COMPLEXION! As with anything in art, you begin with the perfect canvas. Even in hair and makeup. For a hair stylist, if the client doesn’t have healthy hair, it’s much harder to create a new style, so we spend the bulk of our time offering a new hair regimen to nourish the hair back to a gorgeous canvas to support new styles. It’s the same for makeup! For a gorgeous application, the foundation must be properly nourished. Speaking in terms of your skin, of course!

I began my career in the beauty industry as an Esthetician. Skin care is my second passion! Over the past 6 years I’ve done product research and trials, learned about ingredients, and what works best for different skin types. Let’s explore and I’ll give my best tips and advice! Keep in mind I’m only elaborating on skin balance for your complexion, there’s much more detail for full skin care regimens.

Grab a piece of tissue paper ladies, we’re going to determine what type of skin you have! This test is best done in the morning after waking up. Simply take the paper and wipe your skin.

• SKIN TYPES

If the paper has no traces of oil, you belong in the normal to dry category.

NORMAL SKIN- vibrant, smooth and supple, elastic, great circulation, and least problematic! Lucky you!

DRY SKIN- you’re skin will feel tight and possibly flakey after wiping. Dry skin tends to look sallow due to poor circulation. You have tiny pores and have a tendency to wrinkle faster. You may also be prone to skin irritants. Anti-aging and hydration should be your best friend FOREVER.

If you found traces of oil on your tissue paper, your skin is considered either oily, or combination.

OILY SKIN- large pores with greasy, shiny skin which tends to be problematic. On the negative, oily skin is most likely to be acneic, However, on the positive, it is not as prone to aging and wrinkles due to the conditioning of the excess sebum!

COMBINATION SKIN- generally characterized by an oily zone on the forehead, between the eyes, down the nose and across the inner cheeks.

SENSITIVE SKIN- any of these skin types can suffer from sensitivities and irritants generally caused by  skin imbalance.

• SKIN BALANCING

Now that you understand your skin type, here’s a little bit of information on taking care of your skin, product recommendations, ingredients to avoid, ect. Skin care, simply put, is learning to balance your skin type. There are many great skin care lines on the market and it may take multiple regimen trials (allow 4-6 weeks of dedication as it can take up to 4 weeks of transition to begin seeing results) to find what works best for YOU.

NORMAL SKIN- As with EVERY skin type, aging prevention should be your main concern with skin care. The best anti-aging remedy is PREVENTION! It’s never too early to begin using products with antioxidant ingredients to fight free radicals which cause wrinkles! Early 20′s ladies, if you’re past that age, start today!

We recommend Intensive Skin Repair Serum by Yes to Carrots. It’s free of petroleum and parabens while blueberries help to fight the formation of free radicals! Sold online.

DRY SKIN- Stay away from products containing mineral oil (white oil, liquid paraffin, liquid petroleum). This ingredient is found in most cheaper brands (i.e. petroleum jelly and most “drug store” skin care) as is it very inexpensive for manufacturers to obtain in large quantities. However, it has been linked to premature aging (yuck!) and acts like plastic wrap on the skin. The molecules of mineral oil are too large for the pores in your skin to absorb so it sits on the outside of the skin creating a barrier. This blocks skin respiration and the skin from releasing toxins! Oxygen is important for sallow skin types.

Also consider this, most “moisturizers” are meant to create that “barrier” to “lock in” moisture. So they use the mineral oil which is cheap. However, your skin is already dry, so what exactly are you “locking in?” Wouldn’t you rather use a product that is actually going to hydrate your dry skin?? Your BFF from today forward should be hyaluronic acid (sodium hyaluronate, hyaluronan). HA is found naturally in the body and aids in soft tissue function and joint support! For skin care, it can contain up to 1,000x its own weight in moisture and draws that moisture in through the air (skin respiration).

It is also beneficial to stay away from harsh detergents in face washes (the SAME ones used in your dishwashing liquids that are advertised to fight “tough baked on grease,” sodium lauryl sulfate/sodium laureth sulfate, which dry the skin more.

We recommend Hyaluronic Acid Serum by Reviva Labs to gain and retain moisture in your skin! Sold online and at ULTA.

OILY SKIN- Take note, over stimulating the skin with vigorous rubbing or the harsh abrasives of exfoliants will exacerbate the over production of oil. The vicious cycle for acne prone skin is this: you have too much oil being produced because your skin is imbalanced, that extra oil blocks your pores, you get a pimple, you use products with salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide to dry it up, this dries your skin out, so your skin thinks it needs more oil, so it produces more.. You see the cycle? It’s never ending. Find a balance. It’s also helpful to stay away from these ingredients that tend to over dry or irritate (cause breakouts) the skin: