Just like anything in life, you have to work on your skin for it to result in smooth and glowing skin. Every skin type demands a different kind of routine so adjust the following tips to what is needed for yours to become healthy and beautiful:
1. Keep Your Skin Clean!
Sounds basic, right? Not if you are not used to thinking about your skin that way, especially your face. Think about all the things that go on in a day: dirt floating around, contacting your skin; scratching yourself then touching your face; holding and petting your cat or dog then touching your forehead; vacuuming your living room, emptying the dust canister and letting all that dust get on you. I hope you are getting the point here.
It’s really important to find a face and body soap that not only keeps your skin clean but also takes care of acne. There are plenty of these on the market and you will have to test these to see which one works well for you.
2. Get a Professional Facial With Extractions
Okay, so while we realize these can cost some serious notes, a professional facial every two months or so will ensure that you are exfoliating your skin properly. Facials aid in shedding of dead skin cells and facilitate growth of new skin cells. As a result of this process, after a while, you will end up with beautiful skin. Heck, you should notice smooth skin the moment you are done with your facial.
What’s also awesome is that most professionals use top of the line skin care solutions that you won’t find at the local Walgreens.
Before you run and schedule your next facial, also make sure that your skincare professional is also comfortable with performing blackhead extractions. These may make you feel slightly uncomfortable but this is how it works: you are clearing your skin of blackheads which are essentially clogged pores. After you have this done, your skin can now breath.
You will be preventing future breakouts!
3. Drink Lots of Water
This goes hand in hand with our next tip. By drinking lots of water, you are keeping your skeletal system, as well as your skin (the very outer layer that contains your system!) hydrated. Keeping yourself hydrated will keep your skin healthy, make you less hungrier and keep you more focused throughout the day.
4. Avoid All Types of Soda
For some of us, drinking soda is akin to breathing air. Who doesn’t want to slam one of these babies with a slice of pizza or some yummy chinese broccoli and chicken after your boss reamed you all day at work?!
Look, we get it. B-U-T! Even though you don’t want to hear this, soda is loaded with craploads of sugar. Sugar can lead to breakouts. Want amazing skin? Soda isn’t the way to go!
Those of you running to the thought of diet soda as a backup… drop that diet soda NOW! There are studies coming out now alluding that diet soda is more harmful than regular soda. No one knows what any of those sugar sweeteners can do in the long term and there are plenty of chemicals and crap in these diet sodas.
Drop the bad habit, fool!
5. Apply Moisturizer Every Night
Why every night and not every day? Because night time is the time that you will leave your face alone. With all the touching, cleansing, exfoliating that goes on, it’s very important to find a moisturizer that works great for your skin.
If you fail to do this and continue using a cleanser every day, you will soon notice your skin getting dry. And then, painfully dry. This can lead to excessive itching, dry irritation and results in acne.
We are trying to prevent all that. When you moisturize your skin at night, you are giving it a chance to recover overnight.
6. Apply Sun Screen When Under the Sun or In Extreme Heat
You have heard all those people say that the sun is actually good for your skin. Well, that depends on how long you are out in the sun. Being in the sun for 5-15 minutes isn’t bad for most people (unless you have red hair) but if you are going to be exposed for a long time and on a daily basis, consider using sun screen on a serious basis.
Skin cancer and age spots aren’t something you want to see or think about… until they happen. Now is the time to take care of your skin.
Especially if your job entails being out in the sun for long bursts.
7. Change Your Pillow Case Every Week
If I didn’t have to pay for hot water, I’d wash my pillow cases every couple of days.
Every night you sleep.
Every night you drool.
Every night, that drool encrusts into your pillow case.
Every night you lay down your face into that encrusted pillow case.
Get it? Now go change your pillow cases asap!
8. Steam Your Face & Body
Steaming your face can be done at home easily; the body part? You’ll have to visit the sauna.
Steaming you face will help your pores open up and more easily release the nasty dirt trapped in there. If you have an extraction tool for blackheads, now is the time to use it.
Wondering how you can steam your face safely and for free? Here, we discuss 9 Steps to an In-Home Steam Facial Without an Expensive Steamer. Heck lot easier than you thought.
9. Use Acne Friendly Make Up
I always cringe when I see women with tons of make up on their faces. When you smother your skin with make up, the pores aren’t able to breath and they are being clogged. Further more, who knows how damaging the components of make up can be for the skin.
For that reason, it is essential that you find make up made by companies that are doing things differently; some brands are exclusively made now to help your skin (yes, with makeup!) Stick to these and you will notice positive changes over time.
10. Don’t Go Over Board With Cleansers
One of the biggest problems even we have had is going overboard with all types of products especially cleansers. Once people discover one, they use it 2-3 times a day.
Unh-unh. Very, very bad. This can result in extremely dry skin and rip your skin of necessary oils to keep it looking smooth. Like everything in life, you need to find a balance that will help your skin.
When shopping for a good cleanser, you want one that is gentle on your skin. You can only find these by experimenting because your skin is unique.
11. Don’t Pick Your Skin!!!
I’m the worst at this. If you have acne prone skin and even if you don’t, try this: right now, become aware of how many times you touch your face. Is your face resting on your hands? Do you scratch your face every couple of minutes?
Picking on your acne can leaves serious marks on your face. I wish I had listened to my parents when I was young.
But it’s true. Not only that but you can make your acne worse or cause an infection to occur.
Always be gentle with your skin!
In Summary:
Learning how to improve skin complexion and doing it are two totally different beasts. You need to perform the things on this list until they become second nature to you… only then will you see true progress resulting in healthy skin.
