it with a total skin care regimen or system. With a skin care regimen that can efficiently and sufficiently protect the function and structure of your skin, you are sure to have an even more beautiful and radiant skin.

Basic and advanced total skin care

It is said that the essential regimen for keeping the skin healthy and beautiful is generally divided into two categories: the basic and the advanced skin care needs. The basic skin care needs cover the daily and minimal skin care system that a person with any type of skin can practice. Meanwhile, the advance needs are the methods that address specific skin problems or concerns. These advanced skin care methods are oftentimes associated with other forms of treatments.

Basic skin care

The basic skin care needs are regarded as the foundation of a daily skin care regimen. This type of skin care system covers four steps that include hydrating, toning, cleansing, and protecting.

1. Hydrate

Having the skin well-moisturized is very important as this keeps it from becoming dry. Hydrating also provides the skin with vital lipids, thus, maintaining moisture. Skin specialists often recommend the practice of nighttime hydration once every night. Our O2 Infusion Moisturizer works wonders to keep your skin hydrated and vibrant.

2. Cleansing

This basic skin necessity keeps the skin free from pollutant, dirt, as well as excess oil. When a person fails to regularly cleanse his face, he or she is sure to experience inflamed and clogged pores and dull skin. We offer Botanical Cleansing Milk and a Clarifying Cleanser to cover from dry to oily skin.

3. Tone

Toning is an essential basic skin requirement, for it prepares the skin from the benefits brought by the skin care products that are applied on the face. To get more efficient results, toning skin care products are applied twice a day right after cleansing. Apart from soothing and calming the skin, toning also balances skin pH and lessens pore appearance. Get your hands on our Botanical Toner or Clarifying Toner for the refreshed look.

4. Protect

The skin also needs protection from the dangerous rays of the sun and other harmful environmental stressors. A morning dose of moisturizer with SPF can protect the skin from the sun’s UV ray that promotes discoloration and deteriorates the structural proteins of the skin.

Advance skin care

Advance skin care addresses specific concerns like acne, discoloration, free radical damage, and other critical skin care conditions. Below is the advance skin care regimen that one can follow as treatment to different types of skin complications:

1. Treat

This type of advanced skin care comes in when the structures, components, and functions of the skin are compromised, leading to the early occurrence of premature aging.  We offer a Youth Renew Moisturizer and and Youth Renew Serum when used together can help fight aging skin.

2. Nourish

Nourishing is an essential form of advanced skin care, for it maintains youthfulness and protects skin health. One can nourish the skin using antioxidants that further prevents premature skin aging and damage. Using the Vitamin C Antioxidant Creme  and Vitamin C Antioxidant Complex are the best combination for keeping your skin nourished.

3. Exfoliate

Exfoliating is very important as this replenishes the skin when it becomes rough and dull. This type of advanced skin care practice helps polish and resurface the skin to maintain a glowing complexion. Our number one selling Jojoba Radiance cleansing Polish as well as our Luminosity Masque are great at exfoliating the skin and keeping it smooth and radiant.

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Natural Aloe Vera and it’s Skin Care and Health Benefits

Aloe vera plants, particularly aloe barbadensis miller plants, have been used for centuries to help burns, cuts, and other skin ailments. Perhaps your grandparents always had one of these unique, cactus-like plants nearby, just in case of an emergency. If someone got a cut or burn, they would break an aloe leaf apart to extract gel from inside the leaf. The aloe gel inside the leaf is used as a natural healing salve.

Benefits of Aloe mean it can be used topically and internally

With the onset of commercialism and the recent boom in all-natural products, aloe has become the ingredient of choice in many skin care and health products. Commercial aloe products include everything from creams to lotions to nutritional supplements in pill or drink form. The products often combine aloe gel with other ingredients to enhance the gel’s natural healing components. For example, an aloe-based Hawaiian product, called AhVahleen, combines aloe with some natural extracts taken from organic honey and a Hawaiian Kalo herbal plant.

Natural Aloe-Based Solutions for Skin Care and Health

Aloe gel, especially when combined with other natural ingredients, can greatly enhance the skin and its ability to replenish skin cells. As skin cells die, new skin cells must replace the old to promote healthy skin. This also slows the aging process and helps keep the skin moist and beautiful. Aloe creams and gels on the market can help enhance this process. There are also creams and gels to help with itching, burns, cuts, psoriasis, shingles, and other skin conditions.

The Gel is also known to have antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties, which allow skin ailments to heal while reducing risk of infection. Some aloe-based products are said to help soothe and dry up chicken pox as well. Aloe Gel can work as a natural anesthesia to reduce or alleviate pain caused by burns, cuts, and skin rashes. For severe sunburn and/or sun poison, aloe vera gel can cool the burning skin and speed up the healing process.

How to Buy Natural Aloe Products

Shop online to find aloe-based products that are unique to your skin care and health needs. If you have psoriasis, for instance, look for creams, gels, or lotions to soothe this condition in particular. If you work in the sun or are outdoors a great deal, look for aloe products that can protect your skin from the sun’s harmful rays. If you have multiple needs for aloe, find a natural aloe product that offers many benefits in one. Start enjoying natural skin care and health today with the wonderful natural solution of aloe vera!

We have so much more on this topic in our Aloe Vera Story section.

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Common Skin Care Myths

Skin-care-myths
With an increasing emphasis on beauty and age defiance in North American society, everyone seems to be seeking ways to make themselves appear younger by taking better care of their skin. While it is true that skin is one of the keys to a healthy, youthful appearance, not all skin care treatments that are proposed, or even that are popular, are effective. Here are some of the top myths when it comes to skin care.

Acne.

Acne is the bane of everyone from their teenage years and onward. There are so many false rumors out there concerning acne that an article could be written on them alone. To start with, acne does not cease miraculously when you are out of your teens. In some people, acne is a perpetual problem and will continue throughout their lives. Many of the false ideas about acne are extremely detrimental to people who are afflicted with the condition. Acne is not a sign that an individual does not wash their face. In fact, many individuals with acne will be told this by their peers and the result will be extremely counter-productive; they end up washing their faces too much. The dryer skin does not clear out the acne problem, instead it exacerbates it. Acne may be aggravated by certain foods in an individual’s diet, but rarely are the “suspect foods” (chocolate, French fries, or pizza) the main trigger. Finally, remember that acne can be treated by several types of medicine on the market today-and effectively- so it is all right to go to your doctor and consult her about acne treatments.

Tanning.

Tanning is often advertised as adding a warm, healthy glow to your skin. The truth is, nothing is worse for your skin than direct exposure to the harmful ultraviolet rays that are necessary to tan, whether you are on a bed or in the sun. Tanning may help to get rid of formed acne, but it will not prevent new pores from clogging. Tanning has little benefits beyond immediate aesthetic appeal, and in the long run it will prove harmful to your skin. It is best to use sun block whenever you are out in the sun.

Moisturizers.

Many people think that moisturizers will help in making their skin appear more youthful by getting rid of wrinkles. This is not the case. Moisturizers will help to lubricate the skin and lessen dryness, but they will not serve to repair the microscopic damage at the cell level that wrinkles represent.

Skin Care Ingredients.

For many years, top beauticians have placed slices of cucumber over the eyes of their clients in order to reduce skin damage and swelling. Today, you will find many products on the shelves that depict a cucumber or slice of cucumber and claim to include cucumber extracts that will help rejuvenate your skin. The fact is that it is not any particular mineral in the cucumber that is beneficial to the skin, it is the fact that cucumbers are mostly made of water, which leeches into the skin during the process and gives the appearance of re-invigoration.

All of these myths are used today to help sell products, Keep in mind that your skin will look great if you just keep in mind there are things on the market that wont really help your skin. The Myths of skin care are all over and we just added a few so take some time to look into some more information. Here are some links to some sites that have more great information!

http://www.paulaschoice.com/expert-advice/myths/_/beauty-myths

http://www.prevention.com/beauty/worst-skin-care-advice

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Vitamin C Skin Care – The Challenge

Vitamin C is often regarded as a wrinkle fighter or an anti-aging agent. The main objective of ‘Vitamin C skin care’, in scientific terms, is to increase the synthesis of collagen (a structural protein that is found in skin). The additional benefit is related to its capability of countering free radicals which cause damage to the skin.

Vitamin-C

The Challenge:

Vitamin C skin care, however, faces a major challenge today. This is related to the oxidation tendency of skin care products. On coming in contact with any oxidising agent (e.g. air), the Vitamin C in the skin care products, gets oxidised; thus making the Vitamin C skin care product useless (in fact counter-effective). The oxidised Vitamin C imparts a yellowish-brown colour to the  skin care product. This is something that you need to check before buying a Vitamin C skin care product. Even after you buy a  skin care product, you need to store it properly and keep checking that it’s still good to use (i.e. it hasn’t attained a yellowish-brown texture).

The manufacturers of Vitamin C skin care products have tried to deal with this (oxidation) problem in multiple ways (and research on Vitamin C skin care products is on the top of their list). One such method of retaining effectiveness of skin care products for a long term is to keep a high concentration (say 10%) of Vitamin C. However, this makes the  skin care products even more expensive. The Vitamin C skin care products are already pretty inexpensive and making them even more expensive will throw the product manufacturers out of business.

Coming up with a Solution:

The other way is to use Vitamin C derivatives (like ascorbyl palmitate and magnesium ascorbyl phosphate). These are not only more stable but also inexpensive. Even though the derivatives based products are not as effective as the Vitamin C skin care products, their stability against oxidation is a very desirable feature that makes them very attractive. Moreover, these are known to be less irritating too.

Talking of effectiveness of Vitamin C skin care products, it’s important to mention that not everyone responds to Vitamin C treatments. So it’s not a magic potion in any way. If you don’t see a noticeable difference in your skin, it might be because of your skin not responding to the treatment (and the skin care products might not be at fault, at all).

As more research goes on, one can only keep our fingers crossed and wait for a complete solution to the challenges faced by ‘Vitamin C skin care’today.

 

 

 

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Oily Vs. Dry: Choosing What Skin Care Treatment To Use

An unknown student once wrote on his desk, “You can’t face your problem if your problem is your face.” Though intended only for humor, this curious statement may mean a lot to those who are bothered by imperfections on their faces especially their skin. Often, people complain about having pimples, wrinkles or blemishes and are baffled with what to do about it. Advertisements seen on television, newspapers, posters and billboards show various products claiming to be the miracle solution for all skin problems. People who model these products highly entice the ordinary buyer to believe in their statements. It is not safe, however, just to follow blindly. When it comes to skin care, it is best to understand the underlying causes or processes that are involved and how it is related in one’s situation.

A good starting point types-of-skinwhen it comes to identifying the right skin care treatment to be used is to determine the type of skin one has. Classification of types of skin range from dry skin to oily skin. Each type may then have a corresponding skin problem to address. It is important to take note of the type of skin one has since skin care products are also designed in relation to the common skin types of consumers.

For people who have dry skin, the most common problems to be expected is premature skin aging and appearance of wrinkles. Dry skin results from lack of moisture and is commonly experienced during cold season. To address this problem, one can make use of moisturizers available in the market. It is better to make use of those products that are fragrance-free and has less amount of preservatives used to limit the chemical content that might cause irritation. Note that humectants and emollients are contained in moisturizers and these components are responsible for absorbing water to increase the moisture of the skin and replacing lipids. Moisturizers also come in two kinds, those that are oil-based and those that are water-based. People with oily skin may still opt to make use of moisturizers during cold season and it is better for them to choose the water-based kind.

On the other hand, the ones with oily skin usually have to worry about having pimples, blackheads and blemishes. This skin type is brought about by overactive sebaceous glands which may be a consequence of heredity, diet, humidity or cosmetics used. In terms of skin care products, people with this skin type must carefully choose those that are oil-free or are not oil-based. Regular cleansing is necessary to decrease the appearance of greasiness but note that the cleanser used should be alcohol-free and soap-free if possible. It is also better to make use of lukewarm water when cleansing since it will help dissolve oil faster. It is not advisable to use moisturizers unless the skin is becoming dry due to changes in season or temperature. In cases where pimples come about as a consequence of this skin type, common treatments for such are those products containing salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide. When cases are severe such those of people with acne, it is better to consult a dermatologist first before deciding upon what products to use as treatment. Blemishes usually result from having pimples or acne and may be treated through exfoliation. However, one should be careful in using products for skin exfoliation because some may be too harsh for the skin and cause further complications.

Skin care treatment, therefore, is not just blindly following what the advertisers of skin care products claim. Doing this might just be of minimal help in solving the problem, if not at all. Worse, this might cause further complications if wrong products are used. With regards to matters such these, it is really important to determine first the type of skin a person has. Next is to know the appropriate product to be used relative to one’s skin type. Taking note of the components, substances or chemicals contained in skin care products will also help avoid further complications or irritations and maximize the treatment’s effectiveness.

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Face-Washing: The Core Of A Good Skincare Regimen

face washingThe act of washing one’s face is one of the fundamental steps that a person can take in the realm of skincare, such that its place as the cornerstone of a skincare regimen is hardly arguable. This is a basic act, one that does not require too much effort or time to be expended in doing it, and really just asks that the person have a reasonable level of manual dexterity and access to a supply of clean water. Washing your face also happens to be one of the very few things that dermatologists are not going to dispute each other over, simply because it works the way it should. Granted, it is advisable that it not be the only part of a skincare regimen, but it does form an integral component.

People should take care to make sure that their hands are clean prior to washing their face, if only because it would be the logical thing to do. Since people are going to be using their hands to wash their face, it would be sensible to make sure that the hands are as clean as possible, to avoid doing damage when the action is supposed to be preventing damage. Aside from the prerequisite water, rinsing the hands with soap can help clean off any visible dirt and acts as a preliminary measure for getting rid of bacteria that might be on there.

Hot water is not advisable for washing your face with. This is a common mistake, particularly because it is a simple matter to confuse hot water with warm water. In reality, warm water is best used because it opens up the pores, allowing the water to flow in and wash things out. Hot water can do this as well, but has the potential to cause damage to the skin, especially if the skin is sensitive. Some people also advocate the use of cold water to close the pores afterwards. The use of cold water for rinsing closes the pores and prevents dirt and other irritants from entering the skin again.

Applying skin cleanser is advisable in between the warm and cold treatments, giving it the chance to seep into the pores and do its job. Applying such topical treatments on closed pores reduces their potency, so rinsing the skin with warm water is advisable. Small amounts are also best, particularly if the skin is sensitive. Cleansers and other topical treatments are best used from the forehead down, unless the instructions specify otherwise. Sensitivity to the cleanser should also be noted, because not all of them follow the same potencies and strengths. In some cases, using smaller amounts helps, but for others, switching to another product completely is the better option.