Naturally glowing skin that radiates well-being, feels velvety and looks like it’s been kissed by fresh air and healthy living is top of our beauty agenda come summer. Even more so during wedding season – and especially if it’s your turn to tie the knot. But how can you mimic that healthy holiday look when labouring at your desk or living in the city with all the stresses, pollution and lack of sleep that modern living entails? It’s a question our SkinCeuticals resident beauty expert Linda Blahr is asked constantly. Here, she gives her 5 top insider tips for dewy, glowing skin that will take you through the summer and beyond.
1. Thoroughly cleanse, morning and evening
We can’t stress enough how important a good daily cleansing routine – that is both gentle and thorough – is for glowing skin. Purifying the skin of dirt, makeup and dead skin cells helps to prevent pore congestion as well as the formation of imperfections and breakouts. It also prepares the skin to absorb products more efficiently, so it’s worth spending some time on this part of your regimen.
Your skin goes through different processes from day to night, so cleansing your face both morning and evening is also key. The morning cleanse will help to remove any excessive sebum (oil) produced by the sebaceous glands overnight whilst the night time routine will help to remove makeup and dirt from the day.
Remove makeup and impurities – use a gentle cleansing milk for for this stage to gently cleanse without drying out the skin. SkinCeuticals Gentle Cleanser is a light, mild cleansing milk suitable even for dry and sensitive skin. It is enriched with orange extract and allantoin and helps to remove impurities without drying skin.
Cleanse and exfoliate – look for a cleansing gel that will help to remove the residue from the first cleansing step properly whilst softly exfoliating dead skin cells.
SkinCeuticals Simply Clean gel is suitable for normal to combination skin and contains botanical extracts to help gently slough away dead skin cells and smooth rough skin. Or, if you have oily or acne-prone skin try SkinCeuticals Blemish + Age Cleanser which is enriched with exfoliating agents and a refreshing mint extract to help decongest pores and soothe irregularities.
Tone – toner helps re-balance the skin’s pH and prepare it for further product application. SkinCeuticals Equalizing Toner is an alcohol free toner with botanical extracts to refresh and restore balance to the skin’s natural pH.
2. Deep Clean
Between 1 – 3 times a week treat your skin to a deep cleaning clarifying mask, especially if you feel overwhelmed by demanding skin care regimens or aren’t vigilant about daily cleansing. A mask will help to accelerate skin’s renewal whilst refining skin texture and balancing the skin tone. Leave it on for ten minutes before thoroughly removing it with a damp cloth followed by a toner.
SkinCeuticals Clarifying Clay Masque is a mattifying mask with high quality natural clays and botanical extracts which gently exfoliate dead skin cells whilst helping to decongest pores and remove impurities, improving skin tone and helping to minimize the appearance of pores.
3. Know your smoothing actives
Support your skin’s natural renewal and hydration with targeted serums that contain retexturing active ingredients such as hydroxyethyl-urea and hyaluronic acid.
SkinCeuticals Retexturing Activator is a serum enriched with hyaluronic acid and a urea complex and helps aid the skin’s natural desquamation (exfoliation) process to improve cell turnover, and to replenish moisture for radiant, smooth looking skin.
4. Make your beauty sleep count with glycolic acid
Glycolic acid is one of nature’s wonder ingredients for skin. This mild acid belongs to the family of alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) and its small molecular size makes it excellent at penetrating gently into the upper layers of the skin to help increase cellular turnover. This helps skin form a new, uniform surface that feels velvety soft. Furthermore, it can help to give skin a firmer appearance.
SkinCeuticals Glycolic 10 Renew Overnight is a glycolic acid cream, to be used at night, that promotes cellular turnover for radiant glowing skin.
TIP – Please, always apply a sunscreen during the day while using glycolic acid!
5. Call in the professionals
If you want excellent results fast, there’s nothing like a course of professional AHA peels to reveal glowing, more youthful looking skin in a heartbeat. Each peel treatment will reveal instantly fresh, hydrated, soft and dewy looking skin. Furthermore, regular AHA peels will help speed up the benefits of your home care routine to achieve your skin care goals in the shortest period.
If you’ve never had an AHA peel before we’d recommend that you start with a mild peel treatment such as the Gel Peel GL that combines glycolic acid with lactic acid – a mild, moisturising acid that even helps your skin maintain hydration. You can easily book this straightforward treatment during your lunch break – no downtime at all!
A course of 4 to 6 treatments every 2 weeks is the ideal programme to improve skin quality and texture significantly.
If all this seems like a lot to take on at first, don’t panic. Even taking action on a few of the above suggestions will help you on your way to glowing skin.