Best Daily Routine for Healthy Skin

Daily Routine for Healthy Skin: Think Past Your Face

Your daily routine for healthy skin should include your neck and chest. The skin of your neck and upper chest is very sensitive, making it a prime target for telltale signs of aging such as dryness, sunspots, and wrinkles. To keep this area looking youthful, use facial cleansing creams that hydrate and cleanse gently instead of using deodorant soaps, which can be drying. Top it all off with a good facial moisturizing cream.

Daily Routine for Healthy Skin: Check for Dryness

Your daily routine for healthy skin should include a check for dry skin. The outer layer of your skin may be drier – and more in need of moisturizing TLC – than you realize, even if it’s not scaly, itchy, or peeling. Try this two-second test: Scratch a small area on your arm or leg with your fingernail. If a white scratch mark is left behind, your skin is dry and needs more moisture.

Daily Routine for Healthy Skin: Go Simple

Your daily routine for healthy skin should include simple products. Turns out, clean living extends to your skin care too. Keep your beauty products clean and simple, particularly if you have sensitive skin. Stay away from products with colour or fragrance and those that produce bubbles or have “antibacterial” on the label. These can all irritate skin. Even if your skin isn’t super-sensitive, steer clear of scented lotions and perfumes before spending a day outdoors. Scented products can lead to blotchy skin when exposed to the sun, and attract biting insects.

Try to use a single family of skin-care products, too. If you buy and use lots of different products, there’s a good chance that some contain the same ingredients, thus making them redundant. You may be overusing an active ingredient that’s irritating in higher doses.

Also, some brands just aren’t very compatible with others, although you have no way of knowing that until after you pay for and open them. You’ll get much better results if you use brands of products that are designed and formulated to work together. You may have to shell out a little more cash, but experts agree you’ll get better results.

Daily Routine for Healthy Skin: Limit Shower Time

Take shower time into consideration for healthy skin. Long, hot showers strip skin of its moisture and wash away its protective oils. Limit showers to no more than 10 minutes and keep the water as cool as you can stand it.

Consider these tips when buying and using soaps and cleansers:
– Switch from deodorant soap to one with added fat.
– Rub with a loofah or bath brush daily. This helps keep ingrown hairs and scaly skin under control.
– While in the shower, gently scrub bumpy or scaly skin with a circular motion to remove dead cells. For extra-smooth skin, sprinkle a few drops of an AHA product on the loofah before scrubbing. (Make sure to store your loofah in a dry place with good air circulation.)

Daily Routine for Healthy Skin: Moisturize After Bathing

Moisturizing after your bath, should be a part of your daily routine for healthy skin. Lock in moisture by applying a cream or lotion within three minutes of leaving the tub or shower to trap moisture in the upper layers of the skin and prevent dryness and itching. Select a moisturizer that contains skin-repairing ingredients: Moisturizers can stop dryness, bruising, and tearing, but they won’t directly fix wrinkles. Look for one of these active ingredients when choosing yours: humectants, such as glycerin, sorbitol, urea, or propylene glycol. These attract water by pulling it up from deeper skin layers. They’re good choices for people with oily skin.

Don’t assume that expensive means better. When one large consumer organization tested moisturizers, it found that both pricey and cheaper products worked about the same.

Don’t ignore the under-eye area either. The thin, delicate skin beneath the eyes produces little of the protective oil that keeps skin soft. Specially formulated gels reduce puffiness and dark circles while they moisturize. Just make sure you don’t smear it on roughly; this can pull skin and encourage wrinkle formation. Instead, tap it on very gently.

Daily Routine for Healthy Skin: Switch Moisturizers When the Seasons Change

Always take into consideration seasonal changes when developing a daily healthy skin routine. Your skin needs more moisture in winter than in summer, so the same day you bring those sweaters down from the attic for the winter, buy a heavier moisturizer. When you trade in the sweaters for shorts, switch to a lighter one. Here’s why: When humidity drops in the winter, your skin loses moisture and feels dry, itchy, and irritated. Indoor heat, hot showers, and harsh winds further dry out skin. In contrast, summertime humidity levels are higher, so your skin retains more moisture and can easily replenish itself by absorbing moisture from the air.

For soft, young-looking hands and feet, moisturize while you sleep. Before you go to bed, slather on moisturizing cream, then slip on thin-fabric socks and gloves. It’s like a spa treatment, and you won’t get your sheets oily or rub off the cream.

Do deal with similarly dry skin on your face and neck, reach for a moisturizing mask. Use it twice a month for optimal results.

Daily Routine for Healthy Skin: Changes in Your Skin

Another important aspect of having a healthy skin routine is keeping a look out for changes in your skin. Skin goes through many changes as we reach our 40s, 50s, and beyond. Dryness – with flaking, itchiness, and even cracking – may develop even if it was never a problem in the past. Age spots can make a surprise appearance, and so can bright-red dots called cherry angiomas – harmless dilated blood vessels. You’ll want to pay attention to what’s happening to the surface of your skin when you’re showering, bathing, or washing your face. Here’s why: Not all skin changes are benign. If a new mole suddenly appears, or an existing mole changes size, shape, or color, see your doctor pronto, as it could be a sign of skin cancer.