Skin Knowledge

Fun fact: did you know that South Korean women spend twice as much of their income on skincare than their American counter parts. 

The Koreans are big into their beauty and skincare regime, so its no wonder they are at the forefront of creating new, innovative skincare products. And  these products have caught on in Europe and America. 

The now commonly known and used product of a BB cream came from Korea. It was first launched in America in 2011 but Korean women have been using it for decades. It is a blend of a moisturiser and a foundation, in 2014 the US market for BB cream alone was worth $164m.

In the UK the most common beauty routine is a 3 step one, cleanse, tone, moisturise. Whereas in Korea is it most common for a 10 step routine, which is…

1) Oil cleanse - This is the initial cleanse. The oil binds with makeup and dirt on the skin that then washes away when you wash off the oil cleanser.

2) Foam cleanse - Foam cleansing now really cleans your skin of the excess oil and bacteria. 

3) Exfoliate - Exfoliating slews away the dead skin cells and helps prevent clogged pore, pimples and comedones.

4) Tone - After cleansing and exfoliating this can throw your skins PH balance, a toner balances your skin, and gives it vital antioxidants. 

5) Essense - This is a lightweight nutritional hydration. It adds moisture and has high levels of active ingredients that takes the natural extracts deep into the skin.

6) Treatment - This step is dependant on your skin issue. If you have acne or blemishes, this is where you would use a spot treatment. If you dark marks, lines or pigmentation you would a retinol or glycolic acid treatment.

7) Mask - Again the type of mask will depend on your skin type and skin needs. Nor is it a daily use product, most Koreans will use a mask twice a week. The mask is an intense version of a treatment, it could contain high levels of vitamin c to help brighten the skin, it could have high levels of witch hazel or tea tree oil to help acne.

8) Eye cream - This is an anti-ageing step that helps prevent dark eyes, fine lines and other signs of ageing around the eyes.

9) Face cream - This is to lock in the skins moisture, keeping it plump and hydrated.

10) SPF sun-cream - the biggest signs of ageing, fine lines, dark spots, are all predominantly caused by the sun. SPF is a vital step in Korean skincare routines.

This routine is obviously a bit excessive and not for everyone. If you have sensitive skin, or any skincare issue it may aggravate it. 

How teas make a wonderful addition to your skincare routine.

Teas are wonderful things, and I’m not just saying that because I’m British. Teas and herbal brews have been used to treat all sorts of ailments for years, in many different cultures. Drinking a mug of tea warms you from the inside, mimicking the warmth we feel when we hug and reduces stress and anxiety levels. Tea is also filled with loads of antioxidants, antioxidants help heal and protect the cells in our body, so great for the skin! So why not try a healthy tea to help your skincare regimen or to just boost your overall health.

Personally, I have a green tea every morning and a camomile every evening.

Green Tea) Is packed with antioxidants and has great anti-inflammatory properties. A great choice for people with acne prone skin like me. As acne at its most basic is inflamed nodules of skin, so sipping some green tea can help with treating acne.

Spearmint Tea) I have hormonally related acne and I have researched a lot into natural ways of treating it, and spearmint tea is a great option. The body treats the certain compounds in spearmint in a hormonal way, so it goes towards reducing testosterone levels. Which when high is a big cause of acne, especially in women. Two cups a day and people have seen an improvement in their hormona acne.

Camomile) Is a great bed time cuppa. It has been used for years as a natural aid to help sleep and having a restful night’s sleep helps to reduce stress and improve overall health and well-being.

Black tea) Has high levels of antioxidants and helps our body get rid of toxins in the gut. Plus it is the go to cup of tea for most people.

and more!

So great stuff for our skin!

If you’re craving a cuppa now check out The Jolly Brew Tea Company. They are a small family run business based in Oxfordshire in the U.K. They offer a huge variety of different teas, all delicious and all good for you. Their teas are all ethically sourced and are eco-friendly as they have moved to fully recyclable and reusable materials. I personally love to support smaller businesses and if they’re local to me and have an ethical approach, even better.

Go explore the benefits of a cup of tea.

I, a 20-year-old woman, have given up wearing makeup. For a year I have been bare faced all day, every day, not even one lick of mascara. No, I am not a social outcast, no I do not live in a hole, yes, I do interact with society on a daily basis. So… what the hell am I thinking?

I first started getting pimples and spots aged 12, that lovely thing called puberty really did one over on me. At first, I didn’t really notice my skin going south, I’d never paid it much attention because I had never needed to.

A couple of years went by and my skin was getting worse and I was now definitely noticing the inflamed nodules and pustules clustered all over my face. I couldn’t ignore them even if I wanted to, my class mates were quick to point out my pimples to me. Kids are just that kind. My acne got worse and my mood plummeted. I would come home and feel repulsed by my bare face. I truly felt I was disgusting. Every time I looked in the mirror I would just break down and cry for hours on end. I would refuse to go to school, I just couldn’t face people looking at me and my skin. I ended up staying off school depressed for a whole month. It got so bad, at my lowest I was uncomfortable going into my bathroom as I knew there would be razors in there and I was scared I was going to do something stupid. Unfortunately, my experiences are common, 20% of people with acne will have suicidal thoughts because of it.

This was when makeup came into my life. I could hide the parts of me that made me feel so ugly. These wonderful, magic powders and foundations that would hide my skin and let me get on with life. Hooray for makeup!

Until the makeup started causing me to breakout even more. It was a vicious cycle of crying, picking, desperately coving up broken, red, bumpy skin, only to have it cause more acne and then start the cycle again. But I refused to give up the makeup. By this point my acne was so bad I was going to see dermatologists at the hospital, even to them I was too ashamed to even show my bare face. My makeup had become my security. It allowed me to be me. I didn’t have to worry about my friends staring at whatever monstrosity I had on my face that day. Makeup was a beautiful mask that gave me my life back.

I went on a course of very strong acne medicine called Roaccutane which cleared my skin beautifully. I would still get the odd spot, because you know I am only human, but it was fine, cover it up with makeup in the morning, forget about it for the rest of the day. Over the ‘acne years’ as I like to call them, I had become highly dependent on makeup. I no longer used makeup just to cover my spots, I had to put on makeup just to walk down to the shop, and this went on for years. I was aware of my makeup dependency, but I didn’t think it was odd, lots of girls laugh and say they wouldn’t be seen dead without their face on. All my friends would do their makeup before we’d meet up. Having this need to wear makeup in order to face the world was normal wasn’t it?

I still had problematic skin and knew wearing all that makeup was not helping, so I cut down on what I wore, still too scared to go cold turkey though. Until one morning while going about my usual routine of prime, foundation, concealer etc. my boyfriend casually said to me “you know you don’t have to wear makeup.” The idea of “not having to wear makeup” rang through my head for days. But you do have to wear makeup, I can’t go to work barefaced, they’d think I was unprofessional, nobody would take me seriously. All the women around me wear makeup, I would look so untidy next to them. And what if I get a spot, everyone would stare at it if I couldn’t cover it. But I hated this feeling of “having” to wear makeup, and that my bare face was something that needed to be hidden. So, one day I just didn’t pick up the concealer. I took the plunge and went to Uni without makeup. To my surprise, nobody cared.

Eczema is a extremely irritating, persistent skin condition that can often be chronic and stay with a person for many years or even a lifetime. So, when a product claiming to cure the dry, itchy skin condition comes on the market, eczema suffers are often a mix of hopeful and sceptical.

Eczema is frustrating, as it can flare up and down seemingly randomly, leaving people upset and confused at their own skin. As we know, skin conditions can have significant impacts on a persons mental and physical health, and eczema can be one of the toughest to push yourself through.

Pure Potions was founded by a mother and daughter team who began making their own skincare products in an attempt to help heal the daughters severely dry and itchy skin condition. They took a natural approach and used cold pressed oils like hemp and safflower seed oil as well as other organic ingredients in their concoctions. The products they made transformed the daughters skin and they put their products on the markets as Pure Potions.

I am (fortunately) not an eczema sufferer, I have the opposite problem of overly oily skin. However, a good friend of mine is an eczema sufferer and has been for as long as she can remember. She tried out the Pure Potions products on her active eczema, here are her thoughts:

It’s summer, it’s roasting hot, even the best of us have to deal with the dreaded chafe, the Chub Rub is real!

Chub Rub is where there is that awful mix of hot, sweaty limbs sticking and rubbing together in the summer heat, causing more heat, a rash, irritated skin and an irritated person on a hot summers day.

And chafing can happen to anyone! Big or small whatever your size, but it can be a particular problem if like me, you’ve got those thick thighs!

Previously we’ve tried things like:

- Baby Powder

- Vasaline/ Petrolim Jelly

- Aloe Vera Gel

Some can help, but it’s never for long as the (gross) combination of sweat and friction from the chafe rubs off whatever solution you apply. This is where your new found fave will come in, Smoovall.

Smoovall is the brainchild of entrepreneur Reginald Ofori who dreamt up the idea of the product after learning about the discomfort experienced by his girlfriend from skin chafing. He has already successfully launched the product in his native Netherlands, as well as Belgium and Germany and now is coming to my terf, the UK.

The thing that struck me most about this product is how easy it is to use. Its an aeresol, so you shake, spray, wait a few seconds and you’re set for multiple hours. 

Also how sleek and beautiful is that packaging!

I always find chafing is a problem if I’m doing exercise in the heat or anything a bit vigorous but a spray on the thighs with Smoovall just before and you have no chafing worries.

One of the ingredients in Smoovall is silk powder, which makes your skin feel super smooth and instead of your thighs sticking together they just glide right by.

A single bottle of 80 ml Smoovall Skin Contact Spray contains an average of 30 spray applications. It is priced at £12.99 plus £1.99 for delivery, which is free on orders over £20.

Just thought some of my fellow chub rub sufferers might be interested in hearing my thoughts on this unique product.

Those marks left behind from acne, whether they’re red, purple or brown, often all get put under the umbrella term of hyperpigmentation. When in fact there is different terminology and different things happening within your skin.

Post Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation (PIH) is related to the brown spots or marks, not red/purple spots. The brown discolorations are caused by an excess production of melanin. Vitamin C, AHAs, Hydroquinone are all great tools for inhibiting melanin which will fade the brown discoloration, but it will not do anything for red or purple scarring. PIH is more common in darker skin types  although it is not limited to any skin type.

Post Inflammatory Erythema (PIE) PIE is in the process of becoming the new terminology used to describe pink to red discoloration after an inflammatory acne lesion. Patients with lighter skin types the postinflammatory dyspigmentation is often not hyperpigmentation, but instead discrete erythematous macules (PIE). Acne may not be the only cause of postinflammatory erythema, as any resolving inflammatory process may have residual erythema.

In my experience AHAs, vitamin C serums, nicinamide, and time are the best healers of PIE

Source

So before treating your skin, identify the issue correctly.

Skincare is not an easy science to learn. Often people can get overwhelmed with the amount of information and advice out there. Here are some easy beginner steps you can take to help take care of your skin, and to get on the road towards clear, glowing skin.

1) Change your pillow cases and bedding more often.

Our face is covered in bacteria, good and bad. This bacteria, along with sweat and facial oils rub off onto your pillows and sheets. Then you go to sleep every night on pillows that have old sweat and oil and lots of bacteria that will clog pores and could cause acne and inflammation.

2) Increase the amount of water you drink

I’ve written a blog post all about this which I will link here. It helps thin out your skins sebum which helps keep pimples at bay. It hydrates your skin and other organs so you can be at your healthiest with plump glowing skin. Aim for at least 2 litres of water a day.

3) Stop touching your face

Just think about where your hands have been, on your phone, on toilets, on door handles and steering wheels, every time and place your hands are picking up more bacteria and you want to put that on your face!? No. Whenever you feel your hands going up to your skin, sit on them. Put notes on your mirrors to remind you not to touch or pick.

4) Change from using a physical exfoliator to a chemical one

Physical exfoliators feel like they are doing good. It feels like you are scrubbing off the bad stuff revealing new fresh skin. In fact physical exfoliators are all too often the causes of acne and other inflammatory skin conditions. The little bits in physical exfoliators cause micro tears in your skin which bacteria can get in and cause acne. Chemical exfoliators are actually much safer, and they help your skin speed up its skin cell turnover getting you to that fresh new skin look you want.

5) Healthy diet, healthy skin

Your skin is the largest organ in the human body. What we eat and drink directly affects in. Simple steps like eating more fruits and veggies, reducing the fast food and saturated fats in your diet will all help towards clearer skin. Here is a previous blog post on diet and acne.

We all have sebum, it’s that greasy, shiny fluid that comes out of our pores. When we are dehydrated, or just not as hydrated as we should be, that sebum becomes thicker and stickier. For people with acne their sebum is already naturally thicker and gloopier and clogging pores. When sebum is thick it’s gets stuck and clogs our pores which is the start of the lifecycle of a pimple.

Being dehydrated also thickens our blood, our blood is one of the ways our body gets rid of toxins. When there isn’t the water there should be it’s more difficult to remove those toxins and free radicals.