Beauty And The Blog

It’s that time of year again. We are heading into Winter and dry skin issues. You may have already noticed a change in your skin as we have progressed into Fall. Are you noticing a bit of tightness in your skin? Maybe some slight flakiness?

With the change of seasons our skin can start to behave differently. So you need to think about what to do. Not difficult. Just a couple simple steps can make all the difference in your anti-aging skin care routine.

Rethink your cleanser. It may be a good idea to switch to something more gentle. And you may want reconsider how often you cleanse your face. If you are removing all of your makeup and giving yourself a good cleanse in the evening, try only a rinse in the morning. Your face is still makeup free from last nights cleanse and the natural oils in your skin present in the morning are your friend. So instead of a complete wash just splash your face with lukewarm water (never, ever HOT) and gently pat dry.

You should not be using a toner that is astringent at this time of year if your skin is dry. Skip it or look for a toner that has moisturizing and calming ingredients. Glycerin, Hyaluronic Acid, Sodium Hyaluronic, Sodium PCA and Panthenol are all moisture binding ingredients. Calming ingredients include Oenthera Biennis (Primrose Oil, thought I’d dazzle you with a botanical term), Jojoba Oil, Shea Butter and Squalane. Also good to have in a toner are antioxidants, such as Green Tea which is an antioxidant that remains stable in water based products.

Moving on to your moisturizer. Maybe notch that up a bit, if less cleansing and a gentler toner don’t do the trick alone, try a richer formula.  I suggest starting with the night cream and see how you do. If you do change the day cream it should still include an SPF as we are exposed to UV rays in the Winter, too. It doesn’t rain or snow every day! Thank God! This is not a Winter lover writing this blog!

Ingredients to look for in richer moisturizers are the same as the toner plus a few others such as Milk Lipids, Aloe and Apricot Oil. Some other good antioxidants would be Arginine, Vitamin E and C.

Don’t make the mistake of using a heavier/richer foundation makeup. It will look heavy. And make you look older. Horror! Stay with the same formula but you may need to change the color if you had picked up a bit of sun over Summer and are faded back to your natural tone.

In a nutshell, simply changing your cleanser, toner if you use one, and your moisturizer if you still feel dry is all you need to do. No need to switch a serum if you use that, or any other additional products such as masques as long as they are truly the right ones for your natural skin type. Easy enough, huh?

And one more thing. If you use a BHA, AHA or PHA (or prescription Renova and like products), you may want to go to every other day application. No hard rule here, just if you make the above adjustments and still feel a bit dry or tight go to fewer applications of these exfoliant/refining ingredients. Got it? Good!

That over there——–>

That would be me, putting up grudgingly with Winter.