The humble toner has come a long way from the skin-stripping products we once knew them to be. These days, toners are full of active ingredients that nourish and soothe your skin.
Add to this the fact that they also prime skin to receive the full benefit of your skincare and it becomes clear just how indispensable toners are.
What does toner do for your skin?
Toners are often the first to be dismissed from a beauty routine. This may be due to the fact they look and act a lot like water. But it’s precisely this watery nature that allows your toner to rapidly penetrate the skin, deliver its active ingredients and prep your skin for the rest of your routine.
As a baseline, a good toner offers a quick burst of hydration, sweeps away any remaining impurities, tightens your pores, and balances the pH of your skin.
Your skin acts a little bit like a sponge in that it’s far more absorbent when it’s wet rather than dry. Toner acts as that skin prepping hydration, optimally priming your skin to receive further nourishment and hydration from your serums and lotions.
And this is just the beginning.
Introducing your skin microbiome
Our skin is home to a rich and diverse ecosystem of microorganisms that form a protective barrier against infection and pollution.
Much like the gut microbiome, the healthy functioning of your skin’s microbiome depends on increased microbial diversity. A healthy microbiome means a healthy skin barrier and less inflammation, dryness and itching.
When the skin’s microbiome becomes imbalanced the protective barrier is compromised. Imbalances of certain strains of bacteria have even been linked to chronic skin conditions such as rosacea (looking at you dermodex folliculorum), acne, psoriasis, and dermatitis.
With the rise of probiotic skincare, toners are now able to help protect this delicate barrier and increase microbiome diversity.
Toner that loves your skin
At Clemence Organics we offer two toners that can be used individually, or as a morning and evening combination.
Our Tone + Hydrate Spritz is pure organic rose water; a simple, highly-effective and time-tested hydrosol. What Cleopatra knew through observation we now know is true through science.
Tone + Hydrate balances your skin’s pH while its anti-inflammatory properties soothe the skin and reduce redness.
Organic rose is antiseptic and astringent, so while it’s tightening your pores, it also helps reduce puffiness and treats acne. It’s also beautifully hydrating.
Our Ultimate Biome Spritz is designed to protect and improve the health of your skin by supporting its microbiome. Probiotics boost the diversity of the biome and nourish the delicate skin barrier.
We added Australia’s richest source of natural vitamin C, Kakadu Plum, and Green Tea extract to stimulate collagen synthesis and protect against free radical damage caused by pollution, stress and too much sun, to name a few.
Hyaluronic acid allows the skin to retain moisture. It also contains organic rose hydrosol to calm inflammation, balance pH levels and gently tighten pores.
Which toner is right for your skin?
Each toner will treat your skin well and each has its place in your skincare routine.
For those with a skincare love affair (we can relate) we recommend using the Ultimate Biome Spritz in the morning, after cleansing. It will help protect your skin from environmental pollutants during the day. Then, use Tone + Hydrate in the evening, after cleansing, to tone, hydrate and reduce inflammation.
If you like to keep it simple with one product, we recommend Tone + Hydrate if your skin is young or if it doesn’t give you too much trouble. We recommend Ultimate Biome Spritz if your skin needs a little (or a lot of) extra TLC.
Welcome to the wonderful world of toners!
Bridget x
Sunscreen is something that we all know we're supposed to wear on a daily basis and it gets especially drummed into us from a beauty perspective as the best way to maintain the youthfulness of our skin. The thing that bothers me is that there is a lot of misinformation about the level of SPF required and the benefit to skin. I'm here to bust those myths!
Keeping our skin healthy shouldn’t be a difficult or complicated task. However, there are some really simple mistakes that we all make from time to time that can be detrimental to the health of our skin both short and long term. Here are the top 5 mistakes I commonly see:
1. Over cleansing
This is perhaps the most common skincare misstep. We all seem to think that squeaky clean skin is healthy skin but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Every time we cleanse our skin, we’re not only stripping it of dirt, food and make up, we also remove naturally produced oils in the skin, as well as some of the microbiome (the good bacteria, microorganisms etc) that helps maintain our skin’s barrier.
The skin on our bodies is often neglected as we tend to focus on our face and figure our bodies will just look after themselves. Big mistake!
Because our skin is our largest organ and most of what we put on it gets absorbed, choosing high-quality products for the body is so very important. They need to be 100% natural and as organic as possible, to avoid causing skin reactions, disrupting our hormones, and not adding to the toxin burden on our liver.
There are also some simple things you can do to look after your body that will reduce dryness, stop eczema from flaring up and keep it glowing.
