With winter’s end in sight and spring on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to revive a lifeless complexion. The cold winter months tend to leave our skin feeling dry and looking dull. Now, we’re offering you a step-by-step guide to achieving a naturally beautiful radiance, just in time for the season ahead. Because with warmer weather and longer days upon us, we are all about that glow!
1. Start with a Gentle Creamy Cleanser
Starting your daily skincare routine with a gentle cleanser is the first step toward achieving that coveted glow. Though we tend to dismiss the importance of cleansing, a good cleanser will restore a strong, healthy skin surface before applying your other treatment products. Many foaming cleansers contain harsh ingredients that can damage your skin barrier, which which can actually dull your skin more. Especially during this transitional season, use products that will both improve the appearance of your skin and support a healthy skin barrier.
2. Choose a Serum with Carotenoids
Carotenoids are a class of more than 750 naturally occurring pigments in plants and algae. They are richly colored molecules that provide plants and algae their yellow, orange, and red hues. Carotenoids play many important roles in our body including cell communication and antioxidant protection. Particularly in skincare, carotenoids are nutritionally important to normal cell regeneration. They function to protect against free radical damage and oxidative stress and accumulate in our skin cells to provide skin its healthy color and tone. When used in a serum, carotenoids not only help support your skin’s own healthy coloring, but also boost your complexion’s radiance. Unfortunately, many manufacturers don’t use carotenoids because they tend to tint the color of products slightly brown, red or orange. How do you know if your skincare has carotenoids? It likely does if it contains extracts from richly colored fruit, vegetables and herbs. Often, the most concentrated levels of carotenoids come from seed extracts from these plants.
3. Use Retinol
Retinol is the gold standard ingredient in dermatology and there’s a good reason for it. This buzzed-about skincare ingredient deserves the hype because its incredible multitasking capabilities deliver a variety of benefits for every skin concern at every age. Retinoids are the family of Vitamin A and can be purchased at a store (Retinol) or obtained in a dermatologist's office, dependent on their strength and form. Retinoids help to accelerate skin cell turnover, a process which occurs naturally about every 28 days. As we age, however, that process slows and dead skin cells accumulate on the skin’s surface. These built-up dead skin cells absorb light rather than reflect it. Thus, resulting in a dull skin tone. Incorporating Retinol into your skincare routine in the winter will not only help enhance your natural radiance, but helps to improve the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, as well as the appearance of breakouts.
4. Eat Colorful Fruits and Vegetables
Just as carotenoids can be used in your skincare, they can also be obtained through fresh fruit and vegetables. Consuming foods with high levels of carotenoids, like carrots, deliver higher levels of carotenoids to your skin. In fact, several scientific studies based on human perception of health indicate that regardless of race, people whose skin has high levels of carotenoids are more attractive than suntanned skin
5. Carefully Exfoliate
Finally, routine exfoliation is an important step in every skincare regimen. But, it must be done right. Many exfoliants contain abrasive, rough materials which can actually cause further damage to your skin than the winter weather already inflicted. Approach exfoliation a little differently post-winter. Choose an exfoliant with gentle ingredients, and use once every month for 3 consecutive days.