Philosophy of Natural Skincare: End the irritation and allergies; safeguard your body from toxic, carcinogenic chemicals.
Toxic, irritating, and carcinogenic chemicals are found in most common cosmetics, hair care, and bath and body products. Removing these harmful substances from your daily routines will allow your skin, hair, and nails to reveal their optimal state. Simply by not irritating your skin, hair and nails, or stripping the delicate moisture barrier and turning to natural cosmetics and skincare, you can substantially improve your appearance and cultivate a radiant, “juicy” glow.
My Philosopy of Skincare in a sentence: Don’t irritate your skin.
The sad truth about conventional skincare is that many products that are made for twice daily use have very irritating ingredients. For years I used a gel cleanser and followed with a toner, never understanding why my skin wouldn’t stop being red, irritated, and breaking out. The prescription treatments that my dermatologist prescribed for me burned my skin, and it was never explained to me that the Retin-A he prescribed to me made it extremely sensitive to the sun’s uv rays. I was never happy with my skin, and I heard a constant refrain of, “you would be so good-looking if your skin wasn’t so bad.” The painful cystic acne got so bad that before I left for college I took a round of Accutane, which is a Vitamin A treatment so strong its almost poisonous. From that round of treatment, I still have permanent liver damage, which the doctors told me was an acceptable amount of irreversible damage to sustain.
Then in my early twenties my mother started going to an aesthetician that specialized in natural skincare and took a gentle approach. That first treatment with her changed my skin just in the 90 minute session, but moreover she suggested I bring all the products I use every day and she went through the ingredients list one by one and explained to me why they were ruining my skin and what to replace them with.
I will do my best to paraphrase her advice:
No foaming cleansers or shampoos. Sodium Laureth Sulfate or SLS is a ubiquitous ingredient in body washes, facial cleansing gels, shampoos, dishwashing soap, and hand-soap. It does a great job of taking grease off of pots and pans, and anyone who does their own washing up most likely wears rubber gloves because they know full-well the toll the dish soap takes on their hands. Now when you are using the exact same thing to cleanse your skin and hair, it is very efficient in removing the entire moisture barrier from your skin, hair, and scalp. Most people know what dishpan hands look like, if you are using an SLS based facial cleanser; you are giving yourself dishpan face.
Replace cleansing gel with a cream cleanser, you never need to cleanse your skin down to, “squeaky clean.” That squeaky-clean feeling is a bad thing; it is a sign that you have stripped your skin’s moisture barrier. If you are experiencing oil or product build-up there are other ways to remove it that do not strip your skin. If you must have a foaming cleanser experience, at least switch to a saponified oil-based cleanser that has the consistency of Castile soap. Even though I think that strips too much, it’s a huge improvement on an SLS-based cleanser. Oil cleansing is becoming popular, and people get great results, it’s just not particularly for me because I don’t ever put a washcloth to my face. For hair I suggest conditioner washing, which has long been a staple of textured hair care and truly transformed my unmanageable semi-textured hair into smooth, glossy “done” looking with almost no styling required.
No denatured alcohol on your skin. An after-cleansing toner that stung was part of most people’s skincare routines not so long ago. A few decades ago most cleansers had a very basic ph and thus an acidic toner helped bring the skin’s ph to a more acidic level as well as removing the last bit of dirt or makeup that was not cleansed away. However for many people, the denatured alcohol caused redness and irritation, and worse still painful cystic acne, pimples, impacted pores, and blackheads. All of those things are a version of the same thing; the alcohol has stripped the skin and oil glands that reside in the hair shafts (also known as pores) get the message that they need to produce oil at a feverish pace to restore the moisture barrier. The oil then gets trapped in the pores, and gets stuck causing a blockage. When the blockage becomes infected then it becomes a pimple, or worse hard cystic acne. These are painful, and can be permanently disfiguring. Although I have greatly reduced my cystic acne scars, they are still visible to me to this day. They essentially create a hole in your collagen layer and they can resemble an icepick stab or just a marble-sized dent.
Replace harsh alcohol based toners with rosewater: Pure, undiluted rosewater will perform all the tasks of a traditional toner and then some. Your skin’s ph will be restored to a slightly acidic ph that will make the oil glands neither under nor overproduce. Any traces of dirt or makeup will be removed gently, the slight acidity reduces bacteria, skin-cell turnover is encouraged, and a bright, light-catching, pore-less radiance is achieved.
If your skin is too oily, then give your skin moisture: This piece of advice really left me shocked. My greasy, oily skin was like an oil faucet back in my teenage years and I did everything I could to try and remove the oil, and stop it from coming back. Once I started moisturizing my skin, a perfect balance was quickly achieved. I couldn’t believe I had been doing it so wrong for so long.
Replace products that remove oil, with nourishing moisturizing oil. Rather than removing all of the oil that your face is producing, change your skin conditions so that your skin is not getting a signal to overproduce oil. Break the oil overproduction cycle once and for all send your oil glands the signal that the skin has all the moisture it requires and they can ease up. The little papers that they sell to blot your oily face also exacerbate the problem of oily skin. On a humid, sweaty day, I recommend wiping your face with a rosewater soaked pad. It will refresh the skin and leave behind just the right amount of moisture.
No manual exfoliation, only chemical, and in moderation. Many people use a scrub with some sort of grit or particles daily as part of their skincare routine. While some get the results they want, this is certainly not the optimal way to go about this and I think it’s just what their skin is used to vs. what’s best for it. Manual exfoliation promotes the overproduction of oil and is a great way to irritate your skin. When the skin layer is thinned too much it can set off an entire full-body allergic reaction. I stupidly did this during a spa day, scrubbing my face with a facial scrub, and my entire body with a very expensive body scrub. I woke up the next day looking like something out of a horror movie and it took weeks to get my skin to calm down.
Too much chemical peeling can lead to permanent redness and sensitivity and it is believed that there is a limited amount of times skin cells can regenerate, so peeling needs to be a periodic and not daily treatment.
Replace scrubs with gentle, moderate chemical exfoliation: In moderation, products such as glycolic acid, lactic acid, salicylic acid, retinoids (retinol and prescription Retin-A) can be transformative and beneficial. It’s a bit like bodybuilding for your skin. When you lift weights you go slightly beyond the muscle’s capability and damage it, when you sleep the muscle is repaired and slightly stronger than before. When you use any of the aforementioned treatments, you are purposely damaging the outer layer of the skin and causing it to re-grow. Premature aging can usually be corrected with these methods because they tend to be just on the surface of the skin unlike deep wrinkles that get down into the muscle. The skin cells after being damaged then regrow in a smoother, more regular arrangement. The pores, which are actually hair follicles, purge whatever is inside them. This is the most effective way to get rid of blackheads, and old acne plugs and scars. Like anything chemical exfoliation is a tool that can be used and misused. You can transform your skin, and you can cause permanent damage so be very careful, and very skeptical if someone is trying to sell you on chemical peels or microdermabrasion and ask detailed questions about risks of permanent injury, pain, recovery and duration of downtime. For example how many days will you have to stay indoors with the curtains and shutters closed to avoid even the slightest amount of sunlight damaging your skin?
Here is a quick-rundown on the different types of chemical exfoliants:
Chemical Exfoliation: Know the Risks of Sun Damage and Irritation
Don’t pull and tug on your skin: When you touch your skin whether during cleansing or applying products, do so gently and lightly and always in an upwards motion. The elasticity of your skin is finite, and if you pull on your skin too much it will become saggy and wrinkly. My best advice for touching your skin is to do so lightly enough that you do not move the skin. Facial massage is a fantastic way to increase blood flow and pamper your skin, but just remember to give it a light touch and always in an upwards motion.
Stronger doesn’t mean better: Most of the time a stronger concentration of treatment won’t be more effective than a gentler version. If for example you wish to use Argan oil on your face and you apply it undiluted to your skin, most likely you will end up with red, scaly, broken out skin. When you use my facial moisturizing oils the Argan oil is diluted with a nourishing Avocado oil and the concentration is low enough not irritate, and high enough to be effective. The same goes for a chemical peel or acne treatment, using a peel at 3% is probably going to give you a better end-result than at 7% because you are irritating your skin with a higher concentration and irritated skin doesn’t look good. It all goes back to my first point: don’t irritate your skin.
Wear sunscreen daily:
Although some limited sun exposure is thought to be healthy, for the purposes of vanity I suggest wearing a natural mineral-based sunscreen daily. The uv damage to your skin is cumulative, even on a cloudy day there are still uv rays reaching your skin. If you aren’t wearing sunscreen on your face, start today. While you repair and rejuvenate your skin through proper skincare, you’ll be able to hold onto your gains and not suffer further uv photo damage. If you have been negligent about wearing sunscreen and you are suffering from droopy, wrinkled, discolored, skin I would suggest visiting a dermatologist and exploring your options for non-invasive laser and particularly radio-frequency treatments to resurface your skin. You don’t need to do a seared to the bone chemical peel or laser peel to see an improvement in your skin. The best treatment of this variety that I have seen in person is Ultherapy, where the skin is resurfaced, tightened, and the body naturally produces a new layer of collagen. It’s painful and expensive, but from the results I have seen with my own eyes it does provide a young-looking skin vs just a smooth or a tight looking skin. If my face and neck lost their elasticity this is the treatment I would turn to.
Besides just your face, your hands, neck, décolletage, and forearms can really accumulate a lot of uv damage, so it’s important to protect them from the sun. The uv rays can ruin the texture of your hair; wear a hat over your hair, or tie a scarf around your hair when you are in the sun. Use a moisturizer with sunscreen on the skin not covered by your clothing, and wear driving gloves when driving. You get so much sun in the car, especially in sunny climates.
Artificial Fragrances:
Artificial fragrances that are used in common cosmetic products; household cleaning products, air fresheners, scented candles, and laundry products can be extremely irritating to the skin. Whether through conventional perfume, skin or hair care, makeup, soaps, and moisturizers products seem to have heavier fragrances than ever, and almost all of them unless expressly stated are artificial. These can be so irritating to the skin and just set off a cycle of irritated skin that never looks its best. For the sake of your health as well as your appearance, stick to products that are either unscented or scented with botanical ingredients such as essential oils or absolutes.
Even if not applied directly to the skin, they can cause allergic reactions that manifest as sensitive, itchy, dry, skin that can break out in hives or any manner of unattractive rashes. I strongly recommend from the perspective of removing known and possible carcinogens from your environment to stop using any artificial air fresheners, cleaners, or scented candles. Simply put if your home smells bad, give it a good cleaning and air it out vs spraying carcinogenic toxins around. If you enjoy having a scent in the air at home, essential oils can be diffused as an alternative to scented candles, which even if completely natural still produce smoke that is unhealthy to breathe in. Just make sure that the essential oils that you are using are safe for your pets. Click Here for more info on Essential Oils and Pet Safety.
Besides these skincare routine factors, your looks are determined by lifestyle factors such as your diet, exercise habits, sleep quantity and quality, and hydration. Learn more about how you can improve your looks through lifestyle factors: Lifestyle Factors and Your Appearance.