Basic Skin Care Tips

Basic Skin Care Tips for Healthy, Clear and Beautiful Skin

Skin is our body’s first contact with the environment. Hence, our surroundings have profound effect on the skin and its appendages hair and nails. The texture, colour and smoothness of the skin reflect a person’s health and beauty. People notice a person first (mostly the lasting impression!) from the appearance of the skin and contour of the face. Hence maintaining a healthy, clear and beautiful skin is not only important from aesthetic reasons, but also from point of view of maintaining high self esteem, positive mental attitude and self confidence.
Maintaining a healthy skin does not depend upon regular usage of costly OTC cosmetic preparations, as many advertisements would have you believe!

NO!

There is no need for strict, obsessive-compulsive skin care routines either. In fact, you may harm the skin due to over-enthusiastic cleansing and grooming!
Attaining a flawless healthy skin is a natural outcome of healthy living style!
Let us examine the factors that contribute to the health of the skin, hair and nails. These will provide us with a strong base while we consider the Skin Care in general later on.

A. Internal Skin Care

1. Balanced Nutrition: A balanced diet of cereals, pulses, vegetables, meat, chicken, eggs and fish laced with plenty of fresh salad and fruits will ensure healthy glowing skin. Most dermatology text books shy away from blaming food habits and fads viz a viz skin health and diseases. But from my experience of treating skin disease for the last 25 years, I can definitely say that food does affect the skin in more ways than we would care to admit! For example, it is well known that regular intake of oily, fried or spicy foods invariably results in flare up of pimples on acne prone skin. Some of these problem foods that may cause pimples or breakouts include chocolates ,cakes, fried food, fast foods and fizzy drinks.

2. Adequate Hydration: Drinking adequate amount of water and fresh fruit juices will ensure the suppleness and elasticity of the skin. For normal, indoor persons, daily intake of 8-10 glasses of water or fruit juices will suffice. For those who go out, the intake should be double or triple depending upon the sun exposure and humidity.

3. Regular Exercise: Regular exercise - walking, running, bicycling, engaging in sports - will have a great impact on one’s skin complexion. Increased blood flow will bring in that extra warmth and glow to otherwise dull skin complexion.
Exercise will not only help you maintain optimum skin tone and texture, but it will also make you full of energy and freshness and a general feeling of well being. Exercise is also a great stress reliever.

4. Stress Management: Stress and prolonged, uncontrolled tension, anger, anxiety all are the nemesis of good health in general and healthy skin in particular. If you are stressed out, it will reflect on your skin first! Continuous perspiration will make the skin itchy and irritable; many stress induced diseases like psoriasis, pruritus, urticaria manifests themselves to damage the structure and integrity of the skin. Hence it is imperative that you set up a regular stress management program for yourself and your family without much delay.

5. Adequate Sleep: 7-8 hours of restful sleep is essential for good healthy skin.

6. Avoidance of Alcohol and Drugs: Alcohol in excess may harm the skin by interfering with nutrient absorption from the gut as well as by interfering with normal sleep and rest.

B. External Skin Care

1. Regular Cleansing: There are 4 stages in the daily cleansing routine: Cleansing, scrub with an exfoliating agent, using a toner and finally, application of moisturizer…this daily routine should make and maintain the healthy complexion of your skin. Select a gentle skin cleansing solution that works for your specific type of skin - dry, oily, normal. Using your selected product, cleanse face in a circular motion and rinse with lukewarm water, as hot water can cause drying up...
Follow the cleansing stage with an exfoliant. A granular product is often especially effective in smoothing rough areas and releasing dead skin cells, allowing the face to be better moisturized. But do not scrub too vigorously!
After the exfoliation process is over, use a toner or an astringent to tighten the skin and remove any makeup or cleanser residue. A nice alternative to a toner or astringent would be doing putting up a facial masque, which tackles clogged pores while firming the skin and leaving it soft and silky.
Finally, pat skin dry with a soft towel while keeping a little moisture. Apply a moisturizer to help protect skin from dryness. Those who have oily skin do not have to moisturize as often as those who have dry, normal or combination skin.

2. Use of moisturizers: Moisturizers can be either water based or oil based. People with oily skin should use water based moisturizers and vice versa. These should be applied immediately after washing the skin to retain the moisture on the surface. In winter, the application of moisturizers should be done at least twice daily without fail.

3. Use of Sun Screens: By using a moderate strength sunscreen, you will be protecting your skin from sun damage, skin cancer, aging and premature wrinkles. Too much sun can blister one’s lips, leaving them red, sore and charred. Sunburned skin will eventually peel most times, leaving skin areas blotchy and sensitive. The best approach to preventing sunburn and other sun-caused skin problems is to monitor how much time one spends in the sun and to avoid sun exposure by using sunscreen with SPF 15 or greater.

4. Treatment of Blemishes: Any skin blemishes should be treated immediately by a dermatology consultation to avoid bigger, deeper scars later on!

5. Treatment of Hormonal and other Systemic Diseases that may affect the health of the skin: If the skin is persistently rough, dry and unhealthy despite normal care, the possibility of hormonal imbalance, especially those of thyroid hormones should be investigated.