Importance of a Skin Care Routine

How often do you wash your face on a daily basis? If the answer is rarely, do you like the way your skin looks? Though our skin is the largest organ, we often forget to give it as much care and attention as it deserves. So often we want to have good skin, but don't want to do anything about it. Having younger acting and clear, beautiful skin takes effort, especially if you are trying to treat a skin condition like acne, wrinkles, or hyperpigmentation. Property skin care entails a daily regimen that cleanses, corrects, hydrates, and protects our skin from external and internal elements, as well as monthly visits with an Aesthetician.

Consider this: in a given month, you interact with your skin at least 60 times - once in the evening and once in the morning. This adds up to almost 22,000 instances a year when a simple routine can make a dramatic difference in your skin's health. However, any beneficial routine should incorporate cleansing, correcting, hydrating, and protecting elements.

If you want to really see results from a daily skin care regimen, you are going to have to spend a little extra money to get good products that are pharmaceutical grade. You will see results much faster and your skin will benefit much more from the use of effective professional products. Your daily skin care routine should contain at least four products, one from each step in the morning and evening. Below I will briefly highlight the tenets and importance of a daily routine that will ensure healthy and glowing skin.

The most important step of a daily skin care routine is cleanse. While many of us may assume that simply washing our face with water once a day will suffice, water and a washcloth alone are not enough to remove the bacteria, pollutants, excessive sebum, and dead skin cells that gather on our skin everyday. First and foremost, you need to be cleansing your skin every day in the morning and evening. Our skin works 24/7 to protect our bodies from harsh weather, UV rays, injuries, pain, and a host of other unpleasant sensations, as well as in contact with dirt, pollution, debris, makeup, etc., so setting aside a few minutes each day to tend to your skin seems a small price to pay. Cleansing the skin at night is going to get all of the dirt and makeup off of the skin, leaving you with a clean, but hydrated feeling. Using an active cleanser, either morning or night, will help to treat the skin conditions you are dealing with, including acne, pigmentation, fine lines, and wrinkles. Regular cleansing also keeps pores clear and reduces the chances of breakouts or a dull complexion.

The next step in your skin care regimen should be treat or correct. This is where you will incorporate treatment products specific to your skin type. These products are going to go into the skin and really work at the cellular level to achieve the results you want, whether it be fore wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, acne, Rosacea, thick and dull skin, uneven tone and texture, sagging, and sensitive skin. A skin corrector is used to treat a spectrum of ailments, from skin pigmentations, wrinkles, fine lines, photo-aging, loss of elasticity, and acne scars. You may want to try corrective serums with peptides and antioxidants to improve the appearance of the fine lines, wrinkles, and photodamage. Studies have repeatedly shown that the antioxidants found in many products protect against oxidative stress, whereas the plant stem cells have shown to be a promising alternative to human stem cells rejuvenation and turnover.

Now that we treated our conditions, we will now balance or hydrate our skin. As our skin ages, it gradually loses the ability to retain moisture. Without adequate moisture, our skin cells become famished to the degree that elastin and collagen fibers become brittle and break or clump together. This, combined with shrinking fat cells, lead to dull, deflated-looking skin. Keeping your skin moisturized is one of the most important steps, benefiting the skin in so many ways. It is going to make your makeup go on better, your skin will feel moisturized and supple, and the look of your skin will improve. Not only does fully-hydrated skin make you look and feel younger, but it helps skin maintain its elasticity and brightness.

The last step, which is another important step, is protect. Skin cancer is the most preventable form of cancer, yet most of us do not adequately protect our skin from harsh UV rays. For the best protection, you should use a broad-spectrum sunscreen that has at least an SPF 15. Broad-spectrum sunscreens offer significant protection against both sunburn-inducing UVB rays and cancer/photodamage inducing UVA rays, whereas the traditional SPF rating applies only to protection from UVB rays. You should also apply your sunscreen at last 30 minutes before venturing outdoors, and re-applying your sunscreen every 80 minutes to ensure maximum protection from UV radiation. Absolutely everyone needs to use a sunscreen all year round. Just because it is cloudy does not mean that UV rays are not going to damage your skin. The damage the sun causes to your skin will age it faster than anything.

To ensure that youthful, glowing skin, you should follow a daily skin care routine that incorporates cleansing, correcting, hydrating, and protecting. Skin should be cleansed at least twice a day with a gentle cleanser before using any corrective products for your specific skin concerns. Skin should be properly hydrated to ensure norman skin function and to retain skin's natural elasticity and suppleness. Your routine should conclude with a protecting product that can guard the skin against harmful (and largely preventable) sun damage, with regular re-application if you are spending a good deal of time outdoors. Finally, you should seek treatment from a certified skin care professional at least once a month, to receive a thorough skin evaluation and treatment recommendations. Though beauty may only be skin deep, well-maintained and glowing skin is an indicator of one's overall health and well-being.