With Autumn truly in its stride and winter just around the corner, you may find your skin feeling slightly drier and tighter with the colder weather and harsh dryness of central heating.

In this week’s blog, I’d like to share with you a list of products that you can add on to your current skin routine, if you’re not already using them, just to make it more “cold-weather-friendly”.  This will help prevent your skin cracking, flaking or just having those irritating dry patches.

In no particular order, my recommendations are:

Essence Lotion

A big trend in Asia, essence lotion is used straight after cleansing the face to prime the skin and enhance the absorption of more active ingredients.  Essence lotions are much more gentler than toners and it’s meant to soften the effects of the hard water on your skin and help to keep your skin hydrated.

Currently I’m loving The Body Shop Oils of Life Intensively Revitalising Essence Lotion which is a biphasic formulation (oil mixed with water) containing 3 potent seed oils – Rosehip seed oils from Chile, Camellia seed oils from China and Black Cumin seed oils form Egypt.

It’s super light and my skin always feel softer after I use it.  You can pour a few drops onto a cotton pad and apply all over your skin, but I prefer to pour a few drops on the palm of my hand and apply straight onto my face and neck.

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A Hyaluronic Acid Rich Serum

Hyaluronic Acid is a natural substance in our skin, joints and eyeballs which maintains the shape and hydration of these structures.  It’s able to absorb 1000x its weight in water and hence it’s such an important component in our skin.  However, as we age, we lose hyaluronic acid in our skin, it becomes unable to hold onto the moisture and we lose the moisture far quicker, leaving it dry.

Two of my favourite HA products are:

Teoxane RHA Serum – resilient hyaluronic acid creating a beautiful matrix on the skin to lock in moisture together with a rich network of antioxidant to help the skin regenerate underneath.  You’ll notice a tightening and hydrating effect immediately and changes to your skin will be visible after 14 days.

 

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Exuviance Age Reverse Hydrafirm – a light but very hydrating moisturiser that also contains antioxidants and a whole host of active ingredients to lock in your skin’s natural moisture power.

 

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An Omega 3 Supplement

This is very important as essential fatty acids help maintain the integrity of the skin’s structure and help to maintain its moisture, preventing the flakiness and chapping of your skin.

If you’re not already taking one, start with 1000mg/ day.  If you are already taking it, you can increase your dose to 2000mg/ day.

 

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Fruit Enzyme Exfoliant

When the weather gets colder, it’s important not to forget to exfoliate your skin as that will keep the skin renewing itself and not build up, creating an uneven texture and uneven tone.  However, you may want to look at your exfoliant to see if it’s not too drying in the colder months.  An option is to change to a gentle chemical exfoliator e.g. the Theraderm Fruit Acid Exfoliant which can be used every day to gently remove dead skin.

This utilises an alpha hydroxy acid that’s naturally produced by the human body which helps to enhance the effects of your other active ingredients and help promote collagen production.  Recommend using with the Gentle Action Application Pads for best results.

 

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Facial Oils

If you’ve been following my work and my blogs for awhile, you may have read before that I was very anti-oil and even anti-moisturisers at one point.  As I work with more patients and learn about the skin, I realise we are all different and for some, oils will work and for some it will not.  It also depends on the type of oil used, the formulation, your skin type and how you use the oil.

If you have very dry skin, then you can use oils more regularly in its purer form and if you have combination skin, you can still use oils but mixed in with a lighter lotion formulation.

A good oil-based skincare range that I have used and have seen results with is The Body Shop Oils of Life range.  They have the concentrated facial oil which is to be used ONLY a few drops at any one time and also the Gel Cream (lighter texture which I like) and Cream (richer texture for more mature skin) which are both heavenly to smell and use.

See if you can get a sample at your local The Body Shop store and add them into your routine to feel the effects.

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I hope you found that useful.

Changing weather doesn’t mean having to change your whole skincare routine…just a little tweak here and there and your skin will thank you for it.

Thanks for reading.

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