Summer Skin Care
It’s summer and time to enjoy the outdoors and nature. I love the longer days, but that also means more sun exposure. We can still protect our skin and enjoy being outside. Taking care of your skin is a daily commitment. All the ick in the environment needs to come off at the end of the day, and the skin needs moisture and nutrition to stay healthy. Here is a breakdown of how I keep my skin glowing with my skin care routine.
The key to healthy skin is focused Skin Care; a routine, being consistent and intentional. Know what you put on your skin and do it everyday. Many products are not clean. They are made with harsh chemicals and hormone disrupting substances that cause cancer and lifestyle diseases. (see dirty dozen). What goes on your skin is absorbed into your body. If you can take all the trash out each day, great. But unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way. Our skin is the largest organ in the body and one of the signs your liver is working overtime are skin issues. Eczema, dermatitis and even sagging skin can be signs that you need detoxification. That’s another subject for another day.
There are three areas on your body that age you the fastest: your neck, the back of your hands and your décolletage. The evening provides the perfect lapse of time with a face free from makeup or environmental toxins to repair and restore itself when given the proper nutrients and minerals from your skin care routine.
I use Young Living Bloom Skin Care products because they are clean, ethically produced and they work. They don’t leave a residue on my skin that is absorbed into my blood stream that causes toxicity. Bloom Cleanser, Brightening Essence and Moisturizer provide a safe and effective solution for healthy skin. You have to remove the dirt, balance the pH and protect the moisture in your tissue/skin. I do that twice daily. It is about keeping the pH balanced on the surface that helps keep the sub- layers of tissue happy. Once you take care of the basics, the rest is easy. Use your ring finger to apply a moisturizer. It has the least strength and you have to take your time. Make sure the you put your brightening essence and moisturizer on the back of your hands. I use the back of my hand when I apply product on my neck. Again, it’s gentle to my skin and the back of my hands are not forgotten.
Sunscreens protect the skin. When we spend a lot more time outside these summer days, that means that many people are applying sunscreen on a regular basis. Unfortunately, sunscreen is nasty and filled with ingredients that are not only dangerous to you, but the environment as well.
"Let’s first talk through what SPF even is. SPF stands for sun protection factor. It is a measure of how well an agent blocks UVB rays (the kind that cause skin cancer). When not wearing sunscreen, your skin will naturally change color and incur a certain amount of damage in one hour. If you are wearing an SPF of 2 you will incur that same amount of damage in 2 hours that you would have incurred in one hour without any SPF. An SPF of 10 will get you 10 hours, SPF 30 will get you 30 hours, etc.
Here’s the thing, SPF is not linear (i.e. you don’t get 10 times more protection going from SPF 1 to 10 or 10 to 100). When you apply SPF 10, you are blocking approximately 90% of UVB rays. SPF 15, approximately 93%; SPF 30, approximately 97%; and SPF 50, 98%. So applying an SPF of 30 only gives you 7% more protection than SPF 10.
Also worth considering: if you do not plan on spending more than 10 hours in the sun, you may not need the 30 hours of protection that an SPF 30 may offer. In fact, when is the last time you saw 30 hours of daylight?
Bottom line, lower SPFs, applied more often, may offer similar sun protection as higher SPFs." ~Lindsey Elmore
When unexpected misfortunes happen, sunburns, use
Lavaderm, ClaraDerm or Cool Azul pain relief cream or gel. For the do-it-yourselfer, add carrot seed, lavender, frankincense, german chamomile or geranium essential oils to Lavender hand and body lotion or Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood Hydrosol to support your skin.
And don’t forget you ears.
Happy Sunny Days to you!
Janet
