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Skin Care Facts You Should Know

skincare facts you should know

Skin care facts you should know are often confused with the embellished skin care fiction promoted in advertisements. Skin care is an important of your personal care routine. That means it is important to separate the facts from the fiction. That doesn't mean you can't try some of the exotic fictionally embellished products and treatments - snail slime, collagen creams, 24 karat gold face masks to name a few - but realize they are fun entertainment and don't let them displace your good self-care routine. 

Fact: Managing stress helps your skin

skin care facts you should know about stress

Your skin is your biggest organ, easy to see, and acts as sign of how things are really going in your life! Stress negatively impacts your skin. This happens for many reasons. Stress elevates your body's production of the hormone cortisol and this can worsen acne and other common vexing skin problems.

Stress may also lead you to suffer some 'dietary indiscretions', and these too can lead to skin misadventures (for more on the connection between nutrition and skin see Eating Healthy for Beautiful Skin). As if that's not enough, when you are stressed-out you probably slack off of your skin care routine. Oh, the poor skin - it takes a beating with stress. Yes, your skin is an indicator of how you are doing overall.

If your complexion starts to deteriorate, check in with yourself about stress.

When stressed, gift yourself with de-stressors such as exercise, healthy food, personal boundaries and good sleep! You deserve it and it does wonders for your skin. - Dermatologist Dr. Cynthia Bailey

Fact: Washing skin every day does not make it drier

skin care fact washing your skin does not have to be drying

There used to be a debate as to whether washing your skin dried it out. That was back in the 'old days' when we did not have fancy pH balanced SYNDET cleansers and high-tech moisturizing ingredients like hyaluronic acid or moisturizers that blend together glycerin, ceramides etc.

You can actually use washing to therapeutically hydrate your skin and prevent dryness. Yep, really!

Two steps to moister skin with your cleansing routine:

  1. Skin Care Fact Extremely Gentle Foaming Facial Cleanser
    Cleanse your skin with a pH balanced SYNDET such as Extremely Gentle Foaming Facial Cleanser (my personal favorite facial cleanser) or VaniCream Soap which is great for all over skin cleansing.
  2. Towel dry and immediately apply of any of the moisturizers I recommend. Your skin will soak-in and hold moisture - poof, like magic, moisture-balanced skin!

Remember, this means applying your moisturizer within the magic "3 minutes after toweling dry" for best results.

skin care facts best skin moisturizer

Again, the devil is always in the details;

  • applying moisturizer to dry skin is not nearly as effective as applying it after skin has been wet, and
  • using harsh soaps can remove important natural skin oils.

So, go ahead and shower every day, and wash your face twice a day – just make sure you pick the right soap/cleanser for your skin type and apply a good moisturizer right after.

Click here to see the facial moisturizers and body moisturizers that I trust. 

Fact: Wearing sunglasses will help fight facial wrinkles

skin care facts sunglasses reduce wrinkles
UV blocking sunglasses are superheroes when it comes to:
  1. protecting your eyes to prevent corneal damage and cataracts,
  2. helping to prevent some of the most hated facial wrinkles which are the 'crow's feet' and the '11s'.

Sunglasses help to reduce facial wrinkles in 2 important ways:

  1. they block some of the wrinkle-forming UV rays, and
  2. they reduce your need to squint from the sun.

Squinting causes dynamic wrinkling of the crow's feet area - reduce the squinting and reduce the crow's feet.

The bigger the sunglasses the better for protecting your skin and eyes.

The best sunglasses to prevent sun damage are big glasses that also wrap a little around the sides of your face to block UV rays from entering your eye area laterally. These glasses are also the best for reducing your risk of cataracts and other eye problems that you don't want.

Yep, you have my encouragement to go shopping for amazing sunglasses.  It's time to sport them 365 days a year in the name of your health! Yes, sunglasses can be a fashion statement accessory. You may or may not like that idea - I sure do and I have fun with both my glasses and sunglasses.

Remember not to skimp on the zinc oxide sunscreen under those glasses - you want all the protection you can get for your precious skin.  

best facial sunscreens

Click here to see the facial sunscreens that I love.
 

Click here to read Part 2 of Skin Care Facts You Should Know