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The Secrets To Keep Your Skin Healthy and Radiant

As the winter months are approaching, we all ditch the fake tan and wrap up warm, but the cold weather can take it’s toll on our skin just like other factors can. I’ve compiled a handy guide to keeping your skin healthy and radiant all through the winter and beyond:

1. Protection from the Sun

If your lucky enough to still have sun or are going on a holiday where there will be sunny climates, then sunscreen is incredibly important. The UV rays that come from the sun may cause a suntan but it’s not all glory for your skin. To protect your skin from harmful rays, always apply sunscreen. Even if you never burn, it still matters. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15, and reapply ever 2 hours (when you’re outdoors obviously) or more often if you are swimming or sweating lots. Also, it is advised to wear protective clothing such as: wide brimmed sun hats, long pants and long sleeved tops. But I know this is unlikely because of the heat but I personally feel that sarongs or ‘beach dresses’ are good for this kind of protection.

And the most important thing is to avoid the sun when it is at it’s strongest: between 10am and around 4pm.

2. Ditch the Cigs

I know it is a matter of habit if you are a smoker, but the fact is that smoking affects your health but it also affects your skin. Here’s the science behind it: Smoking narrows the tiny blood vessels in the outer layers of the skin, and will make your skin look older and will contribute to wrinkles. Smoking also damages the collagen and elastin; these are the fibres that give the skin its strength and stretchiness, making your face look ‘droopy’ and unloved. If you smoke, there is basically no other way to protect your skin from it than quitting altogether. But as many know there are hundreds of organisations that can help you with quitting; the NHS Quit Kit being the most well known.

3. Nothing like a bitta’ TLC!

Treat your skin like you’d want to be treated, gently and with a bit of love! If you’re a bath baby and love soaking for hours then this may be contributing to unhealthy skin. Hot water and long showers or baths remove essential oils from your skin, so to prevent this use warm water rather than hot. And take the ‘prune’ look as a sign that it’s time to get out.

Avoid strong harmful products. Strong soaps and cleansers can strip these essential oils from your skin, so choose products that are much milder and kinder to the skin. I use the Simple range and absolutely love it, it’s so kind to my skin and the range is extensive so you’ll always find what you’re looking for.

After showers/baths or just washing your face, try to pat your skin dry with a towel rather than rubbing and scrubbing the water away, this keeps a little moisture in your skin after bathing. Nothing is more important than moisturising the skin, so consider a daily use moisturiser with an SPF to lock in moisture and keep skin looking and feeling it’s best.

4. Battle the Stress

Stress can play a huge part in your skins appearance so making a concious effort to keep stress at bay will not only make you feel better but you will look better too! Stress can cause unwanted breakouts of spots or acne and other skin problems, but there are a few things you can do to help it: Set reasonable limits in your life, Make your to-do list managable (no one wants to be overpowered), and most importantly make some ‘me time’ where you can just do the things that you enjoy doing. Whether this is going for a bike ride with the kids or sitting with a good book at home, make sure you have time to yourself as this will definitely keep stress out of your life.

5. Healthy Eating

You’re probably getting sick of those two words now because who doesn’t want to just scoff down chocolate now and again? But eating the right foods can make skin much more radiant and will probably make you feel better too. Eat loads of fruit, vegetables and lean proteins! Scientists say that a diet rich in Vitamin C and low in unhealthy fatty foods, unhealthy processed foods and refined carbohydrates may promote healthy skin. So why not try it for a few weeks and see if you can see the difference? & you might lose some weight or feel much better in your body too!

6. Avoid the Sunbeds

We all want to cling onto summer for a little longer, but the risk of skin cancer is rising just as fast as the sunbed craze. Going on the sunbeds may give an instant glow but it also gives an instant risk. Such a high intensity procedure in such a small time can overpower the skin and is likely to lead to skin cancer if carried out regularly, so if you want to look more tanned quickly, then stick to fake or spray tanning, it’s much less evasive on the skin and works just as well.

7. Keep it Simple

Some of you may come home from a shopping trip with a bag full of products thinking ‘the more the merrier’, well actually this may not be the case with beauty products. Using a lot of ingredients in different products can be irritating, and some ingredients will cancel out the effect of others taking you back to square one.
Keep your skincare regime simple, this way it is much easier to stick to it.

‘A simple cleanser, sunscreen, moisturiser and retinol or retinoid are all you need to healthy skin.’

8. Give it Time!

You may want to change products every week to see what works best for you, but this could be more harm than its worth. Changing products too often can also be counter productive.
Give products a chance, the best way to do this is using the entire tube or bottle of product (not all at once) before you decide to change to a different one. However, if your skin is reacting to the product with swelling, itchiness, irritation or burning then stop using it immediately.
But other than bad reactions, use the whole product before ticking it off as inneffective.

About Lind

I am a beauty journalist, writing about all things beauty to help all of you lovely ladies! I also edit and publish all of the content on DropOfPink. If you would like to write for DropOfPink don't hesitate to contact me! :) xo