Are you comfortable in your skin?

Skin care is one of the most important and most talked about topics concerning both beauty and health. You live in your skin, play in it, sleep in it, and do … everything in it!

Good skin care is easy with a little education about how your skin works - so here are some tips and facts to help you take good care of your birthday suit.

What Your Skin Needs To Be Healthy And Beautiful

Your skin benefits from the things inside and outside your body. A well balanced diet, plenty of water, and adequate rest are important for healthy skin. Exercising helps improve circulation and blood flow to your skin which helps it to renew and repair itself more quickly. 

On the outside, regular cleansing, moisturizing, and shielding it from the elements is important. Massaging also helps to promote blood flow and the shedding of dead skin cells. Using a loofah sponge in the shower is a great way to massage, scrub away dead cells, and in general, cleanse your skin all at the same time.

While oily skin can be more prone to acne, it has the benefit of retaining its youthful look a lot longer than other skin types. A good diet and skin care regimen help to ward off acne which occurs when the oils block your pores. Working up a sweat with regular exercise also helps to flush out the pores so that dirt and bacteria don’t become trapped inside. Your skin might break out the first time you do a serious workout if your pores are already blocked up, but over time regular exercise will keep them flushed out and your skin will clear up.

The Sun And Your Skin

Coco Chanel is credited with making the suntan popular in the 1920’s after returning to Paris from her vacation in Deauville on the French coast. We now know that tanning has some good, healthy effects on the skin, but it can also cause blemishes, wrinkles, and skin cancer.

The good: Sun exposure speeds up cellular turnover because the skin is working hard to protect itself so it sluffs off dead cells and replaces them with fresh cells faster. This helps to keep your pores unclogged. It also keeps your skin free of dry, dead skin and creates a clear, healthy complexion. A light suntan will also camoflauge acne and minor skin imperfections. Tanning stimulates the pigment melanin which is where the bronze coloring comes from and is what gives the skin more protection from sunburn.

The sun also helps your body make vitamin D which helps to regulate calcium and phosphorus to build strong bones. Milk and cereals are often fortified with vitamin D, especially in climates that don’t get that much sunlight to make up for the lack of it.

The bad: Ultraviolet rays from the sun or from tanning beds can have a lot of harmful effects. UV rays can cause premature wrinkling and age spots. Wrinkling is caused as the UV rays penetrate your skin and destroy the collagen fibers inside. They also dehydrate the skin which gives it a tough leathery texture over time. Severe dehydration causes dryness and flaking after the initial tanning glow wears off which can be very uncomfortable and itchy.

Incidents of skin cancer have been on the rise for decades. Removing cancerous cells from the skin can be very disfiguring, but not catching it and treating it can have deadly consequences. The more often you get sunburned, the greater your chances are of getting skin cancer later on.

What to do: Always wear sunscreen with a high SPF (sun protection factor) and keep yourself covered as much as possible. You can get a bad sunburn or damage your skin in as little as fifteen minutes so limit your exposure to ten minutes at most. Try to stay out of the sun during the middle of the day - when the sun is high in the sky, its rays are at their harshest.

And after having fun in the sun, it’s a good idea to wash your face and body thoroughly to get rid of the excess oil and sweat that can clog up your pores.

Winter Skin Care

Humidity is a natural moisterizer and the humidity is lower during the winter. Low humidity and cold wind both contribute to drying out your skin very quickly. Even the sun can be just as harmful during the winter as it is in the summer. The winter chill means you don’t feel the heat as much as you would during the summer so exposed skin could be getting more rays than you think. Especially if you’re out in the snow on a bright, clear day.

What to do: Protect your skin and bundle up. Wear scarves and gloves. And moisturize your skin regularly. During the winter, you typically don’t sweat as much as in the summer and hot showers will remove a lot more of the natural oils from your skin. If the weather is nice, take your sunscreen snowboarding with you.

Pollution And Your Skin

In the city, smog does perform one good function for your skin. It blocks out some of the sun’s harmful UV rays. That’s about all the good it does. Air pollution is mostly bad, especially for your lungs, and it can leave a fine sooty residue on your skin which can provoke acne outbreaks.

Indoors, heating and air conditioning systems rob the air of moisture and can dry your skin out. Sanitizers, cleaning agents and room fresheners all contribute to drying out your skin - especially the aerosol sprays.

What to do: Wash your face more often, especially if you’re acne prone. Once or twice during the midday will prevent the dirt and grime caused by pollution from building up and clogging your pores. Indoors, try to keep the thermostat at a more moderate temperature. Another good thing to do is to keep a window open while you sleep or invest in a humidifier. Good ventilation helps keep the humidity level normal and the amount of airborne household chemicals down.

How Smoking And Drinking Affects Your skin

Smoking constricts the blood vessels in your skin and robs it of its blood supply. Smoking turns a healthy, color filled complexion to a dull grayish yellow. It also causes premature wrinkles.

Drinking alcohol dilates the blood vessels and gives your skin a warm glow. At least, moderate drinking does. Heavy or frequent drinking will turn that pretty little glow into a web of broken blood vessels over time that show up as little red lines.

What to do: Stop smoking, and not just for your skin, but for your health in general. If you drink, do it in moderation. After drinking alcohol, make sure you drink plenty of water or fruit juice soon after - this is also the best way to prevent a hangover because that wonderful pounding sensation in your head the next day is caused by severe dehydration.

Facts About Your Skin

• Skin is an organ. In fact it’s the largest organ your body has.
• Your skin covers about 19 square feet of surface area.
• In women, skin weighs an average of seven pounds. For men it’s ten pounds.
• Skin varies in thickness between one-thirtieth and one-eighth of an inch. It is thinnest on your face, neck and eyelids, and thickest on your palms, the soles of your feet, and your back. Your abdomen is where the skin is the most stretchable - great for pregnancies (and beer bellies).
• Your skin has about two million sweat glands which have a very important function. They help regulate body temperature through perspiration and they also discard waste water and minerals
• Your skin takes good care of itself. Not only does it work hard to repair cuts and bruises but it is constantly shedding. You get a whole new skin about once a month.
• Vitamins B and D synthesis is anothe rimportant job of your skin.

“Beauty is but skin deep”

~ Sir John Davies

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