Busy lives, increased demands on your attention, and biological stressors can wreck havoc on your skin. We know first hand how hard it can be to take the time to think about your skin's needs. We also know that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. We want to help set you up with some successful strategies that can help you take just a small amount of time and turn it into a very productive result.
These are thoughtful, mindful ideas that anyone can do in less than 1 minute a day that can help you keep your skin care routine on track:
- Take thoughtful, active note of your skin each day.
This only takes a few seconds of your time, but can be illuminating for what your skin is trying to tell you. It can tell you if Acne is showing up frequently, hormonal/cyclic, or occasionally. It can tell you if it's dry sometimes or all of the time, or if it swings between oily and dry. Before you wash your face, take just a fraction of a moment to ask yourself, "What is my skin telling me? Is it healing, or does it need something?"
- Have a "speed" care routine too.
We all have done it -- gone to bed without washing make up off of our faces and taking proper cleansing measures. We all have skipped exfoliating longer than we should. We forget to put on a good moisturizer. Having a full set up with customized powerplexes and high performance treatments is a wonderful, nourishing thing and we highly recommend treating your skin care needs with the respect it deserves.
It is also difficult to always keep up with, particularly if you're experiencing anxiety, depression, or life stressors. So have a speed routine that can accomplish most of what you need without completely sacrificing your skin's health. Having a 4-in-1 product like our Ultra Gentle Cleansing Lotion or our Pure and Simple Cleansing Lotion can remove make up, cleanse, tone, and provide light moisture all in one step. While you may be acne prone and need the entire Acne Prone Skin System line up, taking a moment to cleanse the skin and keep it moist and fresh with a single product is still far better than going to bed with make up, or waking up and neglecting your skin. This is also a great product to take on a weekend trip or camping as it's far less bottles to carry. It's better to take care of your skin's minimum needs than not at all.
We will be creating an entire blog post of speed care routines that can help you create travel-friendly, quick, and healing skin care routines that can be done in a minute or less.
- Combine a quicker, simpler routine with a more complete, nourishing one to fit your needs.
If you have a busy morning each day, have a stream-lined routine that hits the highlights and give the skin the treatments it craves in the evening. Having a simple cleanse, mist, and moisturize day time routine can get you going, and coming back in the evening and adding powerplexes, masques, high performance treatments, and exfoliation in the evenings when you're winding down can give you the benefits of a full care routine while saving some time. It's better to at least have a full care routine once a day consistently than to skip it frequently.
- Finally, while this takes far more than a minute of your time, know your skin type or types.
Taking the time to know your skin type can save you a lot of reading and headache later. If you know you have oily skin there are certain skin care products you should avoid that could aggravate that, even if that product works so amazingly well for your co-worker with dry skin. Every face has a different and unique need.
Having uncertainty about your skin type, or fall into more than one category? One of our projects is building a skin system resource page that will help you learn about different common skin problems most humans have and which products fall into those categories. If you find yourself straddled between two (for example, you have mostly oily skin and acne prone, but in the winter months it dries out) you can take a powerplex, high performance treatment, and/or moisturizer from one skin care system and add it to your line up. In the example above, one way to create a balanced customized routine is to go with the oily skin system moisturizers, the acne-prone skin system otherwise, and add in the high performance treatments and powerplexes from the visibly moist line for the winter months and take advantage of powerblending to create recipes that can help. (You can find more information about powerblending including recipes in this blog.)
Do you do anything in particular to keep yourself on track for consistently taking care of your skin? Comment below and let us know what works for you.