Skin-Care Goals with This 4-Week Challenge
Skin care is the range of practices that support skin integrity, enhance its appearance and relieve skin conditions. They can include nutrition, avoidance of excessive sun exposure and appropriate use of emollients. Practices that enhance appearance include the use of cosmetics, botulinum, exfoliation, fillers, laser resurfacing, microdermabrasion, peels, retinol therapy. Skin care is a routine daily procedure in many settings, such as skin that is either too dry or too moist, and prevention of dermatitis and prevention of skin injuries.
Skin care is a part of the treatment of wound healing, radiation therapy and some medications.
Skin-Care Goals with This 4-Week Challenge
If you’ve been meaning to start taking your skin-care routine seriously, there’s no time like the present. But resist the urge to Google “best skin-care routine” and then make an immediate and massive overhaul to your medicine cabinet. As with any goal, taking baby steps is the way to go, says Mona Gohara, M.D., associate clinical professor of dermatology at the Yale School of Medicine. She suggests coming up with a plan and making one small change per week. Think of it the way you would a more traditional new year’s resolution. If you go from avoiding the gym to aiming to crush HIIT workouts six days a week, you’ll be more likely to give up than if you had you made incremental changes.
Plus, piling on all the skin-care products can do more harm than good. Certain combinations of different products can make your skin especially prone to becoming red, flaky, or itchy, and applying too much product can increase your risk of a reaction, Arielle Kauvar, M.D., director of New York Laser & Skin Care, previously told SHAPE.
Before you dive into this four-week skin-care challenge, know that while every face and its skin concerns are different, these four small tweaks are basically universal steps to achieve better skin. If you choose to try this again, but with other mico goals or products consider your lifestyle, skin type, and regimen starting point. For now, here’s a sample of a four-week plan to better skin could look like, according to Dr. Gohara.
Week One: Wash your face every day.
On days when you got slammed at work and your commute took forever, just taking off your makeup can seem like a herculean task. Goal number one can be to wash your face at night even when you really don’t feel like it. “Sweat, makeup, pollutants, or whatever you come in contact with throughout the day is all accumulating and just kind of sitting on your face,” says Dr. Gohara. “Some of it will naturally shed but some of it needs a little help to come off.” Washing your face provides that extra boost. Make sure to use a cleanser in your nightly face-care routine, but whether to also use one in the morning is a matter of personal preference, she says.
Week Two: Up your sunscreen efforts.
‘I’ve been applying sunscreen every two hours for my entire life,’ said no one ever. Everyone has room for improvement on the sunscreen front, so after you’ve established your face washing habit, turn your attention to SPF.
Before you tune this out, consider Dr. Gohara’s hack that makes sunscreen application feel like less of a chore: Choose formulas for your everyday face care that don’t have the scent and feel of traditional sunscreen. For her initial product layer in the morning, she applies a moisturizer that has SPF to get double the skin health benefits in just one product. For SPF reapplication throughout the day, she goes for a powder sunscreen, since it’s easy to apply over makeup and can soak up excess oil.
Pro tip: find a powder with iron oxide in it. “Iron oxide is something that not only protects you from ultraviolet light but also visible light like the lightbulbs in your office and blue light from your computer or phone screen,” says Dr. Gohara. Colorscience Sunforgettable Total Protection Brush-On Shield SPF 50 — Avène High Protection Tinted Compact SPF 50 , and IT Cosmetics CC+ Airbrush Perfecting Powder all incorporate iron oxide.
Week Three: Start using an exfoliator.
With steps one and two complete, you can move on to adding an exfoliator to your skin-care routine. “We lose like 50 million skin cells a day naturally,” says Dr. Gohara. Like cleansing, exfoliating is a key to completely removing dead skin cells so they don’t sit on the surface of your skin, which can leave it looking dull.
Which type of exfoliant works best for you will depend on your skin type. There are two types: mechanical, aka physical exfoliants, which use grit to remove dead skin cells (think: scrubs) and chemical exfoliants, which use enzymes or acids (e.g. glycolic acid or lactic acid) to break down gluten, proteins that binds dead skin cells together, so that they’re more easily removed. If you aren’t sure what product to try, read up on the best way to exfoliate according to your skin type.
Week Four: Add vitamin C.
Is vitamin C really worth all the hype? Dr. Gohara says yes. “I think vitamin C just makes everybody look better,” she says. “It’s a powerful antioxidant for the skin. There are these things called free radicals that are little chemical particles that wreak cosmetic havoc in the skin.” They break down collagen, causing the skin to thin out and lose elasticity. Antioxidants offer protection; Dr. Gohara compares antioxidants to Pac Man and free radicals to the little pellets that he gobbles up. Not only is vitamin C one of the most powerful antioxidants, but it also helps build collagen, she says.
You could spend hours researching vitamin C products, but there are a few key qualities that separate the good from the great. Dr. Gohara suggests going with a serum since they’re light and easy to layer, and trying to find a formula with 10–20 percent concentration of vitamin C. She also likes options that combine vitamin C and vitamin E together. Some studies suggest vitamin C works better when combined with other antioxidants. Skinceuticals C E Ferulic and Paula’s Choice Boost C15 Super Booster Concentrated Serum check all three boxes.
11 Ways to Take Care of Your Skin Without Products
Within the beauty industry and on social media, there’s so much emphasis on purchasing products. In fact, so much so there’s a name for it — beauty hauls — which basically means showing off one’s shopping spree of recently purchased products.
But products don’t solve all our skin woes. If you’re tapped out with a 15-step skin care routine and still finding yourself at loss, here are other unbottled ways to take care of your skin.
1. Limit your time in the sun
Yes, use sunscreen but for the non-product part of it: it’s time to play hide and seek.
An estimated 90 percent of skin aging is caused by the sun, specifically for folks with lighter skin (!), and not to mention the even scarier risk of skin cancer. Considering that’s a pretty huge number, it’s best to limit your sun exposure or seek shade when hanging out.
Don’t forget to protect your eyes where you can’t apply sunscreen too! Squinting doesn’t exactly protect your eyes and if you insist on doing the peering exercise, you may end up developing more lines and wrinkles around your eye and forehead area.
2. Sleep on a silk or satin pillowcase
While you can’t rub a wrinkle into your skin, you can cause them while sleeping! If you’re a side sleeper, you can be smooshing your face into your pillow, putting friction between the skin and fabric. This creates creases which can result in wrinkles since we sleep for a prolonged period of time.
But if you sleep on a silk pillowcase, the fabric allows your skin to “slip,” minimizing the chance of creating wrinkles. It’s also great for preventing frizzy hair!
3. Drink water
While drinking water doesn’t directly hydrate the skin it does help all of the body systems function better.
It aids the liver in eliminating toxins from the body, reduces puffiness, helps with kidney function (which in turn helps dark circles appear lighter), and may even help skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema.
How can you tell if you aren’t drinking enough water? Check your pee! If it’s a deep shade of amber it’s time to drink up. The color of lemonade is the goal.
4. Opting out of sugar
Sometimes the skin takes a while to catch up to how we felt or what we ate last week. If your energy source is primarily added sugar and refined carbohydrates, you might start seeing the effects of that on your skin.
After all, too much of one thing strains the body and skin. Too much exfoliating acids may strip your skin’s protective barrier, just like too much sugar may cause a surge in insulin (the hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates the amount of sugar in the blood), and inflammation.
This process produces an enzyme that attaches to collagen fibers breaking them down and causing them to lose strength and flexibility.
If you’re noticing your skin becoming more vulnerable to sun damage, a loss of elasticity, acne production, and more arrivals the wrinkles and lines department, check in with yourself: what’s driving your diet and can you take back control?
Addressing stress, for example, may help revive the brain energy you need for creating home-cooked meals. Studies show that your acne and/or rosacea gets better or worse based on what you eat, so it might be diet related as well.
Insulin surges may put your oil glands in overdrive, creating a breeding ground for acne to form. Fortunately, there are products to counteract that — so if sugar and refined carbs are staples to your diet, eat away, and rely on products instead!
5. Don’t pick and don’t touch your face
While it’s tempting to squeeze a pimple, you can create a lot more lasting damage to the skin than that instant gratification is worth. First, there’s a type of acne called acne mechanica, which is caused by friction from touching the face and pushing oil and bacteria back into the pore.
Secondly, picking and squeezing can result in a scar or a brown spot called post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. You may prefer dealing with scarring over acne, but it’s not an either or scenario. You can live without both!
6. Shower and wash your face with lukewarm water (not hot!)
Sebum (oil) in our skin has a wax-like consistency and using hot water to wash our face or shower with essentially “melts” the oil stripping the skin of much-needed moisture.
Lukewarm is best because it allows our oils to warm up a bit allowing a proper cleanse without completely stripping it. Keep at massaging your skin for a full minute to make the most out of your cleanser!
7. Wash your makeup brushes
Besides old makeup, of course, bacteria, oil, dust, and sweat accumulate on our makeup brushes. If not cleaned regularly all that junk is essentially smeared around your face during each makeup application. This can cause inflammation, clogged pores, and acne.
It’s best practice to clean your makeup brushes weekly!
8. Find ways to manage stress
When we’re stressed or anxious, our bodies release a hormone called cortisol. This hormone activates our flight or fight response (which is a good thing!) but constant stress keeps this response on fatigued overdrive (yep, a bad thing).
Specifically to our skin, increased levels of cortisol can cause us to lose our glow by diminishing the skin’s ability to retain moisture and encouraging an overproduction of oils.
High levels of cortisol
- puts a damper on your skin’s moisture levels, causing dryness and a grey, dull look
- causes a rebound production of oil, which can lead to acne
- premature wrinkle and line development
- redness and inflammation
- inflame and acerbate skin conditions like rosacea, eczema, and psoriasis
If that wasn’t enough, when you feel anxious or worried, you might notice redness or puffiness in your face. This is a result of increased blood flow, such as dilated blood vessels right underneath the surface of your skin.
9. Exercise
We all know that getting our sweat on is great for our entire body, but it also has some skin benefits as well.
When we move, we circulate our blood which carries oxygen and nutrients to all of our cells. Not only does this provide an instant glow, but it also helps our skin to repair itself faster.
Another perk to exercise is it helps to reduce stress and, in turn, reduce cortisol levels.
10. Avoid being around cigarette smoke
When tobacco is heated via cigarettes — or even, yes, vaping — it releases free radicals that damage the DNA of skin cells. This results in the breakdown of collagen and elastin.
It also constricts blood vessels which deplete the skin of much needed oxygen, vitamins, and nutrients. When that puff of toxic smoke is exhaled it hits the skin on the face and can cause blackheads, particularly around the mouth and cheek areas.
Over time this leads to accelerated aging, dehydration, dark circles, broken blood vessels, and an overall dull-looking complexion. Studies also indicate that smokers heal slower than non-smokers. That means when you do get a pimple it can take longer to heal which can lead to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.
11. Sleep
Beauty sleep is the real deal! While we slumber our bodies heal and regenerate cells.
Sleep decreases the stress hormone cortisol which is responsible for skin discoloration, thinning skin, and stretch marks. For the good stuff, sleep also increases the sleep hormone melatonin which acts as an antioxidant to fight fine lines, wrinkles, and skin cancer.
While snoozing we also produce new collagen which helps keep our face looking plump and wrinkle-free.
Last but not least, we produce a large amount of human growth hormone while we sleep which helps to repair the damage we encounter on a daily basis.
Sources:
http://www.hiwamag.com/beauty/skin-care-challenge/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_care
https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/beauty-style/skin-care-routine-challenge
