How to Improve Your Skincare
What constitutes good skincare and how can you improve the look of your skin?
The skin is the biggest organ in the body so it really is important that we look after it. We are all born with smooth and well hydrated skin. Underneath the skin the structure of the scull provides a base for plump, fat pads which give shape and structure to our face. Overtime some of these structures change, the fat pads diminish and the bone structures change. To add insult to injury the rate of skin cell turnover reduces which means that our skin can look dull and dry. Acne can annoyingly resurrect its head in our 30s-50s!!! Don’t panic!!
The exact details of these changes are dependent on our genetic make-up and are also influenced by our lifestyles. How and what we eat, our exercise or fluid intake and our consumption of alcohol or if we smoke. However we are very a keep our skin great through maintaining a healthy lifestyle and looking after our skin well. Through good routines we can prevent/delay some of the signs of ageing and ensure our skin looks bright and feels great. As with all conditions prevention is always better than cure so starting good routines at an early age is the key to the best skin for the longest time.
There are two key focusses in improving skin care practice and these focus on; resurfacing (removing dead skin cells and improving texture) and rejuvenating (hydrating and nourishing the skin to diminish lines). Not surprisingly there are a vast range of products available offering all sorts of magic cures and fit into these 2 categories. Resurfacing agents would include products like glycolic washes and creams. In the rejuvenate category we have met many more products which focus on the reduction of lines and wrinkles and work to improve the hydration of the skin and increase collagen production. Products in this category include hyaluronic acid, retinols and other botanicals.
Getting the mix right will undoubtedly be an investment. You will need about 4 to 6 products, depending on your skin, to actually get the outcome that you want. I see clients on a regular basis who have spent large amounts of money on cosmetic products over a long period of time and they really haven’t done what was desired. As a consequence they put up with late onset acne, acne scarring, rosacea, dull and lifeless skin feeling sad without knowing what to do or try.
If you don’t like your skin please do go and get some advice from a good aesthetics practitioner. A good practitioner will talk you through the options available to you and agree a plan that works for you. Treatments may include simple skincare routines or a course of skin peels in order to get you set up on the right path. If peels are recommended for you don’t worry. Many of these do not stop you carrying on with your daily lives and many cause minimal obvious peeling. However get the right advice and the right support because the cosmetics industry have amazing advertising around products which may have had minimal testing and may or may not do what they said on the can but they will cost you as much as buying cosmeceutical product which is been well tested and is likely to give you a more predictable outcome.
If you would like a consultation to discuss this in more detail, please get in contact.