As a society, we have increasingly become dependent on medication for things like high blood pressure, tension headaches, and even depression. Skin care treatment for dryness may very well be necessary due to some side effect of your medication for a completely unrelated condition. For this reason, you always want to monitor any potential skin irritation immediately after starting any new medication. If you already have dry skin and can’t remember whether or not it was a problem before starting your medication, you may need to consult with your physician and discuss an alternative medication in order to rule out side effects as the cause of your dry skin.
Poor Nutrition
Skin care problems are often the result of poor nutrition. Our bodies require a delicate balance of nutrients in order to keep everything functioning properly, especially the skin. Vegetarians and vegans often run into dry skin issues as a result of not consuming enough animal fats in their diet. A vitamin B12 deficiency will cause your oil glands (sebaceous glands) to function improperly, generally leading to acne.
Basically, any attempt to address a skin care issue (be it oily, dry, or even itchy skin) should begin with a close look at diet. Dermatologists can best assess potential diet-related skin care problems and recommend corrective measures to naturally restore skin vitality.
However, here are some foods to avoid where possible in order to keep your skin as healthy as possible:
• fried foods (chicken, French fries)
• processed sugars
• caffeine, coffee, tea, soft drinks
• high fat dairy products like milk or cheese (consuming low fat varieties of milk and cheese may not be great, but they are better for your skin!)
Now the best thing that you can ingest for improved skin care is water.
That’s right, water. Water naturally removes toxins from your body-so the more you drink of it, the purer your body will be. Drinking lots of water is especially good for people with acne problems and it will also help reduce the onset of wrinkles.
Skin Care Problems Due to Sebaceous
Gland Problems
If you have ever been to a dermatologist because of acne problems then you are probably very familiar with sebaceous glands. Because the skin needs to be lubricated, it is covered with oil secreting glands known as sebaceous glands. If these glands become clogged with dirt, then bacteria begin growing inside and a pimple is the result. However, sebaceous glands can either become clogged and dry skin is caused or they can produce too much and cause oily skin. More often than not, problems with the sebaceous glands are due to poor diet and can usually be corrected rather easily.
Skin Care Problems Due to Diabetes
Believe it or not, even diabetes can cause you serious skin care problems. A person with diabetes has trouble regulating the blood sugar levels. When there is an excess of blood sugar in the body, the excess must be absorbed. To do this, the body uses a lot more water than normal and that can lead to dry skin.
Skin Care Treatment for Dryness
While diet must always be part of any skin care treatment regimen, it is just a simple fact that our bodies will need more help as we age. For this reason, a moisturizer of some sort will ultimately be needed. To this end, it is HIGHLY recommended that you use a natural skin moisturizer.
Moisturizers using natural ingredients are far less likely to cause the irritating side effects mentioned earlier. Synthetic ingredients are often less expensive to use in moisturizers but they are not the best skin care option because the body is less receptive to them. Natural ingredients, on average, cause fewer side effects and are therefore better where skin moisturizers are concerned.
Skin Care for Wrinkles
Wrinkles are probably the biggest cause of all skin care treatments in the United States. As a person ages, the skin naturally becomes less elastic. As a result, fine lines begin to form on the face which ultimately become the wrinkles we hate so much.
There are two main skin care strategies when it comes to wrinkles: affect the muscles that reveal the wrinkles or fill in the skin so the wrinkles are less noticeable. The first strategy involves Botox and the second Collagen injections.
Botox Skin Care
A person is actually having a strain of Botulism injected in their face when they opt for Botox skin care treatment. Botox actually interrupts the transmission of nerve impulses to the muscles that reveal our wrinkles. It may sound radical, but these injections do actually reduce the appearance of wrinkles on the face for a significant period of time. Now these injections can be costly and they must be repeated-but they are generally affective.
Collagen Injection Skin Care
Many people have a serious misunderstanding of collagen injections. The perception is that collagen is a form of fat that is injected into your face to fill in the lines caused by wrinkles. Actually, collagen is an effective form of skin care treatment for wrinkles not because it is fat-but because it is protein. In fact, collagen is a special protein that helps cells and blood vessels connect to one another. When this happens, the wrinkles fade because the collagen helps the skin to “rebuild” in areas where wrinkles form and actually fill in the lines. Again, collagen treatments tend to work but they also are expensive and need to be repeated.
Natural Anti-Wrinkle Creams
A cheaper, but slower, alternative to expensive skin care treatments for wrinkles is a simple cream. Anti-wrinkle creams work to rebuild the skin texture and helps with the elasticity over time. However, unlike Collagen or Botox injections, anti-wrinkle cream skin care treatment is only applied to the skin surface. This is why it takes so much longer. Still, an anti-wrinkle cream is a cost-effective and non-invasive treatment for wrinkles that does work if given enough time. Again, in order to reduce possible side effects, stick with creams that use natural ingredients as they will react better with your skin.
You are never too young or too old to start taking care of your skin. In fact, skin care and protection should be an essential part of your health, fitness, and beauty regime. If you take care of your skin, your skin will take care of you! But with all of the lotions, creams and potions on the market, it can be difficult to know what product will work for your skin. Many products claim to remove wrinkles or heals dry skin and others claim to contain expensive ingredients that say will help improve the effects of the product. Here is a guide to the basic skin care products on the market and how you can identify which product will work best for you.
A Look at the Products
There are several types of skin care products that may make a useful additional to your daily skin care. These include cleansers, sunscreens, moisturizers, eye creams, toners, exfoliants, retinoids, herbals and skin care supplements.
Toners: Skin toners offer an extra cleansing properties to the skin that helps remove oils, dirt and makeup. But if your skin has become dry, avoid using toners or use less frequently. These skin care products often contain alcohol or acetone and it can aggravate dry or sensitive skin.
Sunscreen: Sunscreen is an essential product for the care and protection of our skin. While it is true that some exposure to sunshine is necessary for the body to synthesize vitamin D, you really only need 10-15 minutes each day to accomplish this. Excess sun exposure can cause changes in the skin cells leading to damages which can develop brown spots, skin cancer, dry skin and premature wrinkles. It doesn’t matter if your skin is fair or dark, both skin color can become damage if its being expose too much of the sun. Prevent sun damages and lower your risk of developing skin issues by applying a liberal amount of sunscreen with at least a SPF 15 cream or lotion daily. Many moisturizers come with sunscreen already included.
Retinoids: Topical Vitamin A based products called Retinoids have made significant advances in reducing the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines. They help to temporarily “plump up” wrinkle areas and diminish its visibility.
Cleansers: Cleansers help to remove dirt, debris, pollutants and perspiration that accumulate on your skin throughout the day. These cleansers may come in liquid, foam or bar form.
Eye Creams: An eye cream can help improve the condition of the fragile skin around the eyes. It helps to hydrate and protect the eye area and it may even help to minimize dark circles or temporarily tighten fine lines.
Exfoliation: The use of moisturizer and cleansers help improve the appearance of skin by sloughing off dead skin cells on the surfaces. These may also help to smooth out the skin’s appearance and even discoloration from over exposure to the sun. As we age, the skin builds up dead skin cells which makes us look older, have rough skin and wrinkles or fine lines appear. Your skin appears healthy and youthful by exfoliating daily as well as feeling cleanliness and freshness.
Supplements: Coenzyme Q10 is a naturally occurring cellular antioxidant that has shown potential in the prevention and treatment of several disease, such as heart disease, Parkinson’s Disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer. It is also utilized in many moisturizing products for wrinkles reducing properties.
Herbals: Green tea and other herbal antioxidants can be applied topically or taken orally to fight free radical damage and improve its overall appearance.
Moisturizer: Moisturizers can soothe dry skin and make wrinkles less noticeable. They come in cream, lotion and oil form. Oily based moisturizers are good for severely dry skin whereas a cream or lotion is a better choice for the face as it will leave the face feeling less heavy and greasy. To get good results, use a moisturizer right after bathing to seal moisture into your skin.
Identifying the Ingredients Label
You may be wondering why skin care products come with such a confusing labeling system. The Food and Drug Administration receives many requests each year to decipher the language of cosmetic and personal care product labels. But while the FDA empathize with consumers, there really is no way to change the labeling and keep the information accurate. The ingredients need to be listed by the chemical names because it is essentially what they are. Even though a product may be marketed by its trade name, the labeled name will provide little clue as to identify its ingredients. But despite the technical language of the personal care product’s label, it is possible to glean some useful information. Ingredient labeling must be listed in sequence based on how much is included in the formula. As a consumer, you can compare similar products by seeing where a particular ingredient falls on the list. For instance, if you have sensitive skin, you may want to avoid products that has alcohol listed as its first ingredient verse having alcohol listed as one of the last ingredients.
Nourishing our skin daily is as important as taking care of our health. So, the next time you’re up for skin care products, be sure to look at the ingredient labeling and consider the types of skin care regimen that may help you to look your best.
Do you have problems with taking care of your skin? Do you feel like you have tried everything possible? You are not the only one. Many people are in the same position. That is why the following article was written– to give people with skin care problems some valuable advice.
When finishing up your skin care routine find the perfect toner for your skin. It will help tighten your skin and get rid of any dirt or makeup that you may have missed during washing. In place of the toner once a week you should try using a face mask which will deep clean your pores.
If you’re still looking for the perfect toner, consider using tea tree oil in your skin care routine. A little tea tree oil mixed with water in a water mist bottle makes for a lovely toner. Like any skin care item, take care to keep it out of your eyes.
If you need to use skin care products, use them on a consistent basis. Frequent use will give your favorite skin care products time to achieve the desired effect. If you need a reminder to perform your skin care regiment diligently, keep your products in plain sight. Keep these products near your nightstand for application before you go to bed.
To keep skin from becoming dry in the fall and winter, moisturize every single day after your bath or shower. This is the best time to take care of this part of your daily skin care routine because it takes advantage of the moisture that has been absorbed by the skin during bathing.
Don’t use germicidal soaps, extremely hot water, or intense scrubs to avoid dry leg skin. Soaps of a germicidal nature tend to remove an abundance of the natural oil found in skin. If you scrub your skin with hot water, the protective outer layout will become damaged. Use beauty soap with warm water and gentle rubbing to avoid dry skin on your legs.
To keep your skin looking its best, reduce stress and anxiety as part of your skin care routine. Taking steps to reduce and control stress in your daily life can help your skin look alive instead of tired and grey. Uncontrolled stress short circuits your skin’s natural ability to repair daily damage and often interferes with your ability to get the sleep you need for fresh looking skin.
Any skin care routine can be made more effective with the addition of adequate restful sleep every night. Your overall skin quality is adversely affected by the stress to your system caused by lack of sleep. Getting a good night’s sleep is the one highly effective beauty treatment for your skin that is absolutely free.
Make sure that your skin care routine involves the application of a foot lotion. Particularly in the winter months, your feet need a strong glycerine based lotion that will keep them from getting too dry. Also exfoliate every once in a while to take off your dead skin; that will help the foot lotion work a little better.
To improve your skin care routine, give yourself a dry brush exfoliation with a natural bristle brush every morning or evening before you shower. This will get rid of dead skin cells and help your skin to detoxify, giving your skin a healthier, better appearance. It will also decrease puffiness, and increase blood circulation.
As was mentioned in the beginning of this article, many people feel like they have tried everything they can to improve and take care of their skin. The purpose of the above article is to help people in this exact situation. Take this advice, and you will be on the road to perfect skin in no time.
Long known, is the fact that there are very few natural ethnic skin care products in the mainstream cosmetics industry to address skin of color properly. Seems almost everything formulated for our skin in the ethnic market is either too drying, too irritating, too greasy, or just plain too ineffective.
What makes some formulators of these products think these type of products are going to help our skin? One would wonder what they were thinking. Is there any hope?
It is extremely pleasing to say ‘indeed yes’, there is. Start using natural ethnic skin care products. Stop using toxic products. We know just how sensitive our skin is, so the first thing we need to do is avoid chemical-laden skin care and personal care products like the plague.
These types of products can prove to be devastating to our skin in many ways. Unfortunately, these products were saturating and even dominating the cosmetics industry for quite some time.
In both the ethnic personal care market as well as the mainstream personal care market, there’s a lot left to be desired. By now, you probably have a good idea why it is not recommended to use most mainstream personal care products for sensitive skin of color. Not to worry, natural personal care products are the answer.
Natural Skin Care: Herbs Make the Difference for Ethnic Skin
When it comes to natural skin care, herbs contained in products can have a very positive impact on ethnic skin. There is a fundamental difference in the way herbal skin care and conventional skin care works.
Herbs themselves, contain not only single active constituents, but many active constituents that provide necessary nutrients to the skin. These multiple compounds acting together, can more effectively address skin problems from every angle.
Remember, plant cells and human cells are very compatible. What does all this mean? It means that herbals treat not just the symptoms, but the underlying cause of any existing skin or health condition more effectively.
It is well-known that herbs are more gentle in nature, on not only the skin, but the body as a whole. This can be attributed to the fact that herbs have been extracted as naturally occurring substances. Herbs are gentle and do not produce any major, toxic side effects on skin.
This is especially beneficial for skin of color, as it is more reactive by nature than most other skin types and needs both the gentlest, and most effective treatment. Make no mistake about it, herbal skin care may be gentler, but this does not mean it is less effective. You’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Remember, 60-70% of what you put on your skin has the ability to penetrate your pores and eventually end up in your blood stream. If you are going to use products to address your skin condition, why not use something naturally healthy as well?
Natural products either purchased or home-made from natural ingredients, should be the preferred choice before conventional personal care products are sought after from the mainstream cosmetics industry.
Herbals vs. Modern Drugs in the Skin Care Industry
Modern drugs contained in mainstream or conventional skin care products (including benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, kojic acid, etc.) are manufactured in laboratories and then produced in mass quantities in factories.
Before reaching the general public, these drugs are tested on a large number of users. The knowledge that forms the basis of the conventional or mainstream skin care industry is based on experimental findings and observations.
To that extent, herbal treatments are also supported through years of fact-based evidence that has accumulated over generations and across cultures, thus their value is well-known.
The unfortunate fact is that the approach to testing herbal beauty remedies has not been as thorough and rigorous as the testing that is seen in the mainstream beauty industry.
So much money has been put into funding the analysis of modern drugs (also contained in many skin care products) that they should be able to produce evidence for the benefits of herbal treatments. In the modern drug and personal care markets, it’s all about the money.
It is much less cost-effective for mainstream cosmetic and skin care makers to produce active, natural and organic skin care products than to produce unnatural and even unsafe ones.
Remember that herbal treatments are different in that they are a complex mixture of a variety of active compounds. These active compounds work together to heal skin more effectively and are difficult to separate making duplication and measurement a difficult task for the mainstream formulator.
One Word of Caution
When selecting herbal ethnic skin care products for our dark skin, we must still be cautious for our skin’s sake. Beware of companies who tout themselves as offering you so-called ‘natural’, ‘herbal’ and ‘organic’ skin or hair care products and they really are not!
When it comes down to it, there may be tiny amounts of only one, two or maybe even three organic and/or natural ingredients in the entire product followed or preceded by a host of chemical ingredients such as coloring agents, preservatives, stabilizers, thickeners, PH balancers, fragrance and such. Please read labels carefully. Avoid these products. Your skin will thank you.
The Bottom Line
Dark skin types should be treated with the thorough understanding of our skin’s characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. Once we understand this, we can treat it more effectively with natural herbs and avoid the recurrence of excessive skin problems. We can start by becoming more educated about our beautiful dark skin (you are because you’re reading this article).
First, avoid unhealthy and unnatural skin care products, incorporate more fresh, nutrient rich foods in our diets, and use natural ethnic skin care products designed for ‘us’ (even if you have to make your own). You’re on your way