The quality of your skin varies according to the season, what you’re eating, the climate you’re in, your current stress levels, and what you’re using on your skin.
Your skin is never one skin type but rather a living, breathing, changeable organ, and you should treat it as such. By adapting your diet and skincare, you can keep your skin happy, no matter the season.
For example, in Australia we’re in late autumn (almost winter) which means the weather is cool and dry. So, I’ve adapted my skincare routine, some habits and my diet, to keep my skin healthy.
Here are my top tips for keeping your skin happy this winter:
Currently I’m using the full range of Clémence products because I live in a dry climate and it’s getting pretty cold already. Work has been busy lately (plus we’ve been home schooling the kids on and off for the past few weeks) and so my stress levels are a little higher than usual.
Because of this I know that the extra cortisol pumping through my bloodstream is sending the nutrients I’m eating to other organs, feeding my skin last. I’m also exercising less at the moment because most days I struggle to get out of bed early enough to fit in a run.
These factors combined cause my skin to beg for extra hydration, and so I give it all the Serum, Lotion and Crèmeit desires. This means that I’m ALWAYS doubling up e.g. in the morning I’ll apply Serum and then my Protect + Clarify, and then in the evening I’ll apply Serum and then Ultimate Face Crème. (This compares to summer where I’ll only do Serum OR Lotion/Crème.)
You may have read my recent blog post on ‘How to cleanse your skin’ and so I won’t go into too much detail. Basically, the more you cleanse, the more natural oils you strip from your skin. To keep skin happy, keep cleansing to a once-a-day affair only.
Choose the time of day when your skin is at its dirtiest, most commonly the evening, to use our Refining Cleanser. When you’re not cleansing, you can simply splash your face with cool or warm water or use a moistened face cloth.
Because I’m moving less, my skin cell turnover is slowed, which means there is a greater build-up of dead skin cells, leading to more dry spots. To combat this I’m using the 2 in 1 Face Exfoliant + Mask every second day to nourish my skin and increase the turnover of skin cells. This keeps my skin smooth and glowing.
Using a Toner (either our Tone + Hydrate Spritz or Ultimate Biome Spritz) after cleansing keeps your skin’s biome happy (which means less redness and breakouts), and adds extra moisture.
Applying your Repair Face Serum and/or Ultimate Face Crème/Protect + Clarify directly after toning not only allows it to go on more smoothly (which also means you use less), but it seals this moisture into the skin.
During winter I try to feed my skin by adding extra fats to my diet including olive oil, avocado, nuts and oily fish (e.g. salmon).
And whilst I don’t drink as much water due to the colder weather, I sip on herbal teas throughout the day, and try not to have too much caffeine as it dehydrates skin.
My advice is to listen to what your skin needs according to where you’re at, what you’re eating and how you’re feeling. Choose skincare products that support your skin, rather than aggravate it. Remember, your skin has an inherent ability to heal itself and so the products you put on it should support this process, not make it harder.
If you can adapt to give your skin what it needs right now, you’ll find yourself with happy, healthy skin all winter long.
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.
