But, our skin is not invulnerable. Your skin does absorb whatever you put onto it. It will not just absorb it into itself, but will transfer it to your blood stream. I heard of a doctor before who said he would rather drink dirty water than bathe in it. That says something!
Many times the skin can tell us that there is a problem going on in our body. And, unfortunately, that happens a lot on our faces.
When that happens, we run to the store and get something that promises to help or hide. The problem is that the skin Care and Make Up Industry is not well regulated. Because of this, there are terrible chemicals in many of the beauty products out there.
It takes less than a minute for your amazing skin to absorb these chemicals and transfer them to the blood stream. That's scary!
When we go to take care of our skin, there are a few things that we need to keep in mind before selecting a product. What type of skin do you have? Is it dry? Oily? Combination of both? Is there redness, irritation, or sensitivity? What products or regimen have you been using?
Some times the problem lies in our lifestyle- are we constantly stressing over deadlines, or other things? Occasionally the problem lies with our hormones- are we at the teenage years with too many flying through? Or, are we at the ebbing of those hormones in our later years? What's going on with our diet? Do we eat a lot of processed, chemically laden foods? Do we take time to drink enough water? Perhaps there's a problem with our health that's showing itself in our skin. Or maybe it's being triggered by our environment- dry climate, way too much humidity?
Ask yourself the above questions.
Dry skin is thin, the pores are tight and almost invisible; you can faintly see the veins under it.
Oily skin has very large pores and thicker skin, and you usually get "shiny" throughout the day.
Combination skin has the characteristics of dry skin everywhere but the T-zone, which looks like it has the oily skin characteristics. Then there's sensitive, acne prone skin which is highly reactive to different products, and the environment. It has redness and/or inflammation and sometimes is warm or hot to the touch.
We want something that will balance the skin; moisturize the dry skin, lessen the production of the oily skin, and tame the irritation of the sensitive, acne prone skin.
I like using LimeLight by Alcone skin care products because of their ingredients and how much care goes into combining them and getting everything just right. Their main ingredient is aloe. But, they use a high quality freeze-dried type that is used on burn victims to help heal and repair scarring. In fact, all of their skin care products are free of chemicals, parabens, and other harmful ingredients. They use only 100% all-natural, and mostly certified organic plant extracts and oils.
Here are my suggestions.
For Dry skin that gets dry during the end of the day, or those who consider their skin Normal, I recommend Quench Cleanse- a mild cleanser that will hydrate your skin. I would also recommend this to anyone who used a ton of chemicals or steroids on their skin. You may need to start with this cleanser to fix the dryness that those products produced and then move to the cleanser for the oily skin.
I would also suggest One Drop Wonder. This stuff is amazing for every skin type! It's healing, nourishing, brings down irritation, reduces redness, kills bacteria, and stops sun damage.
If you feel that you need a moisturizer, I suggest Skin Therapist. It hydrates the skin immediately, while restoring dry, aged, or inflamed skin cells.
If by the end of the day your skin feels like it's too dry, I suggest mixing Must Dew with your Skin Therapist. Must Dew is great for a night cream for dry skin.
Must Dew can also be mixed with LimeLight by Alcone foundation to create a sheer finish.
If you think you need to exfoliate, then I recommend Skin Polish- though dry skin should never exfoliate more than once a week. And less than that if you find that there's redness or irritation.
For Oily Skin, I recommend Dream Clean. This removes makeup and pollutants on your face, it takes care of the bacteria without removing all the oil. Remember, you will never get rid of all the oil! You just need to help your skin achieve a balance so that you stop over-producing the oil.
If you over-dry the skin it will go into hyperdrive producing oil because it thinks it needs to protect itself. You can add in a light-weight moisturizer, Calm Balm, which will help to calm irritated skin while restoring and hydrating.
Like I said, One Drop Wonder is good for all skin types, and will help your body to quickly absorb the minerals, plus it's a natural UV protectant.
If you feel the need to exfoliate, which a person with oily skin can do two to three times a week, you should use Skin Polish. Many times the oil in our pores acts like glue trapping dead skin cells and other pollutants inside the pore, this makes the pore open larger to try to breathe around the debris. This vicious cycle is what causes blackheads and acne. You want to gently scrub that glue away.
Masque of Zen is a wonderful product that draws impurities to the surface of the skin to help the face heal. If you are dealing with a lot of acne, I suggest using this as a spot treatment first to clear up existing acne. If you use it as a full facial mask it will draw everything to the skin's surface causing a terrible break-out all over! It does work amazingly well on bug bites.
Sensitive, acne prone skin must be the most careful when dealing with their skin. I would suggest Dream Clean and One Drop Wonder to begin with. If you believe that this is too drying on your skin then you can switch over to Quench Cleanse and One Drop Wonder.
If you find that the skin seems to be dry during the end of the day, you can add in Skin Therapist. If your skin goes to more oily at the end of the day, then try Calm Balm.
Combination Skin people that I've read or watched say that they find their skin reacts best when you mix the two cleansers together- Dream Clean and Quench Cleanse- with both the morning and the evening face regimen.
Skin Polish can be used whenever you feel the need to exfoliate. It's so gentle that you could leave it on as a mask.
Skin Therapist is the moisturizer that you'll want to go with. It will help maintain your skin's balance with vitamins and minerals while hydrating and maintaining the moisture levels.
For those with mature skin, use the combination skin regimen above, but add in Sotoks and One Drop Wonder. These together will lift sagging skin, and eliminate dark spots. It smooths wrinkles while brightening the skin. Many refer to it as the miracle combination! Together they stimulate collagen in the skin and will add the volume back to mature skin. It can even help eczema; the combination can be used on all skin types and all age groups with amazing results.
None of these products contain SPF because it is a chemical.
For special concerns. Forty Cure Cream, Creme of the Crop and One Drop Wonder can be used in conjunction with each other to help eczema, rosacea, dry, cracked, and callused skin, psoriasis,acne scars, and even yeast related spots. They've been used by mothers on diaper rashes with great results.
One Drop Wonder is a star in it's own right. It can cure cold sore, treat fungus (combine with 1 drop of tea tree oil), and will helps the topical application of antibiotics penetrate the skin for faster results against staph, shingles, and ulcers.
Please be aware of the chart below for those who have allergies to certain things. If there isn't a check mark by it you shouldn't use it.
