How to keep Skin Healthy and Glowing Naturally at Home:
Vitality, good health, radiant beauty. Glowing skin conveys all this and more.
It’s also an indication of how well you’re looking after your skin and allowing it ‘do its own thing’.
The more I discover about skin care, the more I see the need to keep everything as simple as possible.
Anti-aging serums and high-tech nanoparticle skin rejuvenating creams? Not for me.
You can’t get better than a skin care regime specifically designed to aid and enhance the body’s innate ability to take care of itself.
How to keep Skin Healthy and Glowing Naturally at Home
Here are my top seven tips for a beautiful, glowing complexion.
- Protect against sun damage
- Drink water throughout the day
- Cleanse with cleansing milk
- Do NOT use a toner after cleansing
- Keep it simple
- Get plenty of antioxidants
1: Protect against Sun Damage
Discovering this late in life can be a bit depressing if you’ve been a sun worshipper. But it’s never too late to take action.
Sunlight is a great provider of vitamin D, which we need for good bone health and a correctly functioning immune system. But:
– stay out too long
– avoid the middle of the day
– take advantage of shade
– and choose your sun block carefully
2: Drink Water throughout the Day
Ignore the doubters. Skin definitely appreciates a good top of up H20.
Then again, so do countless other parts of the body, from your digestive system to your brain.
If you’ve never been much of a water drinker before, I suggest you try it.
My skin is certainly a lot smoother and plumper when it’s well hydrated.
Aim for six to eight glasses a day.
3: Cleanse with Cleansing Milk
We all have our preferences, and cleansing milk is mine for good reason.
Cleansing milk contains more oil than water. This draws out grease and impurities like a magnet without harmful the skin’s natural protective barrier.
Go for a PH-balanced cleansing milk with AHAs, such as lactic acid. This loosens the ‘glue’ around lifeless skin cells and stimulates rebirth.
It’s also a good idea to exfoliate once or twice a week using a warm, damp face cloth.
4: Do NOT use a Toner after Cleansing
Surprised? Listen up.
The outermost layer of your skin contains something biologists call natural moisturizing factors (NMFs).
These little guys are hydroscopic: they love water and drink it in at every opportunity.
Trouble is, they do not know when to stop. They will guzzle away until they get so diluted they can’t hold onto what they’ve got.
Next thing you know, they are giving that water out to the atmosphere through evaporation.
So instead of soft and supple, skin, you can end up with skin that’s dry and flaky.
The main culprits here are toners, spritzers, water-based gels or any other ‘light moisturizers’ that contain more water than oil.
So do your skin a favour and dump these potential ‘de-moisturizers’.
5: Keep it Simple
The labels on some skincare products read like a recipe for chemical soup.
Of course, by law, every ingredient has been tested and passed as safe. But what of the combined effects of all these chemicals?
Can we know for certain that we’re not damaging our long-term health by continually putting them in our bodies?
– no parabens (widely used as a preservative)
– no mineral oil (which has no nutritional value)
– no synthetic perfumes
– no synthetic colors
6: Get Plenty of Antioxidants
Antioxidants help cancel out and undo the damaging effects of free radicals.
This damage occurs at a molecular level and reckoned to be a key factor in the formation of wrinkles. You can’t stop it happening any more than you can give up your need for oxygen.
But what you can do is make sure your body is has a regular and plentiful supply of antioxidants.
Many skin care products contain ingredients with antioxidant properties, such as vitamin A – which may be listed as retinol – vitamin E and rosemary extract.
But lots of common foods do the job. The best include beans (red, kidney, pinto), berries (cranberry, blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry), artichoke hearts, apples, prunes and pecans.
7: Take Care of Your Skin’s Protective Barrier
Skin is remarkable. But without proper care, it simply won’t perform as well as nature intended.
The skin’s outermost layer skin is made up of flattened (keratinized) cells.
These cells are entirely different from the deeper skin layers. Their purpose is to protect and preserve; they are our first line of defense.
Skin with a dull, dry, lifeless appearance is out of balance.
It no longer has the necessary composition of oils and water to do the job it was designed to do.
Sebum is the body’s natural moisturizer. But as we age, our body produces less and less sebum. This can lead to dry, flaky skin and the so-called visible signs of aging.
To restore the balance, we need to step up our intake of essential fatty acids. The most natural way to do this is through a properly balanced nutritional program.
You can also give your skin a helping hand from the outside with a specially formulated skin care product.
You want an oil, rather than a cream, ideally one with a blend of natural, organic, cold-pressed, plant-based oils.
How to Keep Skin Healthy and Glowing Naturally at Home
To Sum Up
In a perfect world, your skin would look after itself and we’d all have a naturally beautiful, glowing complexion.
But life isn’t like that. So why not follow these seven tips to help keep your skin looking and feeling wonderful?