Everyone wants a clear and glowing complexion. While some of us are born with smooth, pimple-free, radiant skin, the rest of us have to put in a little bit of effort to get the same gorgeous skin. Even though we all have different skin characteristics there are a few things that we can all do to assist our largest- and most visible- organ.
Here are 6 simple skincare habits for glowing skin:
- Wash your face before bed
- Change your pillowcase regularly
- Rehydrate often
- Add an antioxidant to your skin
- Excercise regularly
- Quit Sugar
Wash your face before bed
Just like every other organ in your body, your skin recharges, repairs and regenerates the most while you sleep. The very LEAST you can do is clean your pores of a day’s worth of pollution, dirt, make up, dead skin and sunscreen so that it can breathe throughout this very important process.
It’s so easy to hop into bed after a long day but don’t- you’ll wake up to clogged pores that build up bacteria and eventually turn into pimples. Your chances of a morning break-out are severely decreases by doing this one simple thing!
Change your pillowcase regularly
Your skin sheds dead skin cells every single day – so much so that in an average year we would have lost 40 lbs in a lifetime. What happens to the dead skin we shed? As unpleasant as this sounds, most of it ends up in our pillowcases, sheets and mattresses where it is then consumed by bacteria and mites. If you are not washing your sheets regularly then you could be transferring those mites and bacteria into your skin, creating problems with your skin’s microbiome which can result in break-outs.
Rehydrate often by drinking lots of water
Hydrated skin is healthy skin. Drink a lot of water – in fact, go grab a glass of water and finish it before you read the rest of this article!
There are two equally important ways to hydrate your skin: drinking water and adding moisture directly to your skin. Your skin needs to be hydrated so that it can quickly and effectively perform its regular cellular activities. Hydrating your skin flushes out the toxins before any damage can take place. If your skin is dehydrated, these processes are slowed, making your skin susceptible to free-radical damage.
Add an antioxidant-rich facial oil
Free radicals are awful villains (molecules actually) in your skin. They attack a perfectly healthy cell and turn it into another free-radical, creating an army of zombie skin-cells that attack your healthy cells. The only defense against free radicals are antioxidants.
There are many things that can increase the volume of free radicals in your skin and body (including lack of sleep, too much sugar in your diet, sun exposure, dehydration, and smoking) but the truth is you will never be able to get rid of them entirely. The good news is that you can keep them under control with antioxidants. All of Sealuxe’s Facial oils are antioxidants because they are rich in seaweed. Seaweed contains a rich, natural source of antioxidants in the form of vitamins C. E, B complex, flavonoids and carotenoids.
Exercise regularly
Anything you can do to increase your circulation counts as exercise, so it doesn’t have to be too strenuous. When you increase your heart rate, your body starts to sweat and your blood gets pumping through your veins a lot faster. You’ll notice a healthy, dewy sheen on your skin- that is your skin sweating and getting rid of all the toxic waste.
Exercise also lowers the stress hormone cortisol which is responsible for all sorts of nasty stuff in your skin including premature ageing and pimples.
Just make sure you wash all the excess sweat and toxins off your skin afterwards. You don’t want any of that sitting on your skin and clogging your pores!
Quit sugar
Okay – at least significantly cut back on sugar. I really can’t ask you to go cold turkey on some of life’s most important things, like chocolate. The way that our body processes sugar – through glycation – rapidly speeds up our ageing process. Glycation is the process by which sugar molecules cause our skin cells to become malformed and in some instances beyond repair. It breaks down the collagen (the part of our skin that prevents wrinkles and gives our skin a plump, healthy feeling) which in turn creates wrinkles and a dull looking complexion.
With just a little bit of effort and a slight change to your daily habits you’ll see an improvement in your skin – it will begin to clear up, and regular acne sufferers should only have to deal with the odd pimple as their skin tone changes to glowing and radiant!