Personal Skincare Information

Mornings can be difficult. Between hitting the snooze button, to taking care of the kids, to making sure you get to work on time, sometimes your skin is the last thing on your mind. A good skincare regimen, however, can be essential for helping to kick off your day and making sure your skin is ready to take on the day. These eight simple steps can help you improve your morning routine and help you turn healthy looking skin into a habit.

Have a Glass of Water

A great way to start your daily skin routine is to have a glass of water when you wake up in the morning. Cold water can help hydrate your body in the morning. Your skin slowly becomes dehydrated through the night and early morning fluids can help your skin rehydrate.

Take a Warm Shower… Not Hot

A great way to remove that dirt and keep your skin healthy is to take a shower in the morning to start your day off fresh and clean. Try to avoid long, hot showers, which can strip your skin of the essential oils it produces to naturally moisturize by preventing dehydration.

Cleanse Your Face

While you might wash your face before you go to sleep, your skin continues to produce oils while you sleep to naturally protect itself. Be sure to wash your face every morning with lukewarm water and use a mild skin cleanser for your skin type. Then, follow up with a gentle hypoallergenic and fragrance-free moisturizer to soothe, protect and hydrate your skin.

Soothe Chapped Lips

You might think that chapped lips can only occur in the winter. But your lips can get dry in hot or cold temperatures. Make sure you keep you and your family’s lips moisturized and pain free all year long by using a petrolatum-containing product, to protect your lips against harsh temperatures.

Moisturize From Head to Toe

Making sure your skin is moisturized throughout the day—especially after stripping it in the shower—is a very important step in a morning routine for you and your family’s skin health. Combat dry skin and seal in moisture for the day by using a rich ointment like Aquaphor Healing Ointment. It protects and soothes your skin.

Consider Using a Makeup Primer

When used correctly and in moderation, primers can provide a layer in between your skin and your makeup to allow pores to stay makeup-free.

Make Sure Your Makeup Application is Sanitary

It’s very important that the makeup tools you use and the makeup you put on every morning is clean because it will be sitting on your face all day. If you are using powder or pressed foundation make sure your brushes are washed on a weekly basis. If you use liquid foundation, you may want to toss the sponge and just use your hands to evenly apply foundation—just make sure you wash your hands before and after touching your face.

Wear Sunscreen

No matter what season it is, UV rays from the sun can damage your skin. It is important that sunscreen is a part of your daily skincare regimen before you put on your makeup. Apply a thin layer of a broad spectrum sunscreen (at least SPF 30 or higher) onto your face for to help protect from sunburn and damaging effects of sun exposure.

Nighttime skincare routines are essential for healthy looking skin. How you prep your skin before bed every night is important in order to let it rest, rejuvenate, and heal while you sleep. Find out some of the best things you can do at night to get on the road to better and more beautiful skin.

Wash Your Face First

A great first step when you get home from work — before preparing dinner or watching TV — is to wash your face. If you wait until right before bed to wash your face, you may skip this step in order to get to sleep faster. But letting your face sit with makeup and other pore-cloggers for eight hours while you sleep can be harmful to your skin and pores. Ensure healthy looking, breakout-free skin by washing your makeup off of your face before you’re too tired.

Take a Shower

Taking a shower is a great way to wash off dirt and pollution that has found its way into your hair and skin throughout the day. A nice warm nighttime shower is a great way to help you relax from your stressful day while also making sure your skin is clean before you go to sleep. Try not to have the temperature too high or your shower too long, since doing so can strip essential oils off of the skin that it normally produces to protect itself.

Use a Humidifier

During the winter months your skin can get dehydrated from the lack of moisture in the warm air inside. You can easily change that by using a humidifier in your room while you sleep. The steam from the humidifier releases humidity and adds moisture in the air while you sleep.

Moisturize Your Body

This is an important step in your nighttime routine, so try to make it a habit. After washing your face or showering you should apply a non-comedogenic moisturizer to help hydrate and protect your skin: cleansing the skin strips your body of water and essential oils that it needs to protect itself from damage and dehydration. Use a multi-purpose moisturizing ointment, like Aquaphor Healing Ointment, to moisturize and soothe your face, arms, legs, and feet before bed. For even better results, try wearing cotton socks on your feet to wake up with softer, smoother skin.

Change Your Pillowcase Frequently

If you are not a person that likes to shower at night, you may be transferring dirt and grime collected on your skin and hair to your pillowcase. That can then transfer to and affect your face when you use the same pillowcase night after night. Swap out your pillowcases on a weekly basis in order to guarantee that your skin is getting the best and cleanest nighttime protection.

Get Some Sleep

Getting a decent amount of sleep every night is essential for your whole body, including your skin. Make sure you are clocking in seven to nine hours a night in order to reduce dark circles, redness, puffy eyes and to give your skin time to restore itself. To help get to sleep quickly, try creating a routine by going to bed at the same time every night.

Your skin is affected by all of the seasons, weather conditions, and elements in the air. All of these environmental factors can cause damage, dryness, and signs of aging to your skin. Learn how to protect your skin properly by knowing what can affect it and the preventative measures you can take throughout the year.

Windy Days

The wind can dry out your face. Before you go outside, make sure you apply a moisturizer, like Aquaphor Healing Ointment, to protect and relieve chapped or cracked skin and lips from the drying effects of wind and cold weather. Take additional precaution by wearing gloves and covering most of your face with a scarf in harsh wind conditions.

Cold Winters

The cold air can damage the lipid layer that protects and moisturizes your skin, potentially leaving you and your family with dry, cracked, or chapped faces, lips, and hands. Protect everyone’s skin in your family from excessive damage this winter by applying a hydrating moisturizer every morning and night to protect and help heal skin throughout the season.

Sweltering Heat

Hot days bring lots of sunshine and sweat. Your skin can actually dry out when it’s hot outside because your skin becomes dehydrated from excessive heat. On hot and humid days make sure to drink a lot of water to help keep your body, and skin, well-hydrated and wear sunscreen to protect your skin from the sun’s harmful UV rays.

Pollution in Urban Environments

Cigarettes, fossil fuels, and other elements that pollute the air in big cities can be harmful to your skin. These chemicals can enter your bloodstream through the air you breathe, damaging many of the organs of your body including your skin. Certain chemicals in heavily polluted air may cling to your skin and affect skin health. Be sure to cleanse your skin regularly to help wash off dirt and pollution.

Everyday Sunlight

Regardless of what season it is, the UV rays in sunlight can be harmful to your skin. People can and do frequently get sunburns during the winter months, even on cold days. Make sure that wearing a sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher is part of your daily skincare routine. For an added bonus, use a multi-purpose moisturizer with SPF to hydrate your skin and combat the seasonal elements.

Soothe Scaly Sunburn

Everyone loves the extra dose of vitamin D that comes with summer but all that fun in the sun can lead to painful sunburn. To treat inflamed skin, take a cool bath or use a cool water compress followed with skin-soothing gels and oils like aloe vera, which help calm inflammation. Next time, stay cool and sunburn-free by using a broad spectrum SPF 30, sunglasses, and a floppy hat.

Cool Off Oily Skin

If you have oily skin, you know the havoc that summer heat, humidity, and smog can cause on your skin. Control enlarged pores, excess shine, and acne by using a gel cleanser, SPF, and moisturizer every day. Believe it or not, oily skin needs moisture to keep it from overproducing oil and clogging pores. Reduce redness, breakouts, and inflammation with this plan.

Relieve Itchy Red Skin

More time spent outside means more time for pesky bug bites and rashes! Try using over the counter 1% hydrocortisone cream to help treat insect bites. You can use this treatment also if you think you’ve come in contact with poison ivy but wash your skin first and your clothes thoroughly. If the rash covers a large area of the body, call your doctor for a prescription cream.

Stop Folliculitis In Its Tracks

Folliculitis happens when common bacteria that live on the skin get into hair follicles, triggering inflamed red bumps and pimples, and can occur more in the summer thanks to sweaty exercise sessions outside. You can prevent folliculitis by changing out of your sweaty clothes quickly once you’re done with your workout. Also, try a topical medication, body wash, or soap with the active ingredient benzoyl peroxide, which may help kill the bacteria that cause folliculitis.

Shave, Wax or Laser?

When we get down to the nitty-gritty, who wants to be hairy scary? Not me and obviously not you; none of us do! The options for hair removal can be endless but finding the one that works best for you and your budget can be a bit challenging. Some of our options include razors, over-the-counter hair removal products, waxing and lasers. So, what is a girl to use when it comes to the least amount of pain, cost and hair regrowth?

When we get down to the nitty-gritty, who wants to be hairy scary? Not me and obviously not you; none of us do! The options for hair removal can be endless but finding the one that works best for you and your budget can be a bit challenging. Some of our options include razors, over-the-counter hair removal products, waxing and lasers. So, what is a girl to use when it comes to the least amount of pain, cost and hair regrowth?

Let’s face it, we’ve all shaved and waxed our legs, underarms and bikini area for years, and although today’s razors and over-the-counter hair removal products can be great, we still have to deal with the side effects like nicks, cuts, bleeding, razor burn, rashes and those infamous ingrown hairs, medically referred to as folliculitis.

So, let’s talk lasers. To give you some background, laser hair removal began about 20 years ago when it was experimentally used and tested. In 1997, the FDA approved certain lasers for hair removal. Laser hair removal works through a process called photothermolysis or SPTL. This proven procedure selectively targets dark matter or melanin which is what gives our skin and hair its color and darkness; it is also the area of hair growth. Lasers heat the hair follicle and not the skin. In addition, they deliver a specific wavelength of light and pulse duration where the light is absorbed by the dark areas/hair follicles on our skin.

Laser hair removal has been proven to significantly reduce or remove hair long-term or permanently. A lot of men and woman use laser hair removal to get baby-smooth skin and there’s no worry about scraggly hairs sticking out in the wrong places at the wrong time. The good news is that it’s also less painful and causes less skin irritation when compared to waxing. Yes, there can be side effects like itching, redness and swelling, but if you’re a chicken to the waxing, like me, then this option is a winner!

I know you’re wondering how much laser hair removal will set you back. Well, if you think about the cost of waxing, plus the number of times you have to go to the salon month after month, year after year, it can add up.

Yes, laser hair removal can cost more up front, but over the long run, it can actually save you money, time and there’s less pain. Who wouldn’t want baby-smooth, hairless skin that you don’t have to shave or wax – or deal with any of the mishaps that can happen. It’s so freeing to wake up knowing you can throw on your shorts and tank top without worrying about scary, hairy, scraggly stubble.

Step 1: Morning Routine

Rinse with warm water, no soap or cleanser. Follow with SPF and no moisturizer.

Step 2: Nightly Routine

Use an oil-free, water-based gentle gel cleanser and moisturizer. The texture should feel slippery, not thick. Avoid hard scrubs or sodium lauryl sulfate. Drying up the skin doesn’t help, and all products should be fragrance-free so they’re not irritating. Products should be labeled “noncomedogenic,” which means it won’t clog pores. Follow with moisturizer at night only.

Step 3: Oily Skin Mask

Once a week, make a homemade mask of three crushed aspirin with a tablespoon of plain yogurt and a tablespoon of honey. The honey and yogurt moisturize, and aspirin may calm down oily skin, redness, breakouts and reduce inflammation. The acetylsalicylic acid in aspirin is a close relative of salicylic acid, which dermatologists recommend to treat acne and for exfoliation.