Skincare advice

As you prepare to show more skin, get ready to face the sun’s rays with our top 6 summer skin tips!

1. Exfoliate for clearer, smoother skin

What it does: Exfoliation removes dead, dulling skin debris to prevent congestion and improve hydration from toners and moisturizers.

When: Perform in the mornings prior to toner, moisturizer, SPF and make-up application. Tip: Make-up will last longer on an exfoliated skin!

Don’t forget: After you exfoliate, follow with a hydrating body cream to seal in moisture, and always shield freshly exfoliated skin with an SPF (as recommended by the FDA). 

2. Keep skin hydrated

How: Up your regimen’s level of hydration with intensive masques, perfect for use one to two times a week. Boosters are a great fit, working best when layered underneath a moisturizer. Toners are a refreshing moisturizer prep, working to even out skin porosity. Tip: Refresh with a revitalizing toner spritz at your desk, in the car, at the gym, on the plane!

3. Make friends with H20

Why: Higher temperatures and more time outdoors leads to internal dehydration, which can result in headaches and dizzy spells!

What you can do: Eight 8-ounce glasses of plain, filtered water every day help maintain critical moisture balance of the body and skin, and assist in detoxification. Tip: If you drink caffeinated beverages, you must triple the amount of water you drink!

Recommended:  Plain and pure water!

4. When in doubt, apply (and reapply!)

Why:  It’s not enough to just apply sunscreen.: you must apply enough, and apply frequently.   Studies indicate that most people do not apply nearly as much daylight protection as they should.

How much: A teaspoon for the face. For the body, about as much as would fill a shot glass.

How often: Re-apply every two hours. Tip: Stay out of the midday sun from mid-morning to late afternoon whenever you can.

Bonus: Today’s sophisticated formulas and technology let you select sun protection that works with your skin condition. That means you can choose oil-free, mattifying formulas, extra emollient formulas for dry skin, or chemical free formulas for sensitized, reactive skin.

5. Soothe over-exposed skin

What: You forgot the sunscreen, didn’t apply enough, or got caught in a sunny spell.

What’s next: Unfortunately, the damage is done, but you don’t have to suffer in pain! Super-soothing botanicals and cooling gels can help prevent peeling and reduce redness and inflammation.

How: Apply cooling balms generously over-exposed skin, preferably at the first sight of a pink glow. 

Prevent: One blistering sunburn doubles your risk of melanoma — remember to get a yearly skin exam by a doctor and perform a self-examination once a month to detect early warning signs of carcinomas and malignant melanoma. Look for a new growth or any skin change.

6. Repair and treat sun damage

What causes skin damage: UV light causes photoaging in the form of brown spots, coarse skin and wrinkles, whether you have burned your skin or not. When sunlight comes in contact with skin a cascade of damage results (including the stripping of barrier lipids) causing inflammation, production of reactive oxygen molecules that affect healthy cell growth, and stimulation of collagen destructing enzymes.

What to do: A tan may be a popular summer look, but it indicates damage. Bombard your skin with age-fighting ingredients to help undo any damage that may occur, and to further protect it from the aging effects of UV.

There’s no shortage of myths when it comes to oily skin. Get the facts to further your understanding of how to really keep oil under control.

Myth 1: Oil can be controlled by stripping skin with harsh, drying ingredients such as alcohol.
FALSE. Stripping the skin of oil can actually cause an overproduction of oil. Why? Because skin’s trying to make up for and replace what’s lost! Those who self-treat oily skin with alcohol-based products often end up with dehydrated, irritated, sensitized skin.

Myth 2: Sunscreens increase oil production.
FALSE. Speak with your professional skin therapist about new, sophisticated formulations that won’t clog pores, and even contain oil-absorbing microsponges for the ultimate in sun protection and skin care benefits. 

Myth 3: A little sun exposure is ideal for drying up skin.
FALSE. Sun exposure is never good for skin. While it may seem the sun provides a temporary “drying” effect, sebaceous glands will fire into overdrive to help replace lost oil. The result: more oil on the surface than before.

MYTH 4: There’s nothing that can be done to help control oily skin.
FALSE! Don’t give up! An oily skin condition is just as manageable as any skin condition. Speak to a professional skin therapist who can analyze your skin, then provide a proper diagnosis including a regimen of products and lifestyle changes to keep skin under control.

Sick of mid-day slick and shine? Make a few adjustments to your skin care regimen to help control oil production from morning until night. 

• Create a “matte kit” that fits conveniently in your purse or backpack for mid-day touch-ups. Your kit should include oil-free lotions or sunscreens containing microsponges that help soak up excess oil. It can also contain wipes loaded with Salicylic Acid (not alcohol!) to help degrease skin, help prohibit acne bacteria, and keep skin feeling fresh.
• Use a clay-based cleanser to help mop up oil on the surface.
• After cleansing, apply a moisturizer, even if you think your skin doesn’t need it. Oily skin can suffer from dehydration (which is a lack of water) while being oily.
• Once or twice a week, apply a clay-based masque to help control sebaceous gland secretions and clean out pores.
• Exfoliation can help control oil production, improve skin texture, and help prevent clogged pores that lead to breakouts. It also helps prep the skin for maximum treatment from oil-controlling ingredients. Your professional skin therapist can prescribe a physical or chemical exfoliant to improve the health of skin.

Just as any brightening regimen must be approached with diligence to experience results, daily use of sun protection is just as imperative. 

Even the strictest of brightening regimens can be counteracted by minimal exposure to UV light. When a hyperpigmented area is exposed to UV light, more melanin production is triggered on a cellular level, causing further darkening. Ironically, this production of melanin is just your skin trying to protect itself from damaging UV light. 

Daily application of SPF will help shield skin from UV light to control melanin production on a cellular level.  It can even help lessen the appearance of hyperpigmentation triggered by hormone fluctuations (such as melasma) or post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (scarring).

Acne causes

The skin has thousands of tiny hair follicles. Each has a sebaceous gland that produces an oily substance, sebum. An abnormal reaction of the sebaceous glands in the skin to the male hormone testosterone causes them to make more sebum. This characteristically occurs at puberty when production of hormones including testosterone increases in both boys and girls. Hormonal changes also cause the cells of the top layer of skin (the epidermis) to overgrow, forming a thicker layer which can block the outflow of sebum from the glands.

As a result of overproduction of sebum and obstruction of its flow, the sebaceous glands become enlarged forming a pimple or spot.

The opening of the sebaceous gland is filled with a plug of sebum mixed with sloughed-off skin cells. These cells undergo a chemical reaction forming a black colour – a ’blackhead’ (which is therefore skin pigment, not dirt). At this point careful squeezing can push out the blackhead or pigmented sebum plug and let the spot drain (and so settle down).

In some spots the opening of the gland is so tiny that air cannot reach the sebum, so these spots don’t become blackheads but stay as whiteheads. These are more common and are likely to become red and inflamed, due to bacteria commonly found harmlessly on the skin surface which thrive on the sebum and multiply in the sebaceous gland, triggering an inflammatory reaction.

If the blocked hair follicle ruptures, inflammation can spread. This can lead to nodules and cysts forming, which leave scars as they disappear.

There’s no scientific basis to the idea that diet or particular foods make acne worse (for example, chocolate, fatty or fried foods), but some people do identify specific foods they believe make their acne worse.

Common triggers for acne include:

• Exams, new relationships and other forms of stress
• The time just before a period starts
• Pregnancy
• Certain cosmetics and medicines

Acne affects young adults the most, but can also be a problem for older people. It usually starts in puberty, between ages 12 and 14, when increased levels of the male-type sex hormones androgens (girls have these as well as boys) stimulate the sebaceous glands to increase production of sebum.

More than 90 per cent of teenagers have acne.

Women are generally affected at a younger age, the peak severity being between ages 17 and 18, while men peak between 19 and 20 years old. Men tend to be worst affected, because they produce more testosterone.

Acne symptoms

The main symptoms are spots that range from tiny, painless whiteheads to large, angry red cysts filled with sebum and pus. Scarring may leave discoloured pitting of the skin.

Acne appears most frequently on the face, but can also appear on the neck, behind the ears, on the chest and in the groin. Usually it’s a mild condition, but for 15 per cent of people it’s severe.

Acne treatments

There are two goals for treatment – to reduce the number of inflamed spots in order to prevent skin scarring and psychological distress, and to prevent new spots from forming. To achieve this, treatments aim to :

• Reduce inflammation
• Reduce sebum production
• Reduce the proliferation of skin cells
• Reduce levels of the bacteria propionibacterium acnes

The treatments used depend on the severity of the acne.

Healthy skin needs a good intake of vitamins A, C and E, zinc and at least eight glasses of water a day (all of us should do this whether or not we have spots).

It’s possible to gently squeeze blackheads and whiteheads to unblock the sebaceous glands but you should take care making sure your hands are clean and that you don’t exert too much pressure (there’s a risk that you will aggravate infection and damage the skin leading to worse scarring). If you are very aggressive with squeezing you may push infection and inflammatory chemicals deeper into the skin, making cysts and permanent scars more likely.

If someone only has a few spots occasionally, a medicated lotion or face wash that removes excess grease and cleanses the skin is all that’s needed. Gels, creams and lotions containing benzoyl peroxide are also helpful because the antibacterial and skin peeling actions help to reduce levels of bacteria and unblock skin pores.

Many complementary treatments that claim to treat acne work for some people but not others. Some of the more reliable ones are a facial gel mask of colloidal silicic acid (which should be used twice a day to remove excess grease and dead skin cells) and tea-tree oil gel, which has antiseptic and antibacterial effects.

Where spots are numerous and resistant to simple measures, and especially if the skin is very red and inflamed, antibiotic treatments may be more effective. These treatments may consist of a lotion which you apply to the spots, or a course of tablets. But you need to persist as it sometimes takes up to eight weeks for any noticeable improvement and the treatment is usually needed for at least six months.

While antibiotics can target the bacteria that cause spots to become red and inflamed, they do not affect the underlying process which causes spots to form in the first place.

Another effective treatment consists of chemical derivatives of vitamin A called retinoids. These chemicals, which are applied onto the skin surface not only reduce inflammation but also reduce the increase of cells, so helping to prevent new spots from forming as well as treating current spots.

Most treatments prescribed by doctors for acne consist of a combination of benzyl peroxide, antibiotics and retinoids, as well as other chemicals that may help such as zinc.

Some people with severe forms of scarring acne need more powerful medicines which should only be used under the guidance of hospital skin specialists and laser therapy to reduce the scars.

For a skincare consultation and advice on acne book in for our FREE Face Mapping Treatment and take home product samples perfect for your skin.

Thank you to the BBC Health website for this article