I get many questions on how I get such nice skin, and if I can share my secret!
Well, I have to admit that at 22, I'm quite wrinkle free especially compared to people of the same age (or younger!) and I have relatively few skin issues to deal with,
but I don't really have a secret.Except, maybe, that less is more and it's mainly on how you treat your body and less about what to put on your face. Simply put: You don't need all those expensive wonder treatments, unless they're actually prescribed by a doctor and you have a legit medical condition that causes your skin issues.
If you have something like that, then this post might not be something for you, but you could still see if it works for you. Either way, I'm not promising any miracles, just sharing what I do!
Let's start off with how I learned about skincare the hard way!When I started working as a model I got some advice on how to properly care for your skin. You should use these products, scrub your face with this, use these masks and so on.
So as a starting model I took that advice very serious, why would they give bad advice to someone that makes a living off their face? Good question, probably the same reason why they try to market products you don't need to everyone else too; money.
So after following the advice for maybe 2 weeks (could have been a bit more) and spending too much on expensive skincare products I started to get really bad issues. Not only did I break out like crazy,
my skin also started to flake and I developed sore spots on the places where the flaking started and it was even bleeding at one point. Needless to say, it wasn't really a pretty sight and I immediately quit using the products. Sadly, that didn't solve the problem straight away, my skin remained painful and sensitive for quite a long time afterwards, but thanks to a very helpful drugstore worker I managed to get it under control.
So here are my most important points to keep my skin soft, flaw free and wrinkle free (for now :D ):
Nutrition:Your skin is your body's largest organ, so your eating habits will most likely reflect on your skin's condition. Changing your eating habits can have a big influence on skin problems, and it's probably one of the cheapest ways to do it! If you don't believe it,
read this message I got from a follower on Tumblr! It really was an amazing message to read and inspired me to write about it!
A healthy diet has always been really important for me, it's key to staying healthy yourself!
However that doesn't mean that I never indulge in things like sweets or "bad" food, it's all about moderation and with severely restricting yourself on that point will only make the cravings for those foods worse.
One of the bigger changes in my diet was about 10 years ago, when I started to completely cut out meat from my diet. Since that was around the start of puberty I cannot say if that made any change in my skin, however I never had big issues with my skin and it was one or two pimples at the most when puberty hit the hardest. But a more recent change in diet did improve my skin a lot!
I found out that I'm lactose intolerant, so I slowly changed from eating a lot of dairy products, to replacing the main ones with soy (and now almond!) products! It took a while to get used to it, but now I love it
♥
Going vegetarian (and cutting out dairy) might sound extreme, so here are some less extreme ways to improve your diet and thus your skin!
Cut out sugars as much as possible:
While chocolate might not cause pimples, sugar surely can attribute to breaking out! When I get a pimple, it's most likely caused because I pigged out and got high fat, high sugar cheapo chocolate. Try to avoid high sugar beverages and candy, go for a healthier, more natural and preferably organic alternative. Even better, try Stevia as a natural and healthy sweetener (don't go for artificial sweeteners as they are bad for you!), they even have chocolate with it ♥!
More fruit:
Craving sugar? Better choose fruit! Vitamins and antioxidants in fruit are good for your body, and that means that they're good for your skin too!
Less meat, but more vegetables:So going vegetarian might be too extreme for you, we humans don't need meat everyday!
You might want to think about having at least one meat free day (preferably more of course),
and increase the amount of veggies in your diet. They're healthy and delicious!
If you choose to eat meat, consider buying organic, so you don't "pollute" your system (and thus your skin) with the artificial hormones and other horrible things that get injected in the animals to make them grow big & juicy faster! Plus the animals will have had a better life :)
Organic (fake) dairy:What I said about going organic with your meat, might also be a good idea for your dairy!
But even better, exchange the milk you put in your cereal in the morning with soy, or almond milk.
While a glass of soy milk is not too great tasting (even for me after such a long time), you get easily used to replacing it for your cereal! There are also great tasting soy deserts for custard!
Lifestyle:I can be really short on this... stress is bad for your skin!
If you lead a stressful life and have bad skin, then that might be one of the things that cause it.
Whenever I travel for work, I'm under a great amount of stress and there's a good chance that that will show the next day! But in the current age, it's difficult to get away from stress or to avoid it.
A good way to get rid of it is yoga practices, this can be even simple breathing exercises you can do while in the train or plane if you're really short on time.
Some people get rid of stress by smoking or (excessive) drinking, and especially smoking will do a lot of damage for your skin. However I have no personal experience with smoking, and going out for a drink never made me break out, so this is just the "you're going to get wrinkles from this and probably lung cancer from the smoking" reminder!
Skincare & routine: Finally, about the actual "care" part of this post! Now I will let you in on all my evil secrets to a baby's bottom smooth skin ψ(｀∇´)ψ
My routine is really, really simple. Mainly because using the regular everyday recommended skincare stuff, is quite harsh for your skin and the chemicals will strip it from beneficial oils and protection for example! Which leads you to buying more products you really don't need otherwise, to replenish them with chemical crap to make up for the damage they did. Well, to be fair, they do need to make money off us somehow!
What I do every day to keep my skin clear & soft is:I wake up, take a shower. During the shower I wash my face with the water, but not a hand towel or anything scrub-y. After that, I use a perfume free, paraben free moisturizer for sensitive skin.
That's it! Now it might sound a bit gross if you're not used to this "Eww, how can she properly clean her skin like this! What about dead skin cells? No soap???", but if you don't use a whole lot of make-up it's pretty much all you should have to do! Of course, if I wore make-up that day I will remove it before I go to bed or not need to wear it anymore, and I will do that, once again with a perfume and paraben free make-up remover! But since I don't really wear make-up, I rarely have to do that.
So yes, I use 2 products in total to keep my skin like this. However, when I'm in a big city like Paris, I do like to clean my face once a week with an organic toner. That's mainly because I'm there for work and my face get's plastered with make-up, but also because the air isn't as clean there as it is where I live (in a small village on the countryside).
Less is more:Try to cut down on the amount of products you use. Sudden changes might upset your skin, so do it gradually, and most importantly, go for perfume and paraben free products! I cannot stress this enough!
Another thing that might be a good idea to cut down on, is make-up. I'm talking about full face foundation or tinted moisturizer here! Eye make-up is not as bad for your skin as it doesn't cover your entire face usually ;)
That's pretty much it! I'm probably forgetting a whole lot, but this took way longer to write than thought and I'm super tired so I will add any additional things I forgot tomorrow!
♥
