Advanced Skin Care Tips: Keeping the Year-Round Glow

Advanced Skin Care Tips: Keeping the Year-Round Glow

For most beauty enthusiasts, healthy skin is the single most important part of how you present yourself. Clear, glowing skin gives you the confidence to look your best with minimal makeup. If you’re having trouble with skin that falls apart when the weather changes, the team at Groom+Style is here to help.

Yet skin care isn’t a one size fits all issue. You will likely need to adapt to the seasons and your environment. Dry, dull skin can become a major problem as the seasons change. If you live in a drier climate, you will probably fight a constant battle to keep your skin supple and glowing. For those in more humid climates, it is important to keep your skin clean and protected from the sun. Advanced skin care is not just about expensive serums, masks, and exfoliants. Much of it is based on forming good habits, consuming a balanced diet, and drinking plenty of water. You might even be helped greatly by sticking to a natural regimen.

That just touches the surface, so here are some more tips and strategies for keeping your skin looking great:

Winter Skin Rescue

The winter months can be cruel to your skin as the climate becomes drier, causing your lips and skin to peel, chap, and crack. This is the time of year to bust out your thicker moisturizers. Look for moisturizers infused with rose water to give your skin extra soothing against dryness and windburn.

Side note – winter, in general, can make you feel a bit average and some people have found that investing in a light therapy lamp can really help pick them up during those long sunless days.  G+S has put together a list of the best models on offer in this guide.

Exfoliation is especially important in the winter. As dryness causes a buildup of dead skin cells, including that summer tan you built up, you need to make sure that it’s easy for your skin to remove those cells. Exfoliation can take a few forms, including scrubs, sponges, and chemical exfoliants.

Before exfoliating, remember to use a cleanser! It will generally make the exfoliating process more effective by removing impurities on the skin first before you remove dead skin cells. There are many options on the market for cleansers, and your skin type will determine your needs, but some general recommendations can be made. Those with dry or sensitive skin might wish to look for products created specifically for them. Those with a normal or oily skin type might instead want to try something like this Black Paint Soap, especially if they are struggling with blackheads.

You can use a light scrub once a week. This can be an exfoliant sponge that you use with your normal cleanser. You can also try purchasing a scrub or adding very finely ground and already brewed coffee grounds in your daily cleanser. This step clears away your dead skin cells and gives you a bright face in the morning.

You can also use a chemical exfoliant to shed your dead skin and bring to light your fresh skin. Chemical exfoliants frequently come in the form of masks or over-night serums, so find one that best suits your skin routine. Remember to always moisturize after you exfoliate to protect the new skin cells that you have uncovered.

Never use makeup without moisturizing during the winter. This includes the lips. Make sure to use a balm on your lips before putting on more drying products like lipstick. It can also be helpful to carry a moisturizing spray with you to revive your complexion during the day.

Drink Water and Vitamin C to Stay Young

Drinking lots of water allows your skin to look plump, young, and glowing. Water flushes out the toxins that are littering your epidermis and clogging your pores. The more you drink, the more you will see your skin start to brighten.

You might notice at first that blemishes will rise to the surface of your skin. This means that the water is working to clean out your skin by pushing out infections and releasing them. If you continue drinking water, these breakouts will quickly clear up.

For brighter, better skin and natural anti-aging effects, add vitamin C supplements to your water intake. You can find these supplements in powder or pill form. Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that helps your skin cells stay young, tight, and healthy. It can even your skin tone and help to limit the damage done by sun exposure. It has also been known to help with dry skin.

Your Skin on a Diet

The frequency of breakouts and dull skin can be heavily influenced by the kind of food you eat. Animal fats and processed sugars are the major culprits of untimely breakouts. This includes dairy and high-fat meats. Some even claim that wheat can cause unclear skin, opting for gluten-free dietary options.

But disrupting your entire life by cutting out one or even a few of these food groups still may not lead you to perfect skin. Skin sensitivity is a genetic factor and diet alone won’t change it. Your best bet is to maintain a balanced diet, consuming only natural sugars and a moderate amount of dairy and red meat.

Stressed-out Skin? Try a Trip to the Spa or Gym

Another common cause of troubled skin is excessive stress. If you’re always wondering why you tend to have a breakout around the holidays or during a transitional period in your life, then you are probably prone to stress breakouts.

Stress triggers your adrenal glands, which in return releases sebum. Sebum is the oil that comes from your facial pores, and it is not directly bad until it mixes with dead skin and dirt that may also be on your face and causes clogging in those pores and hair follicles. To avoid pore clogging ingredients, it is essential to read the labels of the skincare products you use and opt for those that are non-comedogenic or labeled “oil-free.”

Effectively learning to manage your stress can drastically improve your quality of life on many levels. You could try meditation and other forms of artistic, creative, or musical expression. Your skin will thank you for relaxing while treating yourself to a skin rescue spa hour. You can set up your own home spa with relaxing music, a face mask, and a foot soak.

Exercise is one of the best ways to ease your stress and help your pores clean themselves out at the same time. Going for a run or bike ride could help you to sweat it out so that your sweat glands help you to release built up oil and dirt from your pores. The endorphins released by your run can elevate your mood and keep your body from stressful panicking. A yoga practice could also help by inducing moving meditation and stretching for stress relief. Just make sure to clean your face after you exercise.

Natural Spa Treatments in the Comfort of Your Home

If you feel like treating your skin to a complete spa treatment but do not want to leave your house then Waxing Kara’s Spa Bag might be just what you are looking for. Waxing Kara’s Spa Bag is a set of professional quality Farm to Body treatments accompanied by protocols used by professional spas providing body treatments. Each bag includes Honey Body Butter, Mineral Salt Soak, Honey Body Scrub, Sweet Lips Lip Balm and Spa Candle sourced from Kara Brook’s sustainable honeybee farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Inspired by nature and by honeybees, the treatment features natural and organic food-grade ingredients that would not be available if it weren’t for the mighty honeybee.

Always Use Sunscreen and Moisturizer

Sunscreen can save your face from developing wrinkles, dark spots, and dryness. If you really want to have a year-round glow, daily SPF will protect you from unwanted discoloration. Make sure that the sunscreen you’re using is formulated for the face, meaning that it will have a thinner consistency and be less likely to clog your pores.

Sunscreen is not only important for sunny day beach going. You should use it even when it’s cloudy outside, on a normal day, and especially if it’s snowing. Water and snow are both reflective surfaces that can cause you to absorb UV rays from unlikely angles.

It can be difficult to find your favorite moisturizer with a good SPF content. Remember that you can always mix the two by applying your SPF and moisturizer at the same time. Many tinted moisturizers, BB and CC creams also come with added SPF, making it easy to go throughout your day relatively makeup-free and bright. If you’re worried about incredients, you might find that one of these companies will have an approach that works for you.

Try Weekly Makeup-Free Days

Giving your skin at least one makeup-free day a week will allow it to breathe, clean itself, and heal. This gives your skin some time without having to battle the potential contaminants in your makeup and brushes.

When starting your makeup-free day, you will still want to go through your normal skincare routine including applying your toner and moisturizer. You can also use this day to boost my skin clearing with a skin detox tea.

Skin Detox teas can help you kill two birds with one stone. As these teas typically have no caffeine content, drinking them will help you to increase hydration in lieu of drinking water to flush out your skin. In addition, skin detox teas have herbs that help promote cleaner, brighter skin from the inside. These herbs include green tea, burdock, yellow, dock and red clover, rose petals, hibiscus, rooibos, and dandelion.

Speaking of tea, green tea is frequently used in mask form for clearing the skin with antioxidants and for reducing inflammation. If you don’t have a green tea mask handy and you have noticed a new pimple rising to the surface on your makeup-free day, don’t try to pop it or force it. Soak a green tea bag in warm water and place it right on the rising pimple to reduce redness and inflammation.

Glowing skin is about keeping your skin clean and inspired with lightweight moisturizers, routine exfoliation, a balanced diet, stress relief, and water intake. It’s all part of a great routine for healthy skin and hair. If you can keep up with these things in your routine, you will find yourself feeling more confident and comfortable in your own skin.