The Basics of Skincare

The Basics of Skincare

The answer to all your questions about making your make-up appear natural lies in the basic premise of skincare. Bottom line: If you don’t have good skin, then you don’t have good make-up. You simply don’t. It’s a fact people, a cold hard fact. Make-up covers slight imperfections like a zit here & there, but a whole face of them-no. Like I have always said, spend about 70% of time on your skincare regimen & then you only have to spend about 30% of your time on your make-up, more if you’re doing it for fun.

You know as well as I do that well nourished skin & a good skincare regimen will reward you with a more youthful, energized, healthier, fresher glow. Your skin will glow for real. So don’t abuse your skin. Get a simple, basic routine down because like most things I talk about, THIS IS NOT HARD. YOU CAN DO IT! So don’t believe all the hogwash on TV about you needing this & that. Not to sound like a hypnotist, but believe me & you’ll be rewarded. Just follow these guidelines, or “Alyisms”:

*Cleansing-You clean off the windows to your car or your house right, see all that dirt & much & garbage on your cloth? Well that crap is on your face too. So #1 rule: Don’t go to bed at night with washing your face. Otherwise you’ll let the grime from the day build-up in your pores, creating whiteheads, blackheads & zits. Sounds simple right?

• Don’t use the wrong products on your skin (IE-A client of mine (who I know is reading this) uses the same face wash she did when she was in middle school. Hello your skin has matured. Use something new on it.) The wrong products will strip your natural oil, or force it to secrete more oil, leaving your skin out of whack.
• The goal of cleaning your skin is to remove dirt & debris & nothing else. Unlike cleaning your floor or bathtub, making it completely squeaky clean, completely stripped, this is not the goal with your skin. At all. You want to remove make-up, dirt, excess oil & the pollution created on your skin by the environment. Stop there.

*Exfoliating-I have an analogy for you. When a lizard molts (sheds it skin), its skin is gray, scaly, dry & just all around disgusting. Then it sheds its skin & beautiful new, glowing skin is beneath! FYI ladies, we are not lizards. We do not shed, therefore we need to exfoliate our skin to reveal our fresh, beautiful skin underneath.

• We have layers & layers of dead skin on our face & when we don’t exfoliate, our make-up just sits atop those uneven layers & ultimately looks bad.
• So there are daily exfoliants & stronger doctor dispensed exfoliants. Most women, at some point, need a combination of both to refine the skin, so it’s smooth & creates an even canvas.
• People prone to acne & breakouts need to pay particular attention to exfoliation. Also those women who have more mature skin, will tend to look gray & lizard-like if they don’t use stronger exfoliation practices. On that same note, exfoliation reduces the appearance of fine lines.
• I love the Clarisonic because it just makes exfoliation so simple & easy.
• Another analogy for you-A wrinkle on your face is like a valley & there is dirt/mountains on either side of that valley, or wrinkle. This dirt or layers of dead skin will make the valley (wrinkles) look deeper.

*Hydration-Now that you’ve cleansed & exfoliated, creating a clean & smooth canvas, you need to moisturize.

• Another analogy (I should’ve been an English teacher!). Consider a plant. When a plant is properly watered/hydrated, its leaves are plump, full, healthy & overall, fresh looking. When it is lacking water, the plant’s leaves are shriveled, crunchy & overall quite unhealthy looking. Your skin is a plant leaf. So the moral of the story is: if your skin is hydrated, it looks like a hydrated plant leaf-plump, healthy & glowy. If it’s not moisturized, it looks like an unwatered plant leaf-Shriveled, unhealthy & dried up. What do you want your skin to look like?
• The cosmetic industry tries to tell us that oil is bad, that oil causes break-outs. But the right amount of oil keeps the skin hydrated & well-lubricated, again, creating a perfect canvas for make-up application.
• Hydrating with the proper products for your skin type is essential. And again as you age, your oil production in your skin diminishes, so you need that extra oomph with moisturizing products.

*Protect-If you don’t protect your skin from the sun, it will age much faster, thus speeding up wrinkle production, the slowing down of oil production etc. SPF is essential. Stay away from tanning beds. By the way, we offer True Glow Mobile Spray Tanning at the studio every Thursday, so book today & do not go near a tanning bed! Seriously.

• Everyday you need to use a full spectrum sunscreen separate from your moisturizer. Make sure it’s at least SPF 30 if not higher.
• Basically if you don’t protect your skin, you’ll most likely get some type of melanoma. Check out my friend Susie Shina’s rant about skin cancer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHTHWbZLEqE
• Skin Cancer Facts brought to you by the Skin Cancer Foundation:
• Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. More than one million skin cancers are diagnosed annually.
• Each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and colon.
• One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of a lifetime.
• Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common form of skin cancer; about one million of the cases diagnosed annually are basal cell carcinomas. Basal cell carcinomas are rarely fatal, but can be highly disfiguring.
• Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common form of skin cancer. More than 250,000 cases are diagnosed each year, resulting in approximately 2,500 deaths.
• Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are the two major forms of non-melanoma skin cancer. Between 40 and 50 percent of Americans who live to age 65 will have either skin cancer at least once.
• In 2004, the total direct cost associated with the treatment for non-melanoma skin cancers was more than $1 billion.
• About 90 percent of non-melanoma skin cancers are associated with exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.
• Up to 90 percent of the visible changes commonly attributed to aging are caused by the sun.
• Contrary to popular belief, 80 percent of a person’s lifetime sun exposure is not acquired before age 18; only about 23 percent of lifetime exposure occurs by age 18.

So dear readers, it is key, excuse me, absolutely essential to properly cleanse, exfoliate, hydrate & protect your skin to create a smooth, flawless canvas to work with. Also use products that are natural & organic, when possible because not only is cosmetic manufacturing the second cause of pollution on the planet, but also most of the products sold in drugstores are horrible for your skin, the planet and you as a whole anyway. S

To learn more about the Authentic Beauty approved devices  tune in my next blog.

‘T’il Next Time! Aly