Many ingredients combined can make a heavenly skin recipe – others just don’t belong together. Mixing certain active ingredients can compromise the skin barrier and lead you down an uncomfortable path of inflammation, irritation and dehydration. But how do you know what does and doesn’t make the perfect skincare partner? Here we give you the lowdown on the art of skincare match-making...
Vitamin C packs a punch in terms of antioxidant protection, but it’s an unstable ingredient that requires a particular pH balance in order to work wonders on your skin. Layering an AHA or BHA skincare product with vitamin C could disrupt and destabilise the pH balance which makes applying your vitamin C pointless.
Our in-house chemist Gabriela Duffy Morales advises that AHAs and BHAs should ideally be used in the evening because exfoliating acids can make our skin more susceptible to UV damage – even if you’re properly applying broad-spectrum SPF. Instead, stick to vitamin C in the mornings and use a BHA or AHA on the nights you’re not using retinol.
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The skin acts as a barrier between the body and the environment, but during the colder months, your skin could often do with a little extra help to protect it from the elements. A skin supplement can help you to take a proactive approach to your skin health and wellbeing by allowing you to top-up your vitamin and mineral intake easily. Aligning with our 360-approach to skin health, we believe that what goes into the body affects how you look and feel on the outside. While there are no alternatives for a healthy, balanced diet, skin supplements work can boost your nutritional intake and can be easily managed for those with a busy lifestyle. They are also great for people who avoid certain food groups and therefore find it harder to reach the optimal intake for a particular nutrient.
Skin issues that are particularly prevalent in the winter include irritation, redness, dullness, roughness and visible lines and thankfully, there are skin supplements that are available to help tackle all of these from the inside:
Sore, weather-beaten skin can compromise the skin barrier and leave the skin more susceptible to dehydration. As a source of good fats, omegas are skin heroes when it comes to keeping the skin healthy. Research also suggests that Omega 3 and Omega 6 may support skin barrier function, which is crucial for preventing water loss and for stopping compounds from the environment penetrating the deeper epidermal and dermal layers and provoking an immune response. Providing a whole spectrum of omega fatty acids, Solgar Wild Alaskan Full Spectrum Omega Softgels help increase your intake of good fats for healthier skin, inside and out.
Try: Solgar Wild Alaskan Full Spectrum Omega Softgels, €38.99
Redness can be a sign of dehydration and is common at this time of the year due to the cold weather stripping away the skin's natural moisture. If you already suffer from redness or rosacea, you may find that winter worsens your condition. Facing widely varying temperatures throughout the day as you move from a centrally heated room to the blistering cold outside can also impair your skin’s barrier and leave you red-faced.
At these times, a vitamin D supplement can help to calm any irritation. Your body makes its own vitamin D when exposed to sunshine - which is in limited supply in winter, which rations our daylight hours. Taking a vitamin D supplement is a handy way to top up your stores during the colder, darker months and is also beneficial for anyone who spends a lot of time indoors.
Try: Solgar Vitamin D3 (Chloecalciferol) 4000 IU Vegetable Capsules, €19.25
Wrinkles and fine lines can look worse in the winter due to dehydration. Whilst there are many skincare products claiming to help to treat fine lines, topical skin care cannot reach the dermis and so a supplement can help nutrients to reach the living layer of the skin. To keep skin looking healthy and hydrated, try a supplement containing hyaluronic acid which is a humectant and helps to lock in moisture. Solgar Collagen Hyaluronic Acid Complex also contains collagen to keep skin plump.
Try: Solgar Collagen Hyaluronic Acid Complex, €41.50
With your body working overtime to take care of its vital organs during winter, your skin can look flat and grey due to stagnated blood supplies, which can also make dark circles look worse. To tackle this, try upping your intake of vitamin C with Solgar Ester-C Plus 1000mg Vitamin C. Taken as a supplement, vitamin C can help to reduce inflammation and even out skin tone, plus it has super-brightening abilities to help you to get your glow back.
Try: Solgar Ester-C Plus 1000mg Vitamin C, €34.20 (sale price)
*Always check with your GP before taking nutritional supplements.
Menopause is the body’s way of officially stopping menstruation and is defined as “when a woman has not had a menstrual cycle for 12 consecutive months.’’* Although menopause is common in women who have come to the end of child-bearing age (usually around mid-late 50s), this isn’t always the case - some women have been known to enter menopause as early as their 30s. Menopause generally takes time to complete its transition and may last several years, during which time the body can be impacted psychologically and physiologically. Hormonal fluctuations unsettle the body and changes in skin can occur from the peri-menopausal (first) stage. With hormones in decline, skin produces less sebum which means you might notice that you are no longer oily despite years of having oily skin. Increased sensitivity is common, but other issues can include spot breakouts, itchy skin, redness, wrinkles and general changes in texture and overall appearance. If you already have a skin condition such as acne, you may find that it worsens during this time as skin gets more sensitive. Increased sensitivity can also provoke allergies and low estrogen levels commonly lead to dry skin.
It can knock your confidence when your skin suddenly starts reacting to everything, but there are some steps you can take to feel better in your skin and ease any discomfort.
At The Skin Nerd our philosophy is to treat the skin with an inside, outside and on top approach. With this in mind, lifestyle changes such as reassessing your diet and upping your water intake can make a difference to the condition of your skin. Drinking less alcohol and learning to cope with stress can also help you manage external conditions such as itchy skin. A diet rich in nuts, seeds and fish will benefit your skin and help to boost your sense of wellbeing. Maintain a regular sleeping pattern and make exercise a habit to keep muscles fit and circulation of oxygenated blood pumping around the body. If you need a further boost, try a skin supplement such as Advanced Nutrition Programme Skin Omegas+ (€37), which contains vitamin A with omegas to support healthy skin function.
Dryness: Avoid long, hot baths and remember to regularly apply moisturiser to comfort dry skin. Keep skin healthy with the use of sunscreen and avoid harsh soaps and detergents that can aggravate dehydrated skin.
Sensitivity: Stay away from scented skincare. We stand by the motto, “smells don’t change cells” and these inessential additives can irritate sensitive skin and provide little to no benefit to the skin. Look out for anti-inflammatory ingredients such as aloe vera, chamomile and calendula extract to calm angry, red skin.
Blemishes: You may find you get spots on your breasts and other parts of your body because of night sweats and hot flushes. Try ASAP Skincare Clear Skin Body Gel (€48) which contains salicylic acid to help treat body acne and remove dead skin cells.
Sagging: All hoomans will eventually have sagging skin – it's a natural part of the ageing process. Whilst sun protection and vitamin A are key to preventing premature sagging, treatments such as microneedling or laser resurfacing can have a significant effect.
As oil secretion is reduced during menopause, Skingredients Skin Good Fats (€55) will help to keep the skin barrier optimal. Containing ceramides and shea butter glycerides for nourishment and hydration, the luxurious cream adds moisture and comfort to skin in need of TLC.
A nourishing cleanser containing squalene or rose hip oil will help to keep the skin soft and supple. A creamy lotion cleanser like Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse (€29) is ideal for skin that feels tight. Utilising a prebiotic-probiotic complex PrePro helps to balance your skin’s microbiome without stripping the skin.
Codex Beauty Bia Facial Oil (€85) contains rosehip and seabuckthorn oils to help to soothe uncomfortable skin.
To help calm redness try ASAP Skincare Super B Complex (€69) as a serum after cleansing morning and evening. This serum contains phytoestrogen which helps to disguise redness.
If you have any concerns, please do seek advice from your GP, a nutritionist, and remember we are always here to help! This is not a taboo subject – it is our norm and we are here to normalise it!
For more skinformation and tips, why not book a consultation with one of our Skin Nerds? Not only will you get one-on-one advice on specific skin concerns, but you can also create a specialised regime including personalised product recommendations! Click here to find out more!
* Valdes A, Bajaj T. StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing; Treasure Island (FL): Jun 2, 2021. Estrogen Therapy
]]>I’m sure that most of you are familiar with blackheads. You’d be hard-pressed to find a hooman that hasn’t suffered from those stubborn little dots. They’re actually a mild form of acne and tend to cluster across your nose, cheeks, forehead, chest and back. But don’t be fooled by their teeny, tiny size – blackheads are notoriously tricky to shift.
Well, how do you remove them? Not with pore strips or putting your fingers into pimple popping position. Trust me. Pore strips might have been a rite of passage in our youth, but they can irritate and cause trauma to the epidermis, the outermost layer of skin, which can result in redness or broken capillaries when frequently done.
But don’t lose hope as there’s a shining light at the end of this tunnel: skincare. Using the right active ingredients can help to safely remove blackheads without a manual extraction tool in sight (shudder).
More nerdiness: How to Prevent & Treat Blood Vessels
To get mega nerdie, an open comedone is the scientific name for a blackhead. We preach that our pores don’t “open” and “close” like doors and that’s still the case. The difference here is that an open comedone doesn’t have skin covering the opening of the hair follicle, whereas a closed comedone (aka a whitehead) does.
Blackheads crop up when a build-up of sebum and dead skin cells forms a plug in our hair follicles, otherwise called pores. This blockage presents as a teeny, dark bump on the surface of the skin. Ever wondered why blackheads appear dark brown or black? Well, that’s all down to the melanin (pigment-producing cells) found in our sebum oxidising when exposed to air – it's definitely not “dirt” in the pore.
The good news: blackheads, as well as whiteheads, are a non-inflammatory form of acne which means you shouldn’t experience any redness, tenderness or swelling. Although, blackheads can get infected if you squeeze them – so don’t open that can of worms. To compare, pustules (pus-filled spots), papules (red pimples), cysts (hard bumps filled with pus) and nodules (large, hard bumps) are inflammatory forms of acne – that's why they feel sore and look inflamed.
Blackheads are caused by a pore-clogging recipe of sebum and dead skin cells but there are a few factors which can contribute to their development. You might be surprised to hear that pregnancy, puberty, stress and humidity can cause an influx of teeny blackheads cropping up.
Let’s dig a little deeper. Fluctuations in hormones – experienced during puberty, pregnancy, the menstrual cycle or if you have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) – can directly influence sebum production. Our sex hormones stimulate the sebaceous glands, found in the hair follicle, to produce more sebum. An influx of sebum equals an increased risk of hair follicles getting clogged and a blackhead developing. Similarly, stress can influence our hormones which triggers increased sebum secretion.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise to hear that being in a hot and humid environment can ramp up sebum activity too. That’s why you’re more likely to experience breakouts when the warmer weather rolls around.
Salicylic acid cleanser is a powerful ally for hoomans combating blackheads. It’s an oil-soluble beta-hydroxy acid (BHA) that can penetrate deep into pores to dissolve sebum. Salicylic acid is also a keratolytic, which means it exfoliates the epidermis to promote the shedding of dead skin cells. There’s no denying that salicylic acid ticks all the right boxes if you’re an acne-prone or oily-skinned hooman.
Salicylic acid is beneficial for all pimples – not just blackheads. The acid has anti-inflammatory properties which means it can help to bring down redness in inflammatory acne lesions such as papules, pustules, cysts and nodules.
Salicylic acid can be quite drying to the skin if applied in a leave-on formula which is why I reach for cleansers containing the good stuff. Skingredients Sally Cleanse is a salicylic acid cleanser which can be used as your active cleanse (use every 3rd evening), micro-mask (apply to skin for 2-minutes) or spot-zapper (apply to blemish for 3-minutes). Sally Cleanse can also be used as a body wash to treat blackheads on the body.
A salicylic acid-based cleanser might not be the best shout for dry or sensitive skin types. Instead, I would recommend using alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs) to exfoliate and slough dead skin cells. AHA’s are pretty special because they’re naturally derived humectants – ingredients that attract and retain moisture in the skin. That’s especially important for dry skin types that want in on the exfoliating action without the risk of drying out their skin with powerful active ingredients.
I adore the REN Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Tonic, which is a daily chemical exfoliant you apply after double cleansing. It contains a resurfacing blend of lactic acid to exfoliate and hydrate, willow bark extract to minimise the appearance of pores and azelaic acid precursors to even out the skin tone. Nerdie tip: apply the tonic on areas you experience blackheads or breakouts if you don’t want to apply it to your entire face.
Mamas-to-be or those with very sensitive skin should turn to enzymes. They’re the gentlest form of exfoliants and are very unlikely to cause irritation or sensitisation. The Declare Soft Cleansing Enzyme Peel contains lipases and proteases – two types of enzymes – to softly buff away loose dead skin cells while cleansing the skin.
My love for vitamin A is no secret – it really is a hero ingredient! It’s incredibly beneficial for clearing and preventing blackheads because it speeds up skin cell renewal and promotes the sloughing of dead skin cells in the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of the epidermis. It also helps to regulate sebum production which is great for oily-skinned hoomans that produce too much.
You’ll be pleased to hear that vitamin A in all its glorious forms can help remove those pesky dots. We take an inside, outside and on-top approach to promoting skin health which is why we recommend topical skincare and supplements. The Advanced Nutrition Programme Skin Vit A+ contains vitamin A and vitamin C to promote skin health from the inside out. I would also recommend Environ’s step-up range of vitamin A moisturisers, EssentiA Vita-Antioxidant AVST, to introduce your skin to the powerful active ingredient.
We would only give you the “green light” to pop a pimple at home if it’s got a juicy white head and even then, it’s crucial you proceed with caution to prevent scarring or pushing the inflammation deeper into the hair follicle. But that’s not to say a professional can’t manually extract the blackheads, pimples and spots for you. Extractions are typically performed by a skin specialist during a facial. They’ve got the nerdie know-how on the spots to squeeze or leave – as well as the proper technique to get the job done safely.
Want advice about blackheads and spots that's specific to you and skincare guidance until the end of time? Book in for your first expert online skin consultation and join the Skin Nerd Network.
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Just like our skin, it’s oh-so-important that we protect our moles when the sun’s rays are beating down – or even if it’s raining, hailing or snowing for that matter. SPF that protects against UV rays is essential for skin on each and every one of the 365 days of the year, or 366 days if it’s a leap year. It’s even more of a hot topic at Nerd HQ in the warmer months considering we’re likely to be spending plenty of time in the great outdoors where we tend to have more skin on show.
Therefore, we feel like it’s our nerdie duty to educate all hoomans on the importance of moles and sun safety. Most moles are completely benign (read: non-dangerous and non-cancerous), but it's important to understand what to look out for when checking moles for anything out of the ordinary.
Moles, we’ve all got ‘em. Some people have loads, others have a few. If you’re an alien with no moleys to call your own, they’re the little coloured dots that can be found all over a hooman’s body. Moles can be present at birth or develop during childhood and adolescence, right through to adulthood. They can also lighten or darken over time. Nerdie fact: the technical term for moles is nevus, multiple moles are nevi, which comes from the Latin word for birthmark.
But what are they really? A mole is the result of mutations within melanocytes which causes the cells to grow in a cluster instead of being spread evenly across our skin. Melanocytes are melanin (aka pigment) producing skin cells which is why our moles can range in colour from matching your skin tone to pink or blue, dark brown or black. Interestingly, moles don’t always have pigment.
Most moles are completely harmless, but they can become malignant if the melanocytes continue to mutate. The DNA damage to melanocytes can be caused by prolonged exposure to UVA and UVB rays. If the melanocytes proliferate further, there’s the risk that the moles can develop into pre-cancerous lesions or melanoma.
More nerdiness: Why You Need SPF Indoors
Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that develops in melanocytes. In 2012, melanoma accounted for 1.6% of all cancers worldwide, with its occurrence on the rise. The most common sign of melanoma is a new mole or a change in an existing mole – so mole mapping is a smart idea. Crucially, not all melanoma starts in moles which is why it’s important to keep an eye out for changing skin lesions.
Anyone can get melanoma, which is why all hoomans should remain vigilant of any skin changes. Having said that, there are a few risk factors which can increase the chance of developing melanoma. Notably, if you fall into categories 1, 2 or 3 on the Fitzpatrick scale, if you have red hair or blonde hair, freckly skin, or if you’re a moley person.
Interestingly, it presents differently in different hoomans. Women tend to develop melanoma on their legs, while men commonly get it on their torsos. It’s harder to detect in dark-skinned hoomans as it tends to appear under fingernails or toenails, on the soles of their feet or palms – areas that aren’t sun-exposed. Repeated, severe blistering sunburns before the age of eighteen can also cause melanoma later in life. There’s also a genetic risk to melanoma, which means you’re more likely to get it if your parents have suffered from it.
More nerdiness: Choosing The Right Everyday SPF For Your Skin
Children in Australian are taught to slip, slop, slap, seek and slide. To translate: slip on a shirt, slop on some broad-spectrum SPF 50, slap on a hat, seek shade and slide on some sunglasses. I think it’s a great way to remember the steps we should all be taking to protect our skin and moles from sun damage.
To apply the perfect amount of SPF, I find it helpful to think of teaspoon servings: apply ½ teaspoon to your face, neck and ears, ½-1 teaspoon for each arm, 1-2 teaspoons for each leg, 1-2 teaspoons for your back and 1-2 teaspoons for your chest and abdomen. The amount you apply will depend on whether you’re a tall or small hooman, and children require much less than what I’ve specified.
The Irish Cancer Society recommend that you should reapply your SPF every 2 hours in their SunSmart Code. Even more so if you’ve been dipping in and out of a pool (lucky!) or sweating a lot. I would also say to stay in the shade between 10am-2pm as that’s when the sun is highest (and strongest) in the sky.
Finally, avoid sunbeds like the plague. They're the ultimate skin sin and fake tan will deliver a better glow without the risk of serious damage to your skin and premature ageing.
Checking your moles is as easy as your ABC’s... or ABCDE’s where moles are concerned. The “ABCDE” method is a super simple way to check if there’s anything peculiar about your moles. It's advised that you should check your moles once a month and visit your GP if you notice any of the following changes:
A = Asymmetry: is your mole asymmetrical? If not, we advise that you visit your GP.
B = Borders: does your mole have an uneven border? A mole with an uneven border should be seen by a GP.
C = Colour: does your mole have more than one colour? Moles with two or more moles should be shown to your doctor.
D = Diameter: does your mole have a large diameter? Moles with a diameter of 5mm or more should be shown to a doctor.
E = Elevation: is your mole raised? Raised moles should be seen by a GP.
F = Firm: is your mole firm? Hard moles should be seen by a GP.
G = Growing: Is your mole getting bigger? If it’s growing, you should show your mole to your GP.
An ugly duckling mole is a lesion that doesn’t look like the others. Please try not to worry if you’ve found an ugly duckling or noticed any changes in your moles after checking them – most moles are harmless and completely normal. It doesn’t mean that they’re cancerous, it’s just safer to err on the side of caution and detect any abnormalities early.
If you’re an Irish hooman, book an appointment with your GP and they’ll refer you to a specialist in hospital if they suspect it’s melanoma. The NHS in the UK follows a similar process, you’ll be referred to a hospital within 2 weeks by your GP if they think it’s necessary. They’ll check your moles with a specific lens known as a dermatosope which magnifies the cells with great specificity. After testing your mole, they can then remove the lesion if it’s malignant.
Check out our professionally-curated range of SPF products if you need to stock up on sun protection – it's a skin-vestment. Or book an online skin consultation with one of our expert team of Nerds at Skin Nerd Network for advice and product recommendations that are unique to you and your skin.
Sources:
What’s New in Melanoma Skin Cancer Research? American Cancer Society. 8th June 2021, from https://www.cancer.org/cancer/melanoma-skin-cancer/about/new-research.html.
Overview of Melanoma. Melanoma UK. 22nd May 2021, from https://www.melanomauk.org.uk/overview-of-melanoma.
The 'ABCDE' Rule. Melanoma UK. 29th May 2021, from https://www.melanomauk.org.uk/the-abcde-rule.
SunSmart Code. Irish Cancer Society. 30th May 2021, from https://www.cancer.ie/cancer-information-and-support/cancer-types/skin-cancer/sunsmart-code.
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We didn’t order splotches of redness, yet it occasionally arrives on our proverbial doorstep, nonetheless. The absolute cheek of it, pun intended. Truth be told, there are many, many reasons for a flurry of facial redness: perhaps you over-exfoliated, have had an allergic reaction, or overdone the sunshine sans SPF (tut tut!).
A stint of erythema (read: nerdie term for redness) could even signal an underlying skin condition. Rosacea is a common inflammatory skin disorder that affects a mahoosive 1 out of 10 hoomans in the UK. Typical symptoms? Facial flushing and redness; alongside other red-hued skin ailments like dilated capillaries and acne.
Those with atopic dermatitis, aka the most common type of eczema, cite red rashes as a symptom of the skin condition – as well as dryness and the urge to itch. It’s super common in mini hoomans but you can suffer from the disorder at any age.
Your redness could even signify that you have skin sensitisation: when your skin barrier becomes weakened by a trigger such as the weather, stress, or skincare products. But don’t worry – it's a skin condition that passes as quickly as it crops up when you’re equipped with the right skincare know-how.
While identifying the cause of your redness will help to prevent further flare-ups, it does little to soothe the present inflammation. But how do you care for red skin? I'm of the opinion that you’ll need an arsenal of protective, soothing, and replenishing ingredients to reduce facial redness and calm irritation.
More nerdiness: Skincare for Dehydrated Skin
Keep it gentle, keep it simple. Bombarding your red skin (maybe it’s a little sore, too?) with a treatment cleanser won’t alleviate the redness but only make it more inflamed. Instead, strip your skincare regimen back and reach for a gentle, nourishing cleanser that’ll remove any makeup, sebum, pollutant particles, and SPF without upsetting the delicate pH balance of your skin.
The Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse contains oligosaccharide, a skin-soothing prebiotic, and lactobacillus, a dairy-free probiotic which boosts the skin’s natural moisturising factor. Both balance and care for our microbiome, our skin’s ecosystem of bacteria, to bolster our skin barrier and defend against external aggressors. It also contains gluconolactone, a polyhydroxy acid, which gently exfoliates and acts like a humectant to draw moisture into skin.
Now, let’s show your body the same love. Our body skin can just as easily get red, sore, and inflamed yet we don’t give it as much attention as our faces. The Seavite Revitalising Shower Gel contains organic Ireland seaweed extracts which has anti-inflammatory properties that can heal and bring down redness in those with rosacea or acne.
Nerdie tip: don’t have the water temperature too high when you’re in the shower or bath. The humidity in the air will draw moisture from skin through a process called trans epidermal water loss. In essence, this means hot showers (however satisfying!) can exacerbate any redness and cause dehydration.
A compromised skin barrier could be the underlying cause of your redness. Many triggers – like stress, over-exfoliation, the weather, airborne allergens – can weaken our lipid bilayer (aka skin barrier) to the point that it becomes permeable. In fact, hoomans with rosacea and acne often struggle with a weakened skin barrier function, too. In essence, a permeable skin barrier makes it much easier for irritants to penetrate skin and wreak havoc which causes inflammation and irritation (hello redness!). That’s why a soothing skin regimen that’s made up of barrier-repairing, hydrating, and anti-inflammatory ingredients is the key to calming redness.
Ceramides are naturally occurring lipids (aka fatty molecules) that make up our skin barrier. I like to think of ceramides as the skin’s “superglue” that holds dead skin cells in place for healthy skin barrier function. Put simply, ceramides are essential for retaining moisture and preventing irritants from entering and aggravating skin. Our ceramide supply depletes with age and unfortunately, those with acne, rosacea, and dry skin (to name a few) are said to have a ceramide deficiency. The good news? You can top-up your existing store of ceramides with skincare that’s rich in the fatty lipids.
A night cream like Skingredients Skin Good Fats is ideal as it protects skin from losing moisture overnight through a process called trans epidermal water loss. It contains a skin-native ceramide NP to bolster lipid supplies and fortify the skin barrier to prevent dehydration, as well as niacinamide, an antioxidant.
Niacinamide, otherwise known as vitamin B3, is one of those hero ingredients that do plenty. For starters, niacinamide is a whizz kid ingredient that stimulates ceramide synthesis to grow a healthy lipid bilayer and protect skin from irritation and dehydration. Even more importantly (for the topic of this blog), niacinamide has anti-inflammatory properties that can reduce the appearance of redness – most notably if you suffer from acne. It’s also a powerful antioxidant that neutralises free radical activity to prevent skin damage – those pesky free radicals deplete collagen and elastin didn’t you know?
Niacinamide is present in Skin Good Fats, but it might be too rich for oilier skinned hoomans. In that case, meet the ASAP Skincare Super B Complex. It’s a lightweight serum with niacinamide to address redness, hyaluronic acid to boost hydration, and liquorice root extract for antioxidant protection. It can be used on irritated, congested, or sensitive skin to reduce the appearance of redness.
Rumour has it that tigers rub against “tiger grass”, aka centella asiatica (or gotu kola), to heal wounds after battles. Our feline friends are onto something: it’s an incredibly calming ingredient with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties aplenty. A study published in the Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2016, found that centella asiatica was able to improve skin redness and decrease transepidermal water loss – that equals hydrated, soothed skin.
Now, I’m a big believer in a cleanser, serum, and SPF being the cornerstone to every hoomans’ core skincare regimen – especially if your skin is particularly angry. However, a nourishing and healing face mask is a perfect “add on” when your skin needs a little extra care. The REN Evercalm Ultra Comforting Rescue Mask contains centella asiatica to reduce redness and inflammation, white mushroom extract to soothe irritation, and horse chestnut flower extract for antioxidant protection.
I highly doubt that I’ll ever publish a blog post without this very important addition: broad-spectrum SPF! While applying your daily SPF won’t ease any existing redness, it’ll protect your skin from UVB rays that can cause sunburn and the skin damage that comes from UVA rays. Notably, some super sensitive skin types can find chemical SPFs irritating to their skin which is why we would recommend using a physical SPF filter instead.
Physical SPF filters like titanium dioxide and zinc oxide sit on the surface of the skin and reflect UV rays away from the skin. They’re not absorbed by skin like a chemical SPF filter which means they’re non-irritating to sensitive or acne-prone skin. The Neostrata Sheer Physical Protection SPF50 contains titanium dioxide, a physical SPF filter, alongside vitamin E and green tea extract for antioxidant protection galore.
More nerdiness: Top Tips for Masks
Naturally, there’s only so much our skincare can achieve. I would advise that you turn to more invasive skin treatments if your redness isn’t improving with the help of soothing, restorative, skin-protective ingredients. That’s only if you choose to address any redness, of course – skin in all its forms is beautiful.
There are many treatments available which are suited to different skin conditions. For example, an Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) treatment is fabulous for treating diffused redness, pigmentation, and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, aka the dark marks left behind once acne heals. IPL treatments use one wavelength of pulsating light to target the red colour in your skin. They work because the pigment cells in your skin absorbs the light energy which is converted into heat – it's the heat which fades the pigment.
Whereas a pulsed dye laser treatment works at specific wavelengths and addresses skin that has vascular lesions, red acne scars, background redness, spider veins and birthmarks. It has a dynamic cooling device protecting the upper epidermis, outermost layer of skin.
If you need a little extra guidance in the skincare department, book an online skin consultation with our team of qualified Nerds (aka skin consultants) and become a member of Skin Nerd Network. They have the nerdie know-how on redness, irritation, and sensitivity galore!
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We get that sagging skin – especially if it's pre-mature – can knock your confidence and affect your self-esteem. While there’s no magical potion for drastically improving skin laxity, many pro-ageing skincare ingredients and in-salon treatments can make a difference and help prevent further drooping.
Our skin ages differently. Skin sagging differs between hoomans because we’re all beautifully unique with our own set of DNA molecules and life experiences.
Sagging skin can manifest on your face or body, most notably on your chin, throat, cheeks, underarms and stomach. It’s a normal by-product of getting older but also having a little one or losing weight, as elastin fibres stretch and can’t “snap back” once the baby’s born or when fat has been lost.
Drooping skin all comes down to our rock star proteins: collagen and elastin. They’re structural fibres found in our dermis (the middle layer of skin) support our epidermis (the outermost layer of skin). In essence, collagen and elastin are the scaffolding that keep our skin firm, plump, and youthful.
More nerdiness: What Is Collagen?
As we hit our early twenties, our skin’s natural stores of elastin and collagen naturally begin to deplete – as well as hyaluronic acid, a hydrating molecule that keeps skin full and bouncy. Nerdie fact: collagen declines at a rate of 1% every year. This is an inevitable process (sorry!) that’s determined by our genetics and commonly referred to as intrinsic ageing.
Skin sagging can also be sped up by external factors, otherwise called extrinsic ageing. Exposure to UV rays, free radical activity caused by pollution, and lifestyle choices such as smoking or poor diet are common extrinsic offenders that degrade collagen and elastin.
Our epidermis doesn’t have the support it needs to remain firm and taut when our skin’s supplies of collagen and elastin diminish and get “broken down”. This results in skin losing its laxity and the onset of skin sagging, as well as the formation of fine lines and wrinkles.
Another factor in skin sagging is the loss of adipose fat. We’ve got adipose fat by the bucket load when we’re young, but as we age adipose fat production slows down. The fatty tissue we’ve got left then begins to shift southward when we get older which gives rise to sunken cheeks – thanks gravity!
More nerdiness: Hyaluronic Acid - What is It and What Does it Do?
SPF
We could shout this one from the rooftops... always wear an SPF, even on days spent curled up on the sofa! The damage caused by UV rays accounts for a mahoosive 80% of skin ageing, which includes skin sagging, wrinkles, and hyperpigmentation.
UVB rays have a shorter wavelength and get absorbed by the epidermis which leads to bad burns. While UVA rays penetrate through windows (surprising, right?) and deep into our skin’s dermis where it degrades elastin and collagen fibres.
A study published in the Journal of Dermatological Science in 2019 found that mice exposed to high amounts of UVA radiation had a greater decline in skin elasticity than mice with low UVA exposure. So, let’s protect our structural fibres!
A broad-spectrum SPF like the Skingredients Skin Shield (€42) protects skin from harmful UVB, UVA and HEV light (blue light emitted from screens) with zinc oxide, a physical SPF filter. It also contains vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant, and niacinamide (vitamin B3) to improve skin tone and texture.
Antioxidants
Nerdiness incoming! Free radicals are reactive, unpaired electrons naturally produced by chemical processes in the body, like breathing and eating, and a result of exposure to extrinsic factors such as UV rays, pollution, and cigarette smoke.
In a process called oxidation, free radicals can contribute to the degradation of healthy collagen and elastin fibres by stealing an electron from them – cheeky! That’s where antioxidants come in. Antioxidants neutralise unstable free radicals by giving them a spare electron to prevent cellular damage.
In our opinion, serums are the best way to serve antioxidants to your face and the Environ Skin EssentiA Vita-Antioxidant AVST Gel (€57) is the gold standard of skincare. It contains introductory amounts of vitamin A in the form of retinyl palmitate to boost collagen production as well as vitamin C to brighten and antioxidants galore for skin protection.
Vitamin A
Pro-ageing skincare ingredients don’t come better than vitamin A, it’s an essential for skin health. While SPF and antioxidants protect the skin, it’s vitamin A that renews and replenishes.
Topical application will improve collagen synthesis and stimulate the production of collagen and elastin fibres. A surge in collagen leads to increased dermal thickness which gives skin a plumper, pillowy affect. Hip, hip, hooray for vitamin A! It’ll also increase cell turnover rate to turf out dead skin cells and make way for fresh, healthy skin cells.
The Gilda Liljeblad Regenerating Vitamin A Retinol Cream (€79.90) contains retinyl palmitate, a gentler form of vitamin A that's less likely to cause skin irritation and sensitivity. It also has hyaluronic acid to hydrate, rosehip oil to soothe, which is high in omegas 3 and 6, and vitamin E for added antioxidant protection.
You can load up on our good pal vitamin A by eating a nutritious, balanced diet. So, make sure you’re eating lots of sweet potato, carrots, spinach, butternut squash, and kale.
More nerdiness: Antioxidant Skincare: Why You Need It In Your Routine?
Pro-ageing skincare ingredients can have a tightening effect on mild skin laxity, but professional skin treatments might give better results when treating moderate skin sagging. We’re putting emphasis on professional here, nerds, please don’t try these treatments at home!
Ultherapy
Non-invasive face lift anyone? Ultherapy uses focused ultrasound energy on a targeted area of skin to stimulate collagen and elastin production for a plumper, tighter effect. It'll help with a lack of elasticity, wrinkles, and fine lines!
Micro needling
Next up, micro needling. The micro needles puncture the tip of the epidermis to create micro wounds which trigger a wound healing response. This stimulates the release of growth factors which induces collagen and elastin production. A review on micro needling in the American Society for Dermatological Surgery in 2017 found that it also helps with scars, acne, melasma, and photodamage.
Laser resurfacing
Or maybe laser resurfacing might be up your alley. An article in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology in 2011 found that an ablative fractionated carbon-dioxide laser (aka fraxel laser) improved skin laxity by penetrating the epidermis and stimulating collagen and elastin production.
]]>Hugging, smooching or getting it on (Marvin Gaye style) triggers the release of oxytocin: a neuropeptide dubbed the “lurve” hormone, it’s a romantic high. Below we’ve got the nerdie reasoning on how oxytocin can facilitate skin healing, reduce stress-induced inflammation and improve beauty sleep so nightly skin functions can run smoothly. Quite a CV, innit?
Falling in love is more than butterflies, blushes and warm fuzzies thanks to oxytocin as the hormone facilitates wound healing. Social interaction and bonding with partners are key for mental well-being which directly impacts skin health through the brain-skin connection.
A study conducted by the Ohio State University in 2004 found that mice with elevated oxytocin levels from social interaction had better wound recovery than mice that were isolated with high levels of cortisol (the stress hormone).
Another study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology (bit of a mouthful) in 2010 concluded that couples with higher oxytocin levels after bonding in an interaction task healed wounds faster than couples with lower levels of oxytocin. So, get started on those deep, meaningful conversations!
Our body responds to stress by producing cortisol: the fight-flight hormone with a bad rep for skin health. A spike in cortisol can trigger blemishes or inflammation in skin conditions like rosacea, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis.
Flare-ups of skin conditions occur when we’re low because stress weakens our immune system and kickstarts an inflammatory response, yay. Similarly, a breakout is common when hoomans are stressed since cortisol disrupts our body’s hormones and stimulates sebaceous glands to overproduce sebum.
Luckily, heroic oxytocin counteracts cortisol and its effects on skin. A study published in Experimental Dermatology in 2013 found that oxytocin modulates the key processes that are impaired in atopic dermatitis. The data suggested that oxytocin was a crucial “mediator in skin homeostasis and clinically relevant to stressed skin conditions like atopic dermatitis”.
We’re not saying love cures inflammatory skin conditions because that’s not the case. But a positive mindset and less stress makes it easier to manage inflammatory skin conditions and their flare-ups.
More nerdiness: What is collagen?
It’s only natural for hoomans’ skin to develop a few wrinkles, lose its elasticity and sag as we get older. But we’re all on board if we can keep our skin supple, cushiony and line-free for a little longer.
A recent study published in the British Journal of Dermatology in 2019 investigated oxytocin and its impact in intrinsic skin ageing. To briefly explain, intrinsic skin ageing is caused by natural factors inside our body (like hormones or our genetics) instead of extrinsic factors such as smoking or UV damage.
The results proved that oxytocin suppressed cellular senescence (a type of deterioration from ageing). The catch? Oxytocin only prevented skin cells deteriorating in younger participants and found that it didn’t have much of an effect on older participants. Therefore, oxytocin is beneficial for protecting young skin against age-related disorders.
A study conducted on rats by the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in 2003 found that oxytocin helped to modulate their sleep-wake behaviour. In a nutshell, rats with elevated oxytocin under stress-free conditions had improved sleep.
Catching restful, plentiful Zzz’s is very important for skin health. That’s because our slumbers are key for supporting skin functions that only occur during nighttime. Whilst we’re catching flies, our skin has a chance to repair, hydrate and protect itself. Our biggest organ (nerdie fact) speeds up our skin cells’ renewal rate to slough away dead skin and repair daytime damage from UV exposure and pollution. There’s good reason it’s called our beauty sleep!
Are you a Nerd Networker?
Head over to the Nerd Network blog to swot up on proven modes to reduce stress.
If not, book an online skin consultation here and join the nerd herd! Our team of experts are looking forward to meeting you.
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If your skin is feeling tight, looking dull, lacking plumpness, and has red, flaky patches, you may jump to the conclusion that you have dry skin. Let me ask you one question – has your skin always been dry? If not, it’s much more likely that your skin is dehydrated.
Dry skin is skin that is low in sebaceous activity – nerd speak for it not producing as much oil as it should. Dehydrated skin, on the other hand, is low in water rather than oil – it's not a genetic predisposition but more of a result of lifestyle factors such as a diet low in fatty acids and other nutrients like vitamins and minerals, alcohol consumption, misuse of skincare products and harsh weather conditions.
]]>If your skin is feeling tight, looking dull, lacking plumpness, and has red, flaky patches, you may jump to the conclusion that you have dry skin. Let me ask you one question – has your skin always been dry? If not, it’s much more likely that your skin is dehydrated.
Dry skin is skin that is low in sebaceous activity – nerd speak for it not producing as much oil as it should. Dehydrated skin, on the other hand, is low in water rather than oil – it's not a genetic predisposition but more of a result of lifestyle factors such as a diet low in fatty acids and other nutrients like vitamins and minerals, alcohol consumption, misuse of skincare products and harsh weather conditions.
You can read more about the difference between dry and dehydrated skin here.
We’re going to speak about what it actually means in terms of what your skin is going through, the best ingredients and the best skincare routine for dehydrated skin.
What actually is skin dehydration?
Skin dehydration isn’t quite cut and dry, due to the numbers of factors that can influence how our skin becomes dehydrated. However, from a formulation standpoint, when skincare formulators are thinking about dehydrated skin, usually they’re trying to up moisture content and reduce water loss from the skin by adding hydrating ingredients and ingredients that can help to restore the skin’s barrier to a happier state.
So realistically, if your skin has become dehydrated, it’s lower in lipids like ceramides, for example, or even sebum. It’s not so much that your skin isn’t producing enough sebum, it’s more that the sebum you do make may be removed from the skin.
Coming from a skin therapist perspective, like formulators, we want to alleviate the dehydration instantly with hydrators and then try to reduce what is causing the skin dehydration. It’s actually one of the simpler skin concerns to address and can be hugely improved within a week or two.
Cleansers for dehydrated skin
No matter how your skin has become dehydrated, we need to think about your cleanser. I believe cleansing is the cornerstone of your skincare routine, and I advocate for cleansing being your core exfoliating step too... However, it’s important to replenish anything that your cleanser could be taking away.
Your core, gentle daily cleanser for dehydrated skin should be a cream cleanser, an oil cleanser or a balm cleanser or if it is a wash or a foam, we want to make sure it’s not skin-stripping and that it actually introduces more hydration to the skin. If your skin feels tight after cleansing, that cleanser is not for your skin, at least right now when you’re looking to improve skin hydration.
Ingredients that I love for skin hydration are prebiotics and probiotics. Probiotics can help to rebalance the skin’s flora, which can also help with skin dehydration. Not to be biased, but my own Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse (€25, theskinnerd.com) is ideal for dehydrated skin as it contains a pre-probiotic complex and polyhydroxy acid.
Another thing to keep an eye out for in cleansers for dehydrated skin are ceramides. Ceramides are a lipid native to our skin that play a part in retaining moisture, so introducing them throughout our routine is integral. If you prefer a foam or wash to a creamy cleanser, you could opt for the Holika Holika Good Cera Super Ceramide Foaming Wash (€18.50, beautybay.com) which contains three types of ceramides.
One thing to note – your pre-cleanse can actually very much dehydrate your skin if you’re opting for a micellar water that is high in alcohol or fragrance, or the dreaded face wipes. Opt for a pre-cleanse that does not contain these ingredients, such as a pre-cleanse balm or the Cleanse Off Mitt reusable makeup remover (€6.50, theskinnerd.com).
Serums for dehydrated skin
I think when many think of a skincare routine they think “cleanser, moisturiser, SPF” as standard, but I’d be inclined to opt for a serum rather than a moisturiser. Although a moisturiser can be super beneficial as a method of softening the upper layers of the skin, serums can penetrate deeper to deliver active ingredients further into the epidermis for longer-term results.
On the short-term front, the type of hydrator we’re looking for is called a humectant. A humectant is a molecule that binds water to it, and the main one you’ll find in skincare is hyaluronic acid (although glycerin is another really effective humectant). Hyaluronic acid is going to help to draw moisture from your environment into your skin. Your skin is going to feel instantly plumper and more hydrated when you use a hyaluronic acid serum. Skin Formulas Hydra Serum (€50, theskinnerd.com) contains multi-weigh hyaluronic acid to instantly hydrate while stimulating your skin’s own reservoir of hyaluronic acid.
Long-term, our goal is to help to strengthen the skin and give it what it needs to synthesise collagen for example, and to retain its moisture with more ease. My go-to ingredient in topical skincare for this (and for essentially all skin concerns) is vitamin A, particularly in the form of retinyl palmitate. Retinyl palmitate converts to retinoic acid in the skin, but with a slightly longer chain of conversion than retinol. This means that the skin can tolerate it better, but that you can get similar results. Introduce a vitamin A serum such as Environ SkinEssentiA AVST Moisturiser (€57, theskinnerd.com).
Vitamin A is also an antioxidant and the AVST Moisturiser has additional antioxidants too. Antioxidants help to protect our skin from the environmental damage that can lead to dehydrated skin. Studies in areas with high levels of air pollution in Beijing showed that skin dehydration is the skin concern caused most instantly by air pollution.
Moisturiser for dehydrated skin
Now, I know I said that serums are more important generally but if you are happy to have a moisturiser as well as serums, you want something that helps to restore your skin’s barrier, which is more than likely not working as it should if you’re seeing skin dehydration!
Your skin’s barrier is a bit like the lid of your skin. If your skin is a lunch box filled with water, if there’s a hole in the lid, that water is going to come out during the day. If we help to repair these holes or weak spots, we can keep much more of that water in!
Skingredients Skin Good Fats (€42, theskinnerd.com) contains shea butter glycerides which are incredibly nourishing without clogging pores, plus ceramide NP, to help soothe the skin, protect it and help it to retain moisture.
SPF for dehydrated skin
Everyone needs SPF every single day, as UVA and UVB rays can cause damage to our skin, including contributing towards accelerated ageing, pigmentation and skin cancer. UVA reaches us all year round, no matter the weather, through windows too, so it’s integral we protect ourselves. The best SPF for your skin is really down to personal preference.
Heliocare 360 Mineral Tolerance (€35.00, theskinnerd.com) is a broad-spectrum SPF 50 with a repairing enzyme to help to heal the skin while providing antioxidant protection too, so this could be a great option.
Supplements for dehydrated skin
Our philosophy at The Skin Nerd is that skin health requires a 360˚ approach, so you need to feed the skin from within as well as on the outside. Something I swear by for dehydrated skin is an omega supplement, such as the Advanced Nutrition Programme Skin Omegas+ (€37.00, theskinnerd.com). Omegas promote normal skin health and are proven to increase skin glow.
The new Hush & Hush SkinCapsule Hydrate+ contains hyaluronic acid and Ceramosides, an ingredient that works to introduce more ceramides to the blood stream. In 2 clinical studies, on 80 people, Ceramosides had a high skin hydration effect – so worthwhile if you’re keen on nutraceuticals! This will be launching on theskinnerd.com on the 25th of January!
Exfoliation for dehydrated skin
Over-exfoliation is actually a main cause of dehydrated skin, so cut back to once a week to see if that improves hydration and slowly increase. If you are using a skincare routine where every product contains an exfoliating acid, no wonder your skin is dehydrated.
If you don’t use an exfoliating product of yet, consider lactic acid. Lactic acid is believed to be one of the most hydrating exfoliating acids, and due to a large molecular size, acts in a more controlled and gentle manner.
You can opt for something like the Inkey List Lactic Acid 10% Serum (€9.99, mccabespharmacy.com) and use it once or twice a week, before your vitamin A serum.
Find out more about which exfoliating acid is best for your skin here.
Your nerdie recap on dehydrated skin
Caring for men’s skin isn’t too complicated. If you’re a hooman who has had your other half nick your skincare then you’ll know that all skin pretty much needs the same things!
All skin needs to be cleansed, treated with vitamins and antioxidants, and protected with SPF from the effects of light!
Skincare is for all hoomans, but let’s think about male skin for a second. Male skin and female skin are not so different – the main differences between them is that male skin tends to be oilier than female skin, and also tends to be a little thicker.
]]>All skin needs to be cleansed, treated with vitamins and antioxidants, and protected with SPF from the effects of light!
Skincare is for all hoomans, but let’s think about male skin for a second. Male skin and female skin are not so different – the main differences between them is that male skin tends to be oilier than female skin, and also tends to be a little thicker.
Despite the fact that – louder for the hoomans in the back! - all skin needs the same nutrients, it can seem more socially acceptable for female hoomans to be ‘into’ skincare and beauty, rather than their male counterparts. We don’t really agree with this – so here’s some practical tips for male hoomans to look after their skin.
Cleansing your skin is one of the most important things that you can do for your skin. Cleansing with a product helps to remove excess oil, pollution, SPF, and any other product. It is a really simple and effective way to make sure you’re looking after your skin as best as possible.
You should cleanse twice a day – and cleansing with water doens’t really cut it. You need product to actually help to cut through the buildup on your skin.
For AM cleansing, we can suggest a gentle cleanser like Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse, packed with pre and probiotics, and polyhydroxy acid for super gentle exfoliation.
There’s also Avène Extremely Gentle Cleanser, if you’re a sensitive soul.
For evening exfoliation, we might suggest Skingredients Sally Cleanse for use up three evenings a week. Since male skin tends to be a little oilier, this can be a good choice as it helps to cut through oil and avoid breakouts before they can begin.
You could also try Murad AHA/BHA Exfoliating Cleanser, ideal for exfoliation with a combo of lactic, glycolic, and salicylic acid.
Don’t forget if you’re a beardy hooman – that skin needs some love too! You can cleanse your beard with the same product you use for washing your face.
Post-wash, it’s key to thoroughly dry your beard so that the skin underneath doesn’t remain very damp, as this can lead to irritation and flakiness, too. So reach for the towel, beardy folks.
We might be blue in the face saying it, but at least it might mean that you’re not red in the face. SPF is a necessity all year around. Sun damage is the most common reason for premature ageing of the skin, so it’s important to make sure you apply it year-round.
When it comes to SPF, there’s plenty of male skin-friendly options to choose from.
You might go for IMAGE Prevention + Daily Matte Moisturizer SPF 32 if you’re a little oilier, or NeoStrata Sheer Hydration SPF 35, another good option for breakout prone skin to keep you protected and matte. Avéne Very High Protection SPF 50+ Fluid is a nerdie favourite for all hoomans, but particularly adored for the males among us as it’s a gentle, protective formula at a reasonable price point.
Check your moles and freckles by using the A B C D E technique (asymmetry, border, colour, diameter, evolving) and go to your GP if anything seems out of the ordinary.
Kennedy & Co
Although we believe that skincare is for all hoomans, Kennedy & Co, Darren Kennedy’s own range of skincare is a great choice for the males among us. This skincare is tailored to male skin and makes great gifts as well as a great choice for men looking for a simple, price-friendly skincare option!
If you have any questions about your skin or feel that you’re a little at sea when it comes to your next steps, then we understand. You can book in for a skincare consultation with the Nerd Network and speak to our experts who will create a simple, effective skincare routine for you!
This is a great option for gifting to the males in your life who would love a solid skincare routine but don’t know where to start – or a gift to yourself!
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Do I have to wash my face every day?
This is a great question and one that folks are a little embarrassed to ask. However, the nerdie word is: yes. Twice, in fact.
You should wash your face first thing in the morning, and last thing at night, too, to remove dust, oil, pollution - you name it. And how should you wash it? Well, that leads us on to our next question ...
Can I wash my face with water?
No, you cannot wash your face with water. You can wet your face with water – but water will not remove oil, makeup, impurities, or anything else which has bonded to your skin. You’ll be wet, but not clean. In order to clean your face ready for the day ahead, or wash off all that has come before, you need to apply a product to your skin.
For gentle, everyday cleansing, our nerdie suggestion is to start out with the Cleanse Off Mitt, a microfibre mitt which can remove oil, SPF, makeup, and everything in between with the help of water. It uses the power of microfibre to hook pollutants out of pores to get your cleanse off to a great start. Follow up with a double cleanse with product – in the AM, we might suggest Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse, or ASAP Gentle Cleansing Gel.
In the PM, you can go in with your Cleanse Off Mitt once more, and follow up with the treatment cleanser of your choice as recommended by your Nerd or Nerdette. We love Skingredients Sally Cleanse for our salicylic-acid needs, or NeoStrata Foaming Glycolic Wash for most hoomans seeking a through cleanse!
How important is it to wear SPF every day?
You’ve heard the SPF hype, but just how key is it? Well – it's pretty gosh darn key. Washing your face and wearing SPF every day are the most important things you can do for your skin. Wearing SPF can help to protect your skin from UVA, UVB, and HEV lights, as well as working to protect your skin and reduce your chance of developing skin cancer. That’s why it’s so important to apply, reapply, and wear it every single day.
Is it too late to start wearing SPF?
It’s never too late to start protecting your skin. Even if you’ve never done it before, tomorrow is a new day, and picking up the SPF is never a bad idea. The best time to start wearing SPF was probably ten years ago. The next best time is right now!
Can I actually shrink my pores?
We always say that pores aren’t doors. They don’t open, and they don’t close – but it’s possible improve the appearance of pores with certain ingredients. Niacinamide is a great ingredient if pores are on your mind. It can help to reduce sebum production, which can in turn make your pores appear smaller. Pores can appear larger when sebum is trapped inside them, so choosing a product rich in niacinamide can be a great idea. Pore size is often more to do with a natural breakdown of elastin rather than oil, but you can maintain your pores with the correct concoction of skincare ingredients.
Is it actually ok to pick spots?
It’s not a good idea to pick spots. Treatment can depend on the kind of spot in question. If it’s a whitehead, applying salicylic acid on the spot itself can help to dry it out. If it’s a red, headless spot, which is angry and inflamed, you can apply salicylic acid, too – but it’s best to leave these and do NOT pick them, as picking them will make things exponentially worse.
Picking spots can lead to scarring, or even infection in some cases. If you truly have to squeeze your spot, wash your hands, cleanse your skin, wrap your fingers in tissue, and press down on the skin around the spot, and wiggle. Stop before there is blood! Apply an on-the-spot antibacterial treatment to the skin and don’t apply any makeup until it’s healed.
Is it important to moisturise?
It’s more important to apply key ingredients to your skin to feed it all that it needs to be protected and healthy. The nerdie philosophy focuses more strongly on serums – which are like very concentrated moisturisers crammed with active ingredients. Often, your serums can provide your skin with all that it needs without the need of an extra moisturiser. The Skingredients Core 4 doesn’t include a moisturiser, as Skin Veg and Skin Protein both take the place of a traditional moisturiser, as they’re both packed with vitamins, antioxidants, and pro-collagen peptides galore. If you’re a hooman with very dry or dehydrated skin, or skin that loves the luxurious feeling of a moisturiser, we could recommend Skingredients Skin Good Fats!
Did we answer your spooky little secret questions? Let us know in the comments, and message us if you have any further questions you’d love an answer for – no nerdie judgement here, we swear.
]]>Oh, I’m sorry, that’s the buzzer – time's up. The nerdiest bit of your skincare routine is also the simplest – it's your cleansing, nerd. Cleansing correctly is one of the best of things you can do for your skin. This is why I’ve compiled my tips for you so that you can cleanse like a nerd, and learn the best methods of cleansing for healthy skin.
Cleansing is one of the first things we try to get hoomans who are new to skincare to do regularly. It’s one of the best skincare habits that we try to teach younger hoomans who are starting their skincare journeys, as it can help to soothe and minimize skincare concerns before we need to turn to more intense solutions.
Cleansing your skin twice a day can remove pollution, SPF, makeup, and excess oil from your skin. Using a treatment cleanser as part of your skincare routine can help to exfoliate your skin and tackle your skincare concerns such as breakouts, pigmentation, dryness, and much more besides. Cleansing can be customised to work for you and your skincare concerns, as well as being important for general skin maintenance. Cleansing doesn’t need to be a challenge – it can be a simple, yet effective part of your skincare routine, particularly with my nerdie tips.
You should cleanse your skin twice a day – AM and PM. You can bookend your night of sleep with cleansing if it suits – last night before nerdie noggin hits your silken pillow, and the first thing that you do after you crack those peepers open. Or, you can start your evening routine with your cleanse, and repeat the process after breakfast the following morning – it's all about what suits you.
However, it’s important to cleanse twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.
This ensures that you’re removing the remains of the day in the evening, and removing any build-up of oil, product, or skin in the morning.
Also, nerdie tip: if you wake up rather puffy about the visage (it’s a hazard of beauty sleep, nerds), cleansing can help. The process of washing your face in the morning can help to prompt lymphatic drainage (the process by which we drain excess fluid which can build up in our skin, particularly overnight, away from our faces).
A pre-cleanse is the first part of your cleansing routine. You can use a pre-cleansing product or you can use a pre-cleansing tool to help.
The Cleanse Off Mitt was created for this express purpose. It’s a mircrofibre mitt which you should run under warm water, squeeze until it’s merely damp, and then glide it in small circles over your skin to cleanse your skin of makeup, SPF, pollution, and oil, before you head in with your double cleanser.
The Cleanse Off Mitt uses super-fine microfibre technology. It works to hook pollution and product from your pores and remove them from the skin, unlike wipes. Face-wipes are not suitable for a pre-cleanse. They do not help to remove product from skin – they merely move product around. Also, many wipes are created with alcohol, and their cocktail of ingredients can strip the skin of goodness, leading to sensitisation over time.
You can also pre-cleanse with a balm, such as Dermalogica Pre-Cleanse Balm. This is often nerdily loved by hoomans who love to wear a good bit of makeup and enjoy the feeling of a balm to remove it.
This is the part of your cleanse which happens with your cleansing product. This might be a gentle cleanser in the AM, or a treatment cleanser in the PM. It helps to fully ensure that all product is removed from your skin, and that you skin is entirely clean and serum-ready.
An active cleanser, or a treatment cleanser is targeted towards your specific skin concerns. It is a form of exfoliator which is generally formulated with an exfoliating acid. Since mechanical exfoliators (read: scrubs) aren’t nerdily loved, we always advocate for a treatment cleanser.
How can you cleanse like a nerd? Here’s our guide.
That’s every day and every night, nerds. Double cleansing twice a day is the nerdie preference. Use a Cleanse Off Mitt or also Environ Skin EssentiA Dual Action Pre-Cleansing Oil.
This botanical pre-cleansing oil is a great choice if you’ve been wearing a good bit of makeup in recent days.
In the morning, you should only use a gentle cleanser. We have some suggestions for gentle cleansers for everyday use.
Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse
This pre and probiotic cleanser is the hydrating first step in the Skingredients Core 4 routine, but you can use it by itself if you like. It’s formualted with PHA for super gentle exfoliation and is suitable for all skin types, even sensitively skinned hoomans.
IMAGE Ormedic Balancing Facial Cleanser
This gentle cleanser contains aloe vera and green tea extracts as well as hyaluronic acid to restore moisture and hydration to the skin. It’s super gentle, and antioxidant rich.
Avene Extremely Gentle Cleanser
The clue’s in the name here – the Avene Extremely Gentle Cleanser is formulated with Avene’s super gentle thermal water which is truly soothing and gentle on skin which might need comforting or just enjoys a gentle texture.
Be sure to get right in there when you’re applying your product. It’s a simple matter to mimic some of the techniques of facial massage as you gently massage your product into your skin, and move the fluid in your skin away from your face.
That's right, you should be cleansing from the nipples all the way up to the hairline, baby! It’s important to make sure that you are applying product all the way from your nipples across your decolletage all the way up your neck and every bit of your face, too.
The evening time is the perfect time to apply your treatment cleanser. This is to give your skin a chance to adjust overnight. It’s not a good idea to use something like your salicylic acid-based cleanser in the morning time as it can increase your photo-sensitivity. We always recommend SPF (365 days of the year!) but it’s particularly important the morning after you’ve used a treatment cleanser.
Some of our favourite treatment cleansers follow; but remember, but every cleanser will suit every hooman. You can chat to our Nerd and Nerdette team during your consultation about the correct cleanser for you if you join the Nerd Network.
This is a salicylic acid based cleanser suitable for use up to three times a week and best used on hoomans with oilier skin. It can also be used for applying directly to spots and micro-masking, too! It contains 2% salicylic acid, the highest percentage of salicylic available over the counter in the UK in cosmetic products.
Murad AHA/BHA Exfoliating Cleanser
This powerhouse cleanser contains a blend of salicylic acid, lactic acid, and glycolic acid, making it a powerful exfoliating wash for use as a treament cleanser in the evening, as often as is recommended by your Nerd or Nerdette.
This time is yours! Be sure to set a timer if you struggle (or do a nice slow count aloud, just don’t get cleanser in your mouth) all the way to 60 seconds. This allows the product to works its scientific magic on your skin and ensure that you’re cleansing everything away fully. Also, it’s 60 seconds for you. It’s not often we get that, all to ourselves.
So there you have it – some nerdie rules to live by to guarantee a stellar cleanse, every gosh darn day.
]]>If you’d like some skincare tips on how to handle maskne and another increasingly common skincare concerns brought on by masks, then you can read all about it in my blog on the subject.
However, today I’m going to be talking about masks that are a little cosier to discuss, and in fact, may actually help to reverse some to the effects of mask-wearing with a little pampering.
Choosing a mask for your skin can really be the cherry on the top of your routine. There’s such a wealth of product available out there that hoomans can sometimes make the mistake of thinking that a mask is a mask, and as long as you can slap it on the turn up the Enya in the background, you’re onto a good thing. This is not always the case (but you should always be blasting Enya, in my opinion).
I’ve talked to so many hoomans who will blithely tell me that every time they put on a mask, they break out the day after. And these hoomans generally just assume that this is all part of the masking experience. It’s not! The ‘purge’ was we call it is the sometimes unavoidable step in some skincare routines (generally when we increase the amount of vitamin A in a routine, but this doesn’t happen to every single hooman!), but it’s not the natural predecessor to a day or night of pampering.
Your own particular skincare concern has a match in masks, so without further ado, here’s some top tips for masks that might suit you.
… cleanse, cleanse, cleanse! It’s super important to make sure your skin is cleansed thoroughly and that you won’t be applying mask over skin which has the vestiges of product still bubbling beneath it.
Give your skin a thorough cleanse by pre-cleansing with a damp Cleanse Off Mitt from the nipples up to remove any oil, SPF, makeup on the surface of the skin. Follow this with double-cleansing with gentle cleanser of your choice – for example, Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse or Galinee La Culture Foaming Facial Wash – for 60 seconds, from the nipples up. Remove with the clean side of your Cleanse Off Mitt. Now you’re ready for your mask!
You can choose between clay masks or sheet masks. Both have advantages and drawbacks. Clay masks might need s little more time to prepare and can be slightly messier, but they are often very effective. Sheet masks are a handy alternative, but might not be as utterly effective! When it comes to different skin types, we have some top tips for masks...
If you have oily skin or are spot-prone …
Choosing a mask with the correct ingredients is key. Oilier skin can benefit from masks which have some salicylic acid in them, some tea-tree oil, or even charcoal.
Environ Focus Care Clarity+ Sebu-Clear Masque
This is a highly effective clay mask which you can paint onto damp skin with the brush provided. It is a creamy, low pH creamy mask that assists in clearing the appearance of existing breakouts with a combination of exfoliating acids, leaving the skin looking visibly healthier and smoother.
It contains a combination of lactic acid, salicylic acid, and tea tree oil. This is a combination of exfoliating acids and antibacterial and anti-inflammatory ingredients to slough off skin and help to heal existing breakouts without drying your skin too much.
Apply a cherry-sized amount across affected areas after cleansing (and spritzing). Leave for 10 minutes and cleanse away with your Cleanse Off Mitt. Use every 3 days or as advised by your Nerd or Nerdette. This effective masque is only available post-consultation!
Dermalogica Clear Start Blackhead Clearing Fizz Mask
This mask is a great shout for teen hoomans or hoomans who are pregnant. It has a funky active fizzing formula. The technology activates upon application, helping to open pores, decongest skin and facilitate blackhead clearing.
It contains sulfur for skin-clearing, and kaolin clay to absorb oil. It’s definitely a sure-fire way to bring a bit of literally pizazz to your routine, too.
Seoulista Charcoal Detox Instant Facial Sheet Mask
This sheet mask is actually something that makes a great gift, or is perfect for bringing to a pamper session if you like to be prepared with products that you’re sure will suit your skin. Seoulista Charcoal Detox Instant Facial contains charcoal and volcanic ash as well as bamboo to draw impurities out from the skin and minimise the appearance of pores.
It’s made from a bio-cellulose sheet, meaning it’s totally biodegradable as well as adhering well to your skin. Use it once or twice a week for up to 20 minutes!
If you have dry skin …
IMAGE Vital C Hydrating Enzyme Masque
This is a highly hydrating mask that is full of exfoliating enzymes and nourishing Vitamins A, C, and E, perfect for skin needing a boost of hydration.
It contains a blend of L- ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbyl phosphate, stable forms of pigment-diminishing and skin brightening vitamin A. It also contains plumping hyaluronic acid retinyl palmitate, a fat-form of vitamin A to prompt collagen production, help skin-cell turnover and help healing and inflammation.
This masque is particularly suited to hoomans who seek exfoliation but don’t find that their skin responds well to acids!
Apply a thick layer once or twice a week - once a week for the oily and congestion-prone hoomans. If you are spot-prone to only apply for up to 10 minutes rather than the recommended 30.
This is suitable for hoomans prone to rosacea!
This hyaluronic acid-rich is suitable for sleeping in the night before a big event, if you’re looking to plump up skin which might be in need of some pampering!
Formulated to help prevent premature ageing and to hydrate dry skin, DMK Hydrating Masque is great for skin prone to irritation and sensitivity. It can help skin to appear more firm, too. This product is only available post-consultation.
Seoulista Super Hydration Instant Facial Sheet Mask
This sheet mask is a favourite for bringing away on trips. Seoulista Super Hydration Instant Facial is a hyaluronic acid infused sheet mask, with bonus antioxidant-rich coconut. It really is as simple as you think – apply once or twice a week for best results and pat the remaining serum on afterwards.
If you’re prone to environmental damage …
REN Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask
If you’ve got skin which is maybe a bit more mature, sun-damaged, or dry, this this might be the produc for you. It exfoliates with a combination of glycolic acid, alctic aid, and paina from papaya – an enzyme which provides more gentle exfoliation.
If you have sensitized skin …
REN Evercalm Ultra Comforting Rescue Mask
This mask is formulated to target the signs of sensitised skin, this calming mask uses an innovative bio-actives complex to strengthen skin's barrier as it moisturises, de-stresses, and comforts the skin, boosting its overall health. It’s packed with soothing ingredients like white mushroom extract (Albarellus Ovinus) gotu kola, and horse chestnut flower extract. Apply a generous amount on to cleansed skin, and leave on for 10-15 minutes, then rinse away with cold water using your Cleanse Off Mitt and follow with your usual skincare routine. Use three times a week or when your skin needs a rescue.
If you have more mature skin …
Environ Tri Bio-Botanical Revival Masque
This nerdie favourite can certainly give astonishing results. Environ calls it the 'Face Lift in a Jar'. Environ's Tri Biobotanical Revival Masque is formulated with alpha hydroxy acids which help to hydrate and rejuvenate skin giving it a younger, fresher appearance. Ask your Nerd or Nerdette about this product to get the nerdiest tips and tricks on how to use it best, but it’s certainly a product that we return to again and again.
IMAGE Ageless Total Resurfacing Masque
Did you know that Janna Ronert, creator, founder, and CEO of IMAGE skincare swears by this product herself? This is a micro-exfoliating masque with alpha hydroxy acids which can help to resurface and rejuvenate the skin.
Where else can I mask?
Did you know that when it comes to masking, the sky is the limit? Well, it’s true – if you replace sky with ‘skin’. You can mask (almost) anywhere! It’s all about identifying skin which needs more of a focussed approach. You can learn more about body masking in our blog!
If your skin is feeling the effects of masks, then we like to think that adding another mask (ok, a different kind) can help to cancel out any negative effects! Masking post-masking sounds like the kind of soothing end of day plan that we could really get behind.
How do you mask? Have our top tips for masks helped you out?
]]>Also, certain products are used at their best during the summer months. Whereas others are Kings and Queens of the winter time. During the summer months. we might champion products like SPFs, exfoliators, and hydrating products. Through the year we’ll no doubt be tweaking and changing products in and out of our routines, but it’s entirely possible that you might be finding yourself with a little more time to play during these summer months.
Whether you're staying home or taking a little trip somewhere different, the summer can be a great time for experimentation in the skincare realm. The summer months can bring different challenges for our skin that we might not experience at other times of the year, so it's important to know what your reach for if you're having a flare up of your particular skin care concern. Read on for the rundown on summer spots, the reasons why you may be getting them and some of my summer skincare favourites...
There are 100,000 reasons why you could be breaking out, but during the summer months we can. Whittle this down to three prime contenders for your breakout woes: Stress, sweat and sultry air.
Stress
Breakouts are something of a vicious circle. The more we breakout, the more we tend to worry about breaking out, and this worry feeds further breakouts until you're stuck. Going around in circles, cursing the day you ever purchased that magnified mirror for the bathroom.
Stress of all kinds can trigger breakouts, and it's no surprise that many hoomans might be. Undergoing periods of particular stress during this summer. We might not be able to remedy all of the things in our life which causes stress, particularly at the moment. But it's worth bearing in mind that you are more than your skin and that. This too shall pass along with (hopefully) your breakouts.
Sweat
It’s getting hot in here, so take off all of your clothes makeup and SPF at night. These long hot summer days are a good time, but we need to bear in mind that the elevated temperature has got us sweating. When we sweat, this can combine with any product that we're wearing our skins such as SPM for makeup. It can combine with these to create a kind of soup which can slide lovingly into our pores and block them, which cause - you guessed it - breakouts.
Sultry air
Escape this heat and stop ourselves from sweating. We could be subjecting ourselves to other own skin friendly practises such as air conditioning. Although it's a huge relief, particularly during the hottest of hot times, air conditioning can have an effect on the skin, which we might not expect. Air conditioning can work to dry out our skin, prompting it to overproduce sebum in attempt to lubricate itself. This over production of sebum can lead to oil becoming trapped in our pores and breakouts are the natural response.
So how can we fix all of these breakout related issues? In life there is no immediate solutions, but we can take steps to ensure that our breakouts are minimised and that we look after our skin, particularly during these summer months.
Making sure that you cleanse diligently every morning and evening is another excellent way to minimise breakouts. Double cleansing ensures that you are removing all product SPF and makeup from your skin which might otherwise become embedded in your pores.
It's a simple habit, and once you get into it, we promise it's super easy to continue. It could be all that you need in order to make a difference to the condition of your skin. when you cleanse your skin you create a new fresh surface for serums to effectively penetrate, which is good news all around for your skin. It also means that you are not wasting money on serums because they're getting to do their job as effectively as possible.
The Avène Extremely Gentle Cleanser is a great option for humans who are starting off their double cleansing regime. It's super gentle as it suggests in the title and contains Avène’s soothing thermal water, making it an ideal first step morning and evening. It's a good habit to get into, and you can save 25% on the Avène product on the theskinnerd.com this month.
Combine it with a cheeky Cleanse Off Mitt for best results. The Cleanse Off Mitt is a reusable microfibre makeup remover tool, which is perfect for helping you to cleanse all product away from your skin.
Friend to the breakout-prone human year-round, salicylic acid is an ideal exfoliating companion for the summer months. It packs a powerful punch, so sensitive skins should go easy, and remember as well that salicylic acid is generally not sanctioned for use by pregnant hoomans.
Salicylic acid is a beta hydroxy acid and one of my all-time nerdie favourites, so no wonder it has such a prominent place on my list of summer skincare favourites. Salicylic acid can cut through oil to enter pores and dissolve the debris. By dissolving this debris, it can help to minimise the outbreaks of breakouts on the surface of your skin.
Skingredients Sally Cleanse
Sally is a mighty lady who packs a punch with two percent salicylic acid formulation. This is the highest percentage of salicylic acid permitted for use in cosmetic retail products in the EU. Sally Cleanse can be used up to three times a week in the evening time, but remember to follow up with your SPF religiously every single day because salicylic acid can increase the photo sensitivity of your skin. And during the summer months, when the sun is hopefully beaming, this is particularly important.
You could also try out IMAGE Clear Cell Clarifying Gel Cleanser, a foaming, peptide infused cleanser with salicylic acid. These two are definitely summer skincare favourites, every single year!
During summer months is particularly important to wear your SPF diligently for plenty of reasons. Where are your SPF can help to protect your skin against photo-ageing as well as skin cancer, which is one of the most common skin cancers present in the Irish population, despite our reduced number of sunlit hours. It’s imperative that we take this seriously.
Choosing an SPF that's right for you is very important to creating a skin care routine which protects, nourishes and is perfect for your own skin. Some humans find that mineral SPF are more gentle on their skin, whereas others prefer the simplicity of a chemical SPF. Whichever one you prefer, wearing your SPF faithfully every single day is the most important thing you can do for your skin.
Several SPFs have caught my eye this year.
Murad City Skin Broad Spectrum SPF 50
Long awaited and much-loved, we’re so glad that Murad City Skin is back on the nerdie store. This mineral SPF gives broad spectrum protection on has a delicate tint to it. It's perfect for wearing under make up or by itself if you prefer. It is vegan friendly and ideal for humans who wish for a tiny bit of coverage while protecting their skin.
NeoStrata Sheer Hydration SPF 35
NeoStrata SPF is ideal for skin which might end towards oiliness or congestion, as it brings marvellous hydration to the skin without any comedogenic factor. Oily skin needs hydration too!
This contains NeoGlucosamine, a lightly exfoliating ingredient which also helps to reduce the appearance of pigmentation, and is rich in antioxidants while being an oil-free SPF.
An SPF Expert Tip: be sure to carefully apply your SPF and if it’s an eye-safe formulation, to bring it right up around the eye area to protect your skin from the ageing effects of UV rays from the sun. Apart from the ability of UV rays to prematurely age our skin (and the effect that it has is certainly very notable), it’s important to make sure that every cm of our skin is protected to lessen our chances of developing skin cancer.
Even in the mask department, I’m rediscovering the joy of a handy sheet mask. The best part about sheet masks is that they take up so little room in your vanity or your handbag that you can easily stockpile about 20 before you start getting concerned.
The Seoulista Correct & Calm Instant Facial Sheet Mask is a great shout for hoomans with more congested or breakout prone skin. It can make a great addition to your rotation of masks, and is full of antioxidants, as well as being biodegradable.
The Murad Prebiotic 3-in-1 MultiMist is a hydrating mist, which is perfectly sized to fit into your handbag, Meaning you can bring it with you wherever you go and not look too extra. It is rich in prebiotic hydrating sugars to promote development of good bacteria, help to keep skin hydrated, and help to keep the skin's barrier strong. It also has a bipolymer complex ingredient, which forms a natural, breathable, surface-smoothing second skin that helps prime and set makeup.
The most important thing to remember about summertime skin care is to continue to listen to your skin, and if you have any questions to cheque in with your Nerd or Nerdette To make sure that your skin care routine is working most effectively for you, if you haven't had a chance to chat to inert or nerd out yet, you can still book in for your consultation here. We can guarantee personalised skin care routines and our Nerd and Nerdette team are on-call to assist with any skin care emergencies, summertime or otherwise.
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When we discuss skincare, we’re often talking about collagen in heroic terms.
Collagen isn’t a mythical ingredient or something completely elusive. Collagen is something that gives skin its plumpness and ‘snap’. As we age, it naturally degrades in our skin. Our goal at all times is to keep our skin as healthy and happy as possible, and looking after our collagen is all part of that.
Collagen is a protein. It is the most plentiful protein in the human body. We might think about collagen almost solely in association with our skin, but it does a lot of very important work in ‘glueing’ several of the different internal parts of your body together, like muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones, as well as being very important when it comes to helping your blood to clot correctly.
In skin, collagen helps to form a network of cells called fibroblasts, which helps new cells to grow. It also plays a role in replacing and restoring dead skin cells. As we age, the collagen in our skin degrades, so skin can lose its plumpness and snap as a result. The structure of the skin can weaken, and wrinkles can begin to form.
After the menopause in women, there is a significant decline in collagen. Post 25, production of collagen also begins to slow significantly. It’s not all bad news however. There’s plenty that we can do to protect the collagen in our skin!
Collagen in skincare
When choosing skincare, you can seek products which do their bit to preserve, protect, and prompt your collagen production.
In the Skingredients range, I was interested in my work with cosmetic scientists to create a range which investigated cutting edge technology in collagen stimulus.
That’s why we decided to work with Pro-Coll-One+, which is an ingredients which can help to decrease the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and help0s to stimulate the skin’s production of collagen. Importantly, we have included it in both Skingredients Skin Veg and Skin Protein, because we see the process of collagen induction as something extremely important.
Retinol is a famous ingredient, lauded for its ability to prompt the generation of collagen in the skin.
Our choice might be the Neostrata Skin Active Retinol + NAG Complex which contains 0.5% pure, stabilised retinol (vitamin A derivative). Be sure to listen carefully to your skin as you use this product, and check in with your Nerd or Nerdette if you have questions. It’s best used at night and always used in conjunction with and SPF. It will not be suitable for use if you’re expecting a mini hooman!
Taking a collagen supplement can be very positive for overall health, but I would emphasise that collagen supplements are not the ‘fountain of youth’ that they might be touted as. Nothing can replace a healthy lifestyle and diet, but supplements can, as the name suggests, supplement this lifestyle.
Skin Collagen Support, Advanced Nutrition Programme is a supplement which contains vitamins A which contributes to the maintenance of normal healthy skin and vitamin C for its role in collagen formation. This daily supplement also contains added botanical extracts provide further antioxidant protection.
When it comes to collagen, we’re pretty serious, which is why we have the Skingredients Protein & Solgar Collagen Hyaluronic Acid Bundle. This combo of Skingredients Skin Protein and Solgar Collagen Hyaluronic Acid Complex is perfect for hoomans seeking to support their overall skin health, achieve a healthy, hydrated appearance, and diminish or delay the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Solgar Hyaluronic Acid Complex is an advanced formula that combines hyaluronic acid, chrondroitin sulphate, vitamin C and collagen (BioCell(R) Collagen II(R)) to help keep the skin soft, plump and supple and diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
This combo is suitable for all non-pregnant hoomans who might be seeking to focus on plumping and hydrating skin for a healthy appearance.
As you level up your Environ AVST products, the potency of the products increases. After your second bottle of AVST 3 has been completed and you have experienced zero irritation on the skin, you can being to home roll your skin. This can help the product that you apply afterwards to more directly penetrate your skin, and it can help to prompt collagen, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the needles on a home-rolling device are often too short to prompt collagen induction. These practises should be carried out by a professional aesthetician on their premises.
Microneedling is also known as ‘collagen induction therapy’, which means that it encourages the production of collagen. Microneedling uses super-fine needles to create hundreds of tiny, invisible punctures on the surface of the skin. This trauma to the surface of the skin stimulates the skin’s natural healing processes and can lead to both increased collagen and elastin production as a result of stimulation of the TGF beta1 (growth factor).
Professional microneedling devices can penetrate as deep as 1mm for the face and 2mm for the body, which can create amazing results when it comes to minimising the appearance of acne scarring, and improving the appearance of lines, wrinkles and pigmentation. Pore size may also be reduced as the skin’s elasticity can be improved.
The question of collagen is something bandied around skincare circles, but the fact is that it’s not a magic ingredient, or totally unattainable. It’s very possible to protect our collagen as we get older – the important thing is to find the skincare routine that works for you and addresses this concern. If you’d like more personalised advice on the subject of collagen and your skincare, you can book in for a consultation with the Nerd and Nerdette team. They will be more than happy to advise on how best to care for your skin and create the skincare routine of your nerdie dreams.
]]>There are plenty of treatments that I believe should be left in the hands of the professionals, and parked until we have a chance to return to our salons. We can make-do until then.
However, if you’ve been doing a bit of online shopping (I say a bit – we all know the truth. Am now on first-name terms with my post-hooman, know their star-sign and will probably have them over for family dinner when we can do so), then you might be considering some at-home beauty and skincare solutions.
We are supportive of plenty of home skincare tools and devices, but it’s important to remember that these devices are not stand-ins for a robust skincare routine, packed with nutrients, vitamins, antioxidants and peptides. They can really helpful alongside routines, but they won’t provide the raft of skin-positive effects that your holistic routine provides all by themselves.
Let’s explore some of the most popular creations and have a think about them.
From out of the ashes rises LED masks! Who knew that these seemingly originally clunky, now sleek and state-of-the-art masks would become a product easily stowed in your pharmacy to buy?
LED skin therapy has been used in skin therapy circles for many years. Red light is great for boosting collagen synthesis; blue light is helpful in bacteria and breakout reduction...
But, Jennifer, I hear you say, blue light! HEV! Light damage to skin!
LED is a kind of visible light, like HEV, but subjecting your skin to very specific, measured wavelengths of light for short amounts of time is not believed to cause the same damage as the HEV light widespread in our daily lives.
This blue light can help to manage and tackle acne. Have you heard the old wives tales that sunlight is good for acne? This is true, and false. Sunlight and tanned skin can make acne appear less noticeable, which is part of the reason for this reputation, but blue light has a part to play here, too.
Blue light is part of the spectrum of sunlight which tans (and ages) your skin. The blue light alone in this spectrum will not damage your skin, but instead directly affects the bacteria propionibacterium acnes, causing cell destruction. Blue light is also anti-inflammatory, which can reduce the swelling which you might associate with aggressive breakouts.
Red LED, at a wavelength of 633 nanometers, helps to activate growth factors which can result in wound healing tissue repair, and can even help to destroy bacteria at a deeper level of the skin than blue light. It can also bring down inflammation and swelling.
Near infra-red light has the same anti-inflammatory effect that red light does, but also has the effect of slowing down the processes that result in pigmentation changes in the skin.
When it comes to LED masks, we have used them before as part of facial treatments at Nerd HQ, and when we are able to, we would often recommend visiting your aesthetician, if LED treatments are something which appeals to you. While the home-edition has its own benefits, particularly at the moment, it’s hard to measure up to the effectiveness of the treatment in-clinic.
Here’s some of our nerdie picks when it comes to LED devices.
FOREO UFO Smart Mask Treatment Device
This device, available from Arnotts, has a range of features, and promises to provide the benefits of a 20 minutes sheet mask in 90 seconds. You can choose from blue, green, and red light to achieve different skin effects, and also use thermo-therapy and cryotherapy options. It provides a host of home-spa benefits in one device.
This LED mask is created to target the area around the eyes, to prompt the production of collagen and elastin. The area around the eyes can be one of the first areas of the face to show the effects of ageing, and so this mask can help to target this with. It can also create a plumping effect on the skin. It should be used before an eye serum.
Jade Rolling
It’s a world away from the Cyberpunk-style LED masks, but jade rollers are definitely nerdily approved when it comes to home skincare. Your jade roller (when used correctly) can help to soothe and de-puff skin which might be feeling a bit irritated. You can stick it in the fridge to amplify the cooling effect.
The best thing about jade rolling is that you can do it twice a day if you like, and it’s got the added benefit of feeling absolutely amazing on your skin.
Besides this, it’s super simple to do.
Start with the small side of your roller, and gently run your roller from the inner corner of your eye to your temples, 3-5 times. After this, roll along your nose outwards. Flip the roller over to the larger side, and roll from the centre of your forehead out and down towards your temples, and then on the other side. Next, roll from the centre of your face, where your cheeks are closest to your nose, outwards and downwards towards your earlobes. From over your upper lip, roll with the small side outwards and downwards on both sides and then use the large side from the centre of your skin along your jawline. You can go all the way down to your collarbone, too!
Environ Roll CIT
The Environ Roll CIT is a home-rolling device which can be graduated to during your Environ AVST step-up progression through increasing levels of vitamin A. Home-rolling is suitable after Level 2 of this system.
The Environ range is only suitable after consultation with the Nerd Network. You can see Ben’s top tips about home-rolling here if you’re a member of the Nerd Network.
Home-rolling, when done in a careful manner with the blessing of your Nerd or Nerdette can help to improve the efficacy of your active skincare products as they can be absorbed more deeply into skin as a result of home-rolling.
The Cleanse Off Mitt
No tool too humble! The Cleanse Off Mitt is definitely nerdily approved – in fact it’s the original nerdie product. It was created to cleanse away makeup, SPF, and pollution with only it and warm water, no product required. It’s super helpful when it comes to helping you to double cleanse, and can be used as part of a home facial routine, too.
It’s reusable, almost entirely recyclable, and suitable for even the most delicate of skin.
Pampering yourself at home has never been handier, particularly with so many companies offering fast delivery, even considering the international situation. There are plenty of good alternatives to the skincare treatments which we might attend our aestheticians for, while we’re staying home. I’m looking forward to the day when we can safely return to the care of our aestheticians, but until that day, we are getting creative at home.
]]>It’s probably there all along, but summertime might remind you to tackle a little thing called keratosis pilaris. It goes by many names, but here’s one you might know a little better – chicken skin. This is a skin condition which causes tiny harmless bumps which might occur on your arms, thighs, or bum, even.
Keratosis pilaris is usually a result of a build-up of keratin. This is the main protein in your skin. Sometimes, it can form a plug which blocks the opening of the hair follicle. If several plugs form, then it gives the appearance of red bumps which we call KP.
KP can affect children and adults, and is no cause for concern (although of course if you do have any concerns, then be sure to get in touch with your healthcare practitioner!). It can be a nuisance, particularly if you’re seeking to show off your arms in the pleasant weather and are feeling bummed out at the appearance of KP. Never fear, there’s an easy fix!
How do we clear away blocked pores?
We exfoliate, that’s how. It’s not just for our faces. A salicylic-acid based cleanser can be used on areas of the body which are suffering from KP, but be sure to be careful when you’re rinsing it off – not every bit of you loves salicylic acid!
You can use Skingredients Sally Cleanse for this task. Sally contains 2% salicylic acid, the highest amount usable in an EU cosmetic product. It penetrates deeply into pores and helps to dissolve blockages there.
A glycolic acid cleanser would also be suitable here, giving double purpose to the product you choose for your face. I could suggest the Murad AHA/BHA cleanser here.
Use exfoliating acids sparingly, and as recommended to avoid irritating skin.
When it comes to exfoliating the other bits of your body, you don’t have to stop there. You can also use exfoliating acids to tackle areas of hardened skin – like on your heels, or your elbow.
We pay a lot of attention to our faces, and it stands to reason. It's easy to neglect the rest of our skin until it starts causing us grief. Weather, extra showering, pregnancy, even certain medications can make our skin more dry or prone to itchiness or discomfort. If you’re finding that the warmer weather is wreaking havoc, then I have a few suggestions for nerdily loved body products.
This body product is a life-saver. It is fragrance free and suitable for all skin in need of moisturising. It’s suitable for skin in need of intense hydration too, and is suitable for use by hoomans with eczema, psoriasis and xeroses. It is intensely comforting from the moment you smooth it on. Although it’s advisable to apply directly after a shower, it’s also suitable for use through the day if you’re suffering with very irritated skin.
It is formulated with 12% gluconolactone and 3% lactobionic acid, a lightly exfoliating polyhydroxy acid, which is so gentle that it’s truly suitable for all skin. It also contains vitamin E to soothe and moisturise, as well as pairing with free radicals to neutralise them.
It helps skin to feel and look healthier and more radiant and can even reduce the appearance of lines and wrinkles.
Neostrata Bionic Lotion is available with 20% off on theskinnerd.com!
If you prefer a silkier texture, then we might recommend Environ Derma-Lac Body Lotion. This is a lactic-acid based product, which is suitable for helping to exfoliate away any bumpiness on the skin!
What is dry brushing?
Dry brushing is an ancient technique that is usually performed before you shower or take a bath, and it’s pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. It’s brushing the body with a brush in a particular pattern which prompts lymphatic drainage and helps to exfoliate the skin. While I don’t advocate dry brushing for the face and usually ascribe to a much more delicate menu of treatments for the face, it can do wonders for the body.
It’s not just for your face – it's important to apply SPF to all sun-exposed skin, particularly in the summer months. Picking the right SPF for your skin all over is very important. The more you like your SPF, the more likely you are to wear it religiously. According to irishskin.ie, you should apply a teaspoonful of SPF to each of your limbs, at least. While less can be more, it’s not really the case with SPF.
Extreme heat and extreme cold are not loved by the skin. Turning the thermostat down on your shower or bath is an excellent (and simple) way to be kind to your skin. Irish hoomans do enjoy the scalding temperatures, but when it comes to keeping our skin feeling cool and fancy-free during the summer months, turn it down!
]]>Keeping ourselves and our loved ones and neighbours safe and well will be something that we’re all super vigilant about over the next period. The summer weather and sunshine can give us a great boost, but some of us might think that if we’re skipping the sun in a big way, and not taking our sun-holidays, then we can be SPF-free. In what may be a surprise to none of you, I’m about to bust this myth.
There’s a reason that I preach the nerdie gospel of SPF, 365. Even on Christmas Day, we should be applying our SPF. This is because there is more than one way that light can affect our skin, and wearing SPF indoors is more important now than ever.
There are two main types of UV light that we discuss when talking about light and the skin. These are UVA and UVB rays.
UVB rays are the kind of rays that can burn the upper layers of our skin and result in the red, peeling sunburns that we’re all familiar with. In Ireland, these are generally only present from May to September, but this is not an exact science. UVB rays are associated with the development of skin cancer, as well as accelerated skin ageing.
UVA rays penetrate more deeply into the skin, and can be associated premature ageing, eye damage, and skin cancer. UVA is around all year-round. It can penetrate some glass, which means it streams into the house through windows. This is the reason that we say that all non-cave-dwelling hoomans need SPF every days of their lives.
It’s easier to remember to apply SPF before we head outside, but we can get complacent in our own homes!
Protecting ourselves from sunlight is very important, but sunlight is not the enemy – we do need it to prompt our bodies into producing vitamin D, and it’s also very important for our mood. Keeping sun-safe while keeping positive has never been simpler. Apply a broad-spectrum SPF before heading out into the great outdoors and into sun exposure, and make sure you’re wearing sun-protective clothes. This is as simple as a funky pair of sunglasses (yes, please), a big Grace Kelly-style sunhat, and sleeves!
Apart from UVA and UVB light, there is such a thing as HEV light. HEV stands for high-energy visible light. HEV light is emitted by the sun, which is why we suggest a broad-spectrum SPF, but it is also emitted by things like our phones, our screens, and our electrical lights. I don’t know about you, but I have definitely found myself more reliant on screens than ever before, whether it’s for work, play, or keeping in touch with my friends and family through video chats!
The studies on HEV are in their infancy now, as our lives have become swiftly more centred on technology, but there is evidence to support the notion that HEV light can cause similar damage to the skin as UV light, which is another reason to protect the skin even while indoors.
Mineral SPFs which contain zinc oxide can be particularly effective when it comes to minimizing the effects of HEV light on the skin.
Exposure to UV light (and HEV light) can cause the skin oxidative stress, which is the effect for which we apply antioxidants to our skin. In order to continue protecting our skin, we might need to consider SPFs with antioxidant protection, too.
Applying antioxidant serums can also be a wise move in order to protect skin from this stress, as well as preserving general skin health – and eating an antioxidant-rich diet, too.
Skingredients Skin Shield SPF 50 PA+++
This everyday mineral SPF cream uses a mineral filter (zinc oxide), and has a light peachy tint to avoid post-SPF ghostliness. It does not cause photo flashback, and is non-comedogenic, meaning it does not sit in pores and block them which can create breakouts. It’s protective against blue light, UVA, UVA, infrared – everything, which makes it ideal to put on before your Zoom calls. It’s also perfect for wearing outdoors. Tap half a spoonful of it into your skin after applying your serums in the AM - make sure to tap and not rub it in, as we believe that tapping is the most effective mode of application. It’s suitable for all hoomans, and is non comedogenic meaning that it doesn’t block pores, so suitable even for hoomans more prone to oiliness!
Dermalogica Clear Start Clearing Defense SPF30
This shine-reducing broad-spectrum SPF day moisturiser is suitable for breakout-prone skin and providing a matte finish. It’s UVA and UVB protective, and uses natural tapioca to help to control shine. It contains antioxidants in the form of green tea extract, willow bark extract, and vitamin C to protect against pollution. It’s ideal for hoomans with more oil or congestion-prone skin.
IMAGE Prevention + Daily Hydrating Moisturizer SPF 30
This SPF is suitable for hoomans who might be seeking a bit more hydration in their routine. This SPF provides long-lasting moisturisation and protection against UVA and UVB rays. It is particularly suited to dry, dehydrated or rosacea-prone skin. It’s formulated to be sheer and residue-free. This SPF contains a blend of antioxidants to help tackle the oxidative stress of which environmental factors and sun exposure can cause to skin. Apply it post-cleanse in the morning and ideally wait 30 minutes before sun-exposure!
Neostrata Sheer Physical Protection SPF50
This ultra-sheer, mattifying treatment comes complete with a tint to help it blend into your skin. It also has a PHA/Bionic complex which is commonplace in many products from NeoStrata. This SPF is full of antioxidants to provide protection from oxidative stress. It’s protective against UVA and UVB rays, and is particularly suited to hoomans who might suffer from redness, sensitivity, and congestion!
You can check out our full range of SPFs here!
Apart from wearing a broad-spectrum SPF, you might consider wearing glasses with a blue-light filter in them, if you’re spending a lot of time in front of the screen. This can help to reduce eye-stress and strain and help to protect eyes from HEV light. They might make the word appear very slightly yellow, but it’s unnoticeable unless you’re doing very colour sensitive work on your screens.
One of our nerdiest favourites when it comes to blue light blocking glasses has got to be Ambr Eyewear. They stock glasses which don’t require a prescription but will simply protect your eyes from blue-light, as well as stocking prescription specs for the daily glasses-wearers among us!
You can also apply a blue-light filter (either physical or digital) to your screens, which can cut down on exposure. There is usually a setting on your phone which can do the same thing.
Choosing the correct setting can also help your body to find its natural Circadian rhythm – skin savvy AND sleep hygienic? A winning combo.
If you’re wondering what SPF might suit you the best, then we might direct you to our team of Nerds and Nerdettes on the Nerd Network. They can help you to select the best SPF for you and your skin concerns, and help to decide on a routine which can help to nourish and protect your skin for years to come.
]]>We are going through a period of isolation and uncertainty, and it can be all too easy for our minds to turn on us, and for us to become focussed completely on something that we think we have control over - namely, our skin. We need to be mindful of the fact that stress can manifest in lots of different ways. It’s possible that your skin could be responding to recent stress in any manner of ways, despite your excellent treatment of it.
Our skin, how it appears and what it’s going through can have an enormous impact on how we feel in ourselves, too. Skin conditions can have a huge impact on mental health, and women are even more likely to be prone to mental health difficulties as a result of skin conditions such as acne.
At the Nerd Network, we work on creating a skincare routine and regime for you which can help to tackle the skin concerns which might otherwise be getting you down and affecting your confidence. We want you to achieve the results which make you feel confident in your hardworking, well- cared for skin, and so we have a few tips on just how to go about feeling good about your skin and taking care of numero uno - and showing yourself some proper nerdie love.
At our worst, it can feel like our skin is our enemy, conspiring against us to make our lives worse. It’s sod’s law that the ‘better’ we want our skin to appear, the worse it seems to get - usually just in time for a big event, yum! This frustration isn’t an uncommon feeling, but it’s not really doing us many favours, and the stress that we feel about our skin can really become a self-fulfilled prophecy.
Frustration and even anger can be feelings that we associate with our skin - but our skin is part of us. It’s our largest organ (holla), and does its absolute best to protect us, all day every day, and therefore it deserves a bit of respect, a bit of patience, and a whole lot of love.
It might go without saying (but actually we love to say it, so nevermind), but wearing your SPF every day is the single best way to show yourself and your skin some real and true love.
Wearing a broad spectrum SPF protects your skin from UVA, UVB, HEV rays and infrared light, too. All of these can contribute to collagen degradation, which might cause your skin to age prematurely. There’s a more serious reason to wear SPF, though - wearing SPF can help to protect you from developing skin cancer. It’s your everyday parasol between you and the sun, and it’s one of the easiest ways to show yourself some real self-care and love.
Even while staying indoors, SPF is still key. Blue light emitted from our screens can also damage our skin, and some studies have found that in can increase oxidative stress in skin, which means more free radicals can be produced. It can also cause photo-ageing of the skin, just like sunlight - so it’s not the time to be complacent.
When it comes to SPFs, we can recommend our own creation (we’re a little bit biased), Skingredients Skin Shield SPF 50 PA +++. This is a moisturising and priming SPF day cream with a light peachy tint, which prevents photo flashback and provides a dewy base for your makeup, or is perfect for daily wear. It’s suitable for all skin types, too!
We can also recommend IMAGE Prevention + Daily Matte Moisturizer SPF 32, perfect for the more oil-prone hooman. It’s oil-free and contains antioxidants, too!
Sometimes, particularly with a condition like acne or psoriasis, it can feel like our skin is really having a laugh at our expense. It can be tempting to find heavy-duty products which might seem more suitable for paint-stripping than skincare, and apply them to our skin, in the hope that the stinging means that it’s working. And that the more it stings, the more effective the product truly is - right?
We can attest to the fact that this is really not the case. It’s more important to select skincare products which contain the active ingredients that can tackle our skincare concerns, rather than finding the stingiest products around.
It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Getting an adequate amount of sleep is one of the kindest things that you can do for your skin. Sleep affects the regeneration process of your skin, as well as its ability to heal, and not getting quality shut-eye can affect these processes.
We all know the difference between a solid eight hours and a ragged five - it shows on our skin as well as our souls (or so it feels). Getting enough sleep isn’t just skincare self-care, it’s care for the hooman who deserves to get some rest.
The best thing about sleep? It’s absolutely free.
We’ve all heard that increasing our intake of water is helpful when it comes to skin health, but we like to go a step further. Essential fatty acids (EFAS) help to lubricate your skin from within, which is part of the reason that we often advocate for taking omegas as a supplement if you’re concerned with dry skin.
Your body can’t produce the required amount of EFAs which is why we take them in through our diet, by eating omega-rich fish like salmon, mackerel, and even oysters, as well as nuts and seeds like walnut and chia seeds - and avocado too, happily.
Essential fatty acids can lock goodness into your skin and can help lower inflammation which can otherwise lead to flare-ups of eczema, psoriasis and acne, too.
Also, they’re good for you and the foods which contain essential fatty acids are properly delicious, so do some self-care and chow down!
The fact is that every single hooman has something about themselves that they sort of wish that they could change. This is true of skincare hoomans, too.
Flawless skin doesn’t really exist - but we are all doing our best to achieve skin which makes us feel confident. Sometimes, this path is a little bit twisty and turny, and sometimes traditional methods of treating skin conditions don’t always work at the pace that we want it to.
Sometimes, it can be necessary to seek the help of a medical professional, and other times our skincare conditions might be something that we need to manage all throughout our lives.
Your skin is at all times trying to do its best for you, and this is pretty admirable. Both literally and figuratively - your skin has got your back.
When your social feeds are filled with flawless skin, it can be hard to love your own skin if you feel it doesn’t meet the standards you’ve set for it.
There are heaps of skin positive and skin neutral influencers, such as Em Ford (MyPaleSkinBlog) and Sofia Grahn (isotrenitoinwiths), who focus on loving your skin or not allowing your skin to contribute to your self-worth at all, both great things.
We suggest that you show yourself some skin self-love every single day, because your skin deserves your love and respect year-round. We don’t suggest treating it mean to keep it keen - it’s doing its very best all of the time, and so are you.
You can get personalised advice on the best way to care for your skin and love it through all of its ups and downs by joining the Nerd Network.
]]>Right, if you’ve had the same type of your skin your whole life with few differences and few concerns, skin type is the main way you should be choosing your cleanser.
Are you oily? Are you actually fully oily, or do you just get a slip’n’slide in your t-zone and on your chin whilst the rest of your skin is normal? Then you’re actually combination.
Is your skin always a little bit dry, specifically if you’re using a cleanser that isn’t made to hydrate your skin in some way or another? When you rinse your face with plain water, does it still feel a bit tight after? Then you’re actually dry-skinned.
Did you have normal, hydrated skin before with few complaints but now it feels tight, a bit irritated, you can see some fine lines and you look dull? You’ve possibly become dehydrated – not so much a skin type as a concern.
Are you reactive/sensitive? I prefer the phrase “reactive skin” to “sensitive skin” because of the difference between sensitivity and sensitisation. Do you remember having mild skin reactions to numerous things when you were little or in your teens?
Have you struggled to find products that don’t cause you to become a splotchy mess since then too? You are probably reactive.
3) What YOU Like
You’re not going to use a product if you don’t like it. I’ve come across so many clients that KNOW all of the highly active ingredients in a specific product that are making changes to the skin but don’t like using the product because it feels heavy on the skin, they don’t like the texture, and so on and so forth. If you like a foam but your skin is drier, you have to try to find a product that a) is a foam but b) doesn’t strip the skin. Sounds so easy peasy lemon squeezy, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s hard to find this pairing for some. Now that you know what you’re looking for, here are some suggestions from moiself for cleansers that will suit your skin type whilst tackling your concerns:
Ingredients to look out for: sodium PCA, urea, antioxidants, aloe vera/aloe extract, arvna sativa/oat kernel extract, sodium hyaluronate/hyaluronic acid
You’re not too oily, you’re not too dry – you’re like Goldilocks’s third bowl of porridge. If you’re not looking to treat any concerns, you can use something that pacifies the skin, protects its barrier and cleans it, like Skingredients PreProbiotic Cleanse.
This cleanser is gentle enough for use by all hoomans. It contains a pre and probiotic complex to help support the natural microbiome of your skin and keep it in good condition.
If you’re willing to spend a bit more for antioxidant protection, you could go for IMAGE Ormedic Balancing Facial Cleanser. It balances your skin’s pH, hydrates, moisturises, soothes and contains super potent green tea extract to defend you from the free radical damage that we encounter all day, every day!
Ingredients to look out for: salicylic acid (small amounts), tea tree oil (small amounts), glutamic acid, zinc PCA
If you only get one or two spots the odd time and just want to help to regulate oil control, the Avène Mattifying Cleansing Foam is a good shout, as it contains glutamic acid to help regulate how much sebum you’re producing whilst not being super strong and overly stripping on the skin.
Environ B-Active Sebuwash (€20.00) is a gentle wash formulation that contains tea tree oil and salicylic acid but is great for daily use. It is created for those who would be spot-prone but it doesn’t leave the tight, dry sensation that so many acne cleansers do.
Ingredients to look out for: salicylic acid (in larger amounts/2%), tea tree oil, kaolin (clay)
Considering congestion can be caused by numerous things, finding the right cleanser for spot-prone skin can be a bit difficult. Some people get spots due to the fact that their skin is dehydrated and thus makes up for it by overproducing oil, for example. The best option for more congested skin is to use a stronger salicylic acid cleanser AND a gentle cleanser like the ones recommended for normal skin, alternating between them. I sound bananas advising people to buy two cleansers but because you’re not doubling up and using them at the same time, you won’t go through them as quickly as you would one cleanser – it works out at the same price, it’s just more of an initial investment.
When it comes to the active, salicylic-fuelled cleanser, I’d usually suggest the IMAGE Clear Cell Clarifying Cleanser which is a gel wash cleanser, great for those who are really oily with inflamed spots.
Ingredients to look out for: glycerine, phospholipids, sodium PCA, cetearyl alcohol/cetyl alcohol, vitamin E
Dehydrated skin needs care from the inside and to get hydration from other products too. However, keeping it simple and not dehydrating it further is key.
Murad Essential C Cleanser is a nice, gentle, antioxidant-packed wash formulation, lovely for those who want hydration without having to use a cream cleanser or a milk.
If you want a creamy formulation, IMAGE Vital C Hydrating Facial Cleanser is for you – it’s also great for mature skin and redness due to the vitamin C in it.
Ingredients to look out for: vitamin C (for redness), chamomile extract/oil, glycerine, calendula extract, panthenol, liquorice root extract, soapwort extract
When it comes to redness and reactive skin, milks and cream cleansers are usually the only option available and they are often exactly what those with redness and heat in their skin want.
REN Evercalm Gentle Cleansing Milk is designed for sensitive skin and is built to soothe, containing omega-rich ingredients that help to back up the skin’s own protective barrier.
Ingredients to look out for: carrier oils like sunflower seed oil and jojoba oil, hyaluronic acid, cetearyl/cetyl alcohol, vitamin E, squalene, panthenol, aloe vera
With cleansers for dry skin, you’re looking for thicker, creamier formulas that will nourish the skin like IMAGE Vital C’s Hydrating Facial Cleanser.
A balm is fab for dry skin as they contain oils and dry skin is usually producing fewer oils itself. I really like the Dermalogica PreCleanse Balm, which is suitable for dry skin, and ideal for removing makeup, too.
These are just some suggestions to make your life easier, and honestly, as you probably know about me, I believe a consultation with a professional is the key. I’ve met people who tried basketfuls of cleansers themselves without having a consultation and never found one they loved only for them to have a consultation with us and automatically love their cleanser.
Each separate product in a skincare routine is working to look after one or two things but it’s when the products come together to do many different things that good skincare products become a 7-star skincare routine. You may have noticed that I didn't include many acid-based cleansers even though I adore them. and they're usually the main route of exfoliation that I recommend for people. This is because it's difficult to recommend a cleanser for the purpose of exfoliation without knowing more about what's going on with each individual skin... For example, there are gentler AHAs for reactive skin but some sensitive skin folks can't touch acids regardless or people with mature skin would be directed to use a glycolic acid cleanser more often than those who don't.
You may find that you have a whole lot of skincare that is lying in boxes and bags around the house (guilty) - or maybe you’re a serial product-opener, and you’ve got dribs and drabs of product left with a dozen products open and waiting for you to finally use them up.
This is the perfect chance for you to spring clean your vanity table or skincare shelf. I can promise you that you’ll feel better afterwards. I have a few nerdie tips for how you can get the most out of your skincare spring-cleaning experience.
How To Spring Clean Your Skincare
Step 1: If It’s Expired, Retire It
If you leap-frog from one holy grail product to another, then there’s a definite chance that you’ve got a lot of half-used products hanging around. This is probably the point at which you should take a peep at your products to make sure they haven’t expired while you were looking the other way.
Do Expiry Dates Matter?
Once you open a product, the exposure to oxygen causes this product to begin degrading. The potency of the active ingredients (the stuff that you’re spending your hard-earned bucks on) will weaken over time, meaning that they are, in fact, best to use before the expiry date, to ensure you’re getting the most out of your product.
You can tell the expiration date by checking the bottom of the product for the icon that looks like an open pot of product with 12M or 6M perhaps, which will tell you how many months the product is usable for.
When it comes to something like your SPF, however, this date is of supreme importance. It’s bad news to be heading out into the world thinking that you’re protected from UVA and UVB rays and light if your SPF is doing nothing to help you out.
Products like Environ Skin EssentiA Vita-Antioxidant AVST Moisturiser 1 and Environ Focus Care Colostrum Gel have a shorter shelf life due to the active ingredients within them, and must be used within the time frame recommended, otherwise they will be ineffective - not ideal!
Step 2: Storing Your Skincare In Plain Sight
The problem with skincare and beauty is that very often we’re doing our best to keep the places where we might be applying our products neat and tidy - like our bedrooms and bathrooms!
This means keeping our bits in boxes and drawers, until it gets to the stage where you have a rainbow tangle of products at the end of your box to dig through. No, thanks.
If you have the space, lining your everyday up on a shelf might be handier - while you’re reorganising, anyway.
We do the same thing in Nerd HQ! Storing products out in the open reminds us of exactly what we have on hand, and might give you some ideas on what needs to be used next, when you finish with one product!
At a glance in the office you’ll see a lot of YonKa Spritz - Lotion PS’s lined up on desks, more than a few Solgar Supplements for lunch-time-taking, and even Avene Cold Cream Concentrated Hand Cream, too ...
That being said, it’s always best to store your skincare and makeup products out of direct sunlight, which might have a bearing on just where you decide to erect this monument to skincare. That’s the reason that IMAGE Vital C Hydrating Antioxidant A C E Serum is in a brown bottle - to stop the sunlight leaking in and reducing the efficacy of the product!
It’s also a good idea to keep your skincare out of the bathroom too - it’s just not the most hygienic spot for it.
Step 3: Streamline Your Products
Part of the reason that we can end up with so many products is that we choose products that don’t provide the results that we seek for our skin. If you’re organising one product for your cheeks and a different one one for your T-zone, as well as one for nights out and another for day-to-day, the likelihood is that you’re going to end up with a lot of products that you don’t get to the end of.
It can be a good idea in these cases to steel yourself and use a product all the way through to the end - and when you’re finished and you’ve tossed it, to seek an alternative which won’t mean buying five products to do the one job.
Step 4: Create a Product Inventory
If you’re the kind of hooman who loves a good list above everything else (relatable), then this one might be for you.
You could use an app like Evernote, or something similar to create an inventory of your beauty items, to make sure you’re not overlooking any of them.
With this app, you can take a picture of the product and the expiry date, so you’re never in any doubt that the products you’re using are still usable.
Step 5: Get Creative
At the moment, we’re all trying to be creative with our products. If your facial moisturiser just didn’t cut the mustard, then maybe it could have a new life as a hand cream or body moisturiser?
Or you could repurpose your chemical exfoliant (your salicylic acid or glycolic acid based cleanser) and use it to exfoliate something else - like your feet! It might seem extra, but hey - if it works, it works! Sally Cleanse isn’t fussy, we promise...
Got a facial oil that you weren’t keen on? Use it as your nail and hair oil.
Use the cleanser you didn’t love as your shower gel (but do be careful of *ahem* delicate areas that are best left unexfoliated).
Balms, creams and oils you don’t rate? It’s your new shaving product so long as it is exfoliating acid free.
Serum you don’t love due to texture? Layer it on thick and use it as a treatment masque.
If you’re keen to do a simple clear-out, then we suggest that you do a Marie Kondo on it. Does it spark joy? If yes, add it back to the pile, with renewed promises that this time, you’ll use it fully.
If not - then bye, bye, baby. It’s destined for a friend (or a foe depending on why you didn’t like it).
When it comes to deciding how to shop your skincare stash, we have to be sensible about these things. Don’t use it if it’s out of date, but beyond that - get a bit creative with it! Also we can guarantee that when you go through all of your skincare products, you’ll find some hidden gems that you’ve totally forgotten about, and it’ll be a real life-giving moment!
Want advice on a streamlined skincare routine that’ll work for you? Join the Nerd Network.]]>Have you found a red, spidery mark somewhere on your face or body? Have you tried to treat it like a spot, or age spot, but to no avail? That little annoyance is probably a broken blood vessel, or broken capillary.
The interesting thing about broken capillaries is that they aren’t truly broken capillaries, they are just capillaries that have been stretched beyond the capacity they are used to, causing the appearance of a small, red blotch with minute tendrils.
The main reason that one will see broken blood vessels or broken capillaries is due to physical trauma to the skin. Our skin is a delicate creature, and something as simple as popping a spot, or having a mechanical treatment such as frequent microdermabrasion, can cause a broken blood vessel - yes, really.
Extra pale hoomans are more susceptible to broken blood vessels, as are those who’d have a more reactive skin or those who suffer from general redness or rosacea. Additionally, broken capillaries and broken blood vessels are more likely to occur in smokers, as smoking constricts blood vessels and additionally saps us of vitamin C.
Why Does The Amount Of Vitamin C We Get Matter?
Vitamin C is to collagen as water is to plants - our body needs vitamin C to produce collagen, and collagen is what keeps our blood vessels strong, healthy and resistant to stretching and collapse. Extreme heat, extreme wind, sunburn, change in weather conditions, exercise and having a few tipples are notorious culprits for broken capillaries, because they cause dilation and contraction of the blood vessels, leading to them become weaker.
Unfortunately, seeing as it is damage to the capillaries directly beneath the surface of the skin, topical skincare won’t actually get rid of broken capillaries. Using soothing, anti-redness products can help to bring down the intensity of the redness, but it is more of a short term solution. The Neostrata Restore Redness Neutralizing Serum is great for bringing down redness of any kind in the short term but again, it isn’t a true solution in that sense. The two main salon or clinic treatments that I would rate to actually get rid of broken blood vessels would be laser vein removal or IPL.
Neither are ludicrously expensive, especially considering it will be just treating one tiny area. Both work to dissolve the capillary via heat, which sounds painful, but mostly, it would be considered mildly uncomfortable. Laser vein removal or IPL can take about 15 minutes to half an hour and for the most part, you just need to allow the area to cool down and you can go straight back to your normal life. For a few days to a week, the broken blood vessel or capillary will actually be darker, but you can safely cover it with mineral makeup until it is completely gone.
It’s also possible that you’ll see some temporary swelling or redness (edema and erythema, in technical terms). No pain, no gain! You’ll have different therapists have different opinions on whether laser vein removal or IPL is better but it depends on the type of broken capillary or blood vessel, in my opinion. IPL suits redness and broken capillaries close to the surface of the skin, whereas for the deeper ones, laser vein removal is sometimes a better option.
The REN Evercalm Global Protection Day Cream is an uber-hydrating, very calming moisturiser to pop on for instant cooling and hydrating powers. With omega-rich, moisturising plant extracts, this will give your skin instant comfort and help to temporarily minimise the appearance of redness.
When it comes to prevention, we recommend getting heaps of vitamin C in through your diet and through an additional supplement, if you struggle to get enough in. New to the store is the Solgar Ester-C Plus 1000mg. What’s different about this is that it is a pH neutral vitamin C. Some find that high amounts of vitamin C can give them some tummy trouble, so Solgar found a solution... Innovators, they are.
Want advice about redness specific to you and skincare guidance until the end of time? Book in for your first expert online skin consultation and join the Nerd Network.
]]>At the moment, we have a chance to take good care of ourselves, and our skin. Our philosophy is all about caring for the skin from the inside, on the outside, and on top. So what can we do to make sure that our skin is as healthy as possible? With baby steps in mind, I’m thinking this week about little changes that we can all make to make sure our skin is as healthy as possible - manageable, simple and completely doable from home.
Double-cleansing won’t add too much time to your day, I can promise you that. Double cleansing, both morning and evening is one of the best habits you can get into for your skin, and we have a unique opportunity at the moment to review our habits and make changes for the better.
If you’re prone to a splash-and-dash in the evening but are simply angelic about double cleansing in the evening, or even if you’re generally chirpy and up with the early bird to cleanse religiously in the morning, but evening-time sees you crashing fully made-up in the duvet (please, please, please don’t), then now if your chance to make a change for the better!
Double cleansing morning and evening means that you’re ensuring that your skin is completely free of product applied last night, SPF, makeup, and excess oil, which is good news when it comes to avoiding congestion and breakouts!
Double cleansing also means that your skin is fully prepared for the serums and important ingredients which can truly help to tackle your skincare concerns. This is key when you might be investing good, hard-earned money in skincare products which are specific to your own concerns - I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. You would not, under any circumstances, wax a car without cleaning it first… Do people still wax cars?
Double cleansing will take you about 90 seconds in the morning, and two minutes in the evening, and those are four minutes which will do you the world of good!
It’s possible to be lulled into a false sense of security about SPF, but as much as I hate to burst your bubble, SPF is not optional. It’s very much essential and it’s the core anti-ageing product that you’ll use on the daily.
Even if we aren’t leaving the house as much as we might be otherwise, wearing SPF is still key. Apart from the UV light which is still beaming in from our windows (hiya, spring!), our screens are still giving out blue light in the form of HEVs, which, surprise surprise, is not exactly good news for our skin.
This is why wearing a broad-spectrum SPF is so important. Just because we aren’t out and about on the streets is not an excuse to skimp. UV exposure is one of the greatest causes of premature ageing, and can result in issues like skin cancer if we aren’t diligent about protecting ourselves, year-round.
This truly is the most important thing you can do to keep yourself and your skin healthy.
I am biased, but Skingredients Skin Shield SPF 50 PA+++ is suited to daily use, and is broad-spectrum to protect you from UVA, UVB, HEV and infrared rays. It’s also very lightly peach-tinted (no Caspar-y pallor around here), moisturising, doesn’t provide photo flashback, and is a pollution shield, too. Apply half a teaspoon all over your face, neck, ears, eyelids, and lips every day. It’s suitable for all skin types, even the congestion-prone. Apply it last thing in your routine, and before your makeup.
3. More Essential Fatty Acids
Upping our intake of essential fatty acids is a really good way to look after our skin, and eating hydration-rich foods, too. They are required to maintain the normal function of your body as well as your skin. You might be familiar with omegas, when it comes to keeping your skin in flying form.
We don’t naturally produce linoleic acid or alpha linoleic acid, so we need to get forms of these (omega 3 and 6) into our bodies through our diet! However, omega 3 is more difficult to get through your diet, so it’s important to make sure you’re supplementing this if necessary!
Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are responsible for the regulation of the cell membrane - that is, keeping your skin barrier in really good nick. This helps your skin to keep the good stuff (like hydration) in, and the bad stuff (irritants, etc.) out!
Upping your EFAs is a good idea all round. Even if you have oily skin, despite what you might think, essential fatty acids can still help, as they aid the proliferation process, getting rid of old skin which might otherwise block your pores and lead to further congestion!
A diet richer in essential fatty acid might look like eating: salmon, mackerel, oily fish of any kind, nuts, seeds, green, leafy veg - just make sure you’re getting enough of both omegas 3 AND 6. You could also introduce them into your diet through a daily supplement. You could crack the flax seeds out of the press, or for increasing the water that you’re eating, frozen fruit and veg would do the trick!
Solgar Omega 3-6-9 Supplements are a great supplement to start off with when it comes to trying out omegas - just make sure you check in with your healthcare professional if you have any queries!
4. Incorporate Vitamin A
Vitamin A is the building block of skin health, from whence all skin health comes! No, not really, but it’s super important for skin proliferation (that is the process by which your skin sloughs the dead skin cells off), controlling sebum production, speeding up healing, prompting the production of collagen, normalising cell behaviour… of course, I am a proud member of the (vitamin) A team.
If you don’t use it topically already, introducing it couldn’t be easier. Skingredients Skin Protein contains vitamin A in retinyl palmitate form, which is ideal as an intro to vitamin A.
If you’re a member of the Nerd Network, then you could speak to your Nerd or Nerdette about the Environ Skin EssentiA Vita-Antioxidant AVST range - a step-up system designed to increase your application of vitamin A in manageable doses!
5. Be Free of Free Radicals
Okay, so being free of them isn’t exactly an option - we are the result of chemical reactions, and free radicals are part and parcel of life. These unbonded molecules enter our bodies as a result of pollution and environmental damage from the sun, or smoke, or a lot of other reasons. The way to neutralise them is to apply or consume antioxidants.
Luckily, there is plenty of antioxidant-rich skincare out there, like IMAGE Ormedic Balancing Antioxidant Serum, which is packed with green tea extracts!
Bringing antioxidants into your diet is a great way to go about things too. You could always check out our recent Skin Veg Salad on the Skingredients blog if you’re feeling peckish now …
Five ways to move towards healthier skin and supreme skincare - but do remember that changes for the better are always a good idea, even if they might take a little bit of time to show results. Now is the moment to invest that time and be patient with ourselves and our hard-working skin!
Let us know how you get on with your healthy skin resolutions by reaching out on social, through our Instagram or Facebook!
You’ve noticed your skin is so tight and dry that it feels like it could shatter into a million little pieces at any moment. “But why does it still get shiny over the course of the day?”, you ask yourself. Rather than having dry skin, you may have dehydrated skin.
Dry skin is caused by your genetics, a hormonal imbalance or an under-active thyroid. Dry skin is a skin type, which means that your skin naturally produces less oil than someone with a normal, oily or combination skin type. Without oil, your skin struggles to retain the hydration you get from water. The symptoms of dry skin are very similar to those of dehydrated skin: tightness, itchiness and fine lines.
What is dehydrated skin?
Dehydrated skin is a skin condition - you're not born with it but it occurs due to diet and lifestyle. It can be caused by simple things like harsher weather, such as wind or cold, not eating enough fresh fruit and vegetables, and diuretics like alcohol and caffeine (which cause your kidneys to encourage your body to get rid of any excess water). All of these can deplete the water content of your skin, leaving your skin gasping for refreshment.
Even so, if you don't have the right amount of minerals, electrolytes and essential fatty acids, the water that you are taking in won't be sent to the right places! Your body is like a sports team where all of the players work together so that they can benefit from each other's strong points and help out with each other's weak points. Dehydrated skin is caused by a shortage of water, not oil, so even oily or combination skin types can become dehydrated.
And for all of these symptoms, turn to Vitamin A. This fat soluble vitamin helps the skin to produce more collagen through cell renewal and stimulate your GAG (AKA glycosaminoglycan) which triggers your own reservoir of hyaluronic acid. It’s recommended to use Vitamin A in strengths of 0.6pc and above as a retinol so that it can really get down to the lower layers of your skin.
When your skin is dehydrated, it’s essential to rehydrate it! Drink plenty of water and increase your intake of foods with high water content like watermelon and cucumber. You’ll also need to help your skin retain that water you’re putting in. Applying a moisturiser straight after the shower is a great way to lock in extra moisture, and make sure that your showers are lukewarm so as not to strip your skin of any oils. Eat foods with a high healthy fat content, like avocados and nuts. Another fab way to re-hydrate your skin is regular Spritz O'Clocks!
Using a facial mist like Yon-ka's Lotion Yon-ka throughout the day will help stop your skin drought.
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]]>Our focus at the moment is most definitely on keeping ourselves and our loved ones as healthy as possible, and we’re working together to make this a reality. This means rapidly reorganising our lives in a way we could little have imagined, even a few weeks ago.
One of the most important things that we can do at the moment is to be vigilant about washing our hands frequently, and keeping them away from our faces as much as possible.
This is a good thing - but it’s definitely affecting how our skin is feeling and responding, and we might need to pay a little more attention to our hard-working hands in the days and weeks ahead!
Have a look at your hands, right now. You’re looking? Great. Turn them over and check out the backs of your hands.
How do they look? If you’re feeling the effects of over-washing, you might find that the area on the back of your hands, from your knuckles down towards your wrist is red, irritated, and has a slightly rash-like appearance. You might even find the same thing on the backs of your fingers, if you’re more prone to reaction.
Your skin barrier is composed of a lipid matrix, to speak nerdily. This is a layer of fats and ceramides which keep all the good stuff (hydration, for example) on the inside, and irritants out, if it’s functioning correctly. Hand-washing has never been more important than it is now, so we’ve got to keep it up - but we can care for our hands alongside this.
When you wash your hands more often than usual, it can disrupt the skin barrier, since soap doesn’t differentiate between what is dirt, bacteria, or germs, and what is healthy, skin-friendly oils. Off it all comes.
Your skin can try to keep up and produce enough oils to keep things ticking along. It’s a hard-worker, but if it falls short, it can lead to an impaired barrier or skin irritation - which you might be feeling now.
Repeated exposure to soap can dry out your skin, and if your skin barrier is already compromised, it can exacerbate the issue.
If you already suffer from eczema, rosacea, psoriasis, or even just plain-and-simple dry skin, then you are already dealing with a more disrupted skin barrier. This means you might be feeling the effects of over-washing more severely, or have started to find your skin affected before everyone else!
Over-washing your hands can lead to problems if you don’t get diligent about your moisturising game. If your skin has become very irritated, it might start to crack, which is not only super painful (ouch), but it can lead to other issues.
It’s important to do all that we can to keep our skin barrier strong, with the use of topical products if necessary, to avoid the cracking skin which could cause problems.
Tips For Caring For Overwashed Hands
Rescue Tips for Overwashed Hands
I’m not usually a supporter of mechanical exfoliation, but this situation might call for a smidge. Most traditional exfoliators contain large exfoliating particles, but I’m suggesting something a bit different.
As I mentioned when chatting with Dermot and Dave recently, I can find that a little bit of brown sugar mixed with coconut oil can be very effective when it comes to sloughing off the true ‘lizard skin’. This mixture is best used post hand-wash, and washed off afterwards, followed by the moisturiser of your choice.
This is handy (pun intended) as it utilises ingredients you probably have in the kitchen already, without needing to put in an order from the shops.
Avene Cold Cream Concentrated Hand Cream - €9.00
The Avene Cold Cream Concentrated Hand Cream is a rich, fast-absorbing hand cream which is perfect for nourishing and protecting achy, breaky skin which might be feeling dry or chapped hands.
The effects last through 5 hand-washings, and this product is suitable for both adults and children.
It contains beeswax, to nourish and comfort skin, as well as protecting it from exterior aggressions (such as extra hand-washing). It also contains sucralfate, to repair hands, and as with all products from Avene, this contains the soothing water that Avene is famous for.
It would be ideal to put on before bed, under a pair of gloves, but it’s suitable for all skin, including your face is you are suffering from dry or dehydrated skin.
This nerdie favourite is fragrance-free, suitable for hoomans with very dry skin, and is also suitable for anyone who has been diagnosed with eczema or psoriasis.
This lotion is suitable for use on the body, and is super soothing and moisturising, and ideal for treating the hands in times of need. It contains 12% gluconolactone (a very gentle exfoliating acid to help slough off the dead skin cells) as well as lactobionic acid, which gives it its name, which provides the ‘bionic’ complex, helping to feed your skin. It also contains antioxidant vitamin E to help keep your skin feeling its best, and fight free radicals.
This lotion is light and easily absorbed, and very moisturising, suitable for even super sensitive skin.
Solgar Omega 3-6-9 Supplements - €25.00
If you want to get a bit creative (or simply can’t get your hands on products at the moment), then you might turn to your trusted omega tablets. Excellent for providing internal hydration, these capsules can be handy at times like this.
Split one open and apply to the irritated areas of your hands for a true boost of moisture and to give that skin barrier a real treat. If you have a chance, apply cling film over the area, too, to truly feel the benefit of the omegas.
Silcocks Bases
When it comes to things you might have in the house already, this is a great choice. This emollient might be lurking in your cupboards already, and is a good moisturising alternative when all else has failed you. Apply a thin layer in the evening and leave it on overnight, or use it as an alternative to soap.
This fragrance-free staple is well known to anyone who has suffered from eczema or psoriasis previously, but it’s still as relevant now, as ever!
If you are suffering from psoriasis or eczema and the hand-washing is truly causing detrimental issues to your skin, then it might be time to get in touch with your GP over the phone if possible, or to use the ointments which you already have.
When it comes to helping out your super dry skin, eating good fats and drinking plenty of water are more important now than ever before. We’ve got to keep washing our hands, but we’ve got to look after ourselves body and spirit at the same time.
Keeping our hands in good working order might be a bit of a challenge at the moment, but it’s one we are definitely equal to. There’s no doubt in my mind that we are going through a very strange and difficult time, but it’s amazing to see how everyone has come together, and of course, how the hoomans on the front line have stepped up in extraordinarily challenging situations.
The list is long, but I’m thinking about all the hoomans working in healthcare, working in essential services to keep the country running, and all the staff working to keep pharmacies running and looking after every one of us. We are applauding with our much-washed hands for you.
]]>We Irish folk are fond of makeup. We've a penchant for making ourselves darker, especially those of us who are genetically-predisposed to Casperness.
But that is us, it is who we are - we knew what Double Wear was long before we learned about mitosis, APR or, well, basic nutrition. Herein lies the problem: a vast many of you out there were taught to conceal rather than to treat, and to conceal with products that are basically grease paint... remember Pan Stick? Those were the days!
Because makeup was touted as the solution to all skin woes, it is hard for us to believe how damaging it can be to the skin. In this respect, I'm speaking of strictly cosmetic makeup, your typical Revlons, Estée Lauders, Macs and so on and so forth.
Cosmetic makeup is often comedogenic, meaning that it can clog pores, causing open comedones (blackheads), closed comedones (whiteheads) and other forms of congestion. Considering this is the type of thing you're trying to cover up, it is not ideal. You're just feeding the Franks.
This is especially true of thicker formulations - even if they call themselves non-comedogenic. Be wary of sticks, creams and thick liquids and remember this does not just apply to base makeup like foundation and concealer, but to blushers, highlighters and contour products! Many cosmetic makeups contain alcohol, under the pseudonyms SD alcohol and denatured alcohol/alcohol denat. If you've ever heard me speak about this type of alcohol, you know that it is rarely good news when it shows up in a product.
Alcohol in makeup (and skincare) serves two main purposes: it immediately mops up oil slicks, mattifying the skin in the short term, and helps products to dry on quickly. Most avoid makeup that takes a while to dry in and consider it to be a big no-no. It may actually be a sign that it doesn't contain as much alcohol as other products.
Seeing as many popular products are made to smell non-chemical-ly with fragrances, they can cause photosensitivity, leading to skin damage in the future. Nobody wants to put something on their face that smells like a toilet cleaner (although maybe it shouldn't smell like that in the first place) but that doesn't mean that your skin should be disrespected.
Cosmetic powders can contain a lot of talc. Talc is technically a mineral - however, it sucks up all moisture around it, which makes it so ideal for throwing it into sweaty runners but so drying on the skin. For those of us on the oilier side of things, this sounds perfect... so why isn't it? When you dry out the skin, it causes the pores to over-produce oil to compensate for this, which can lead to more breakouts and more oiliness.
So, talc can be a bit reductive as far as ingredients go. All in all, fragrances, alcohol and other ingredients that dry out and sensitise the skin can speed up the skin's ageing process, which actually begins around the hooman age of 25. The youths think that they can get away with everything; laissez-faire regimes, half-arsed cleansing with a wipe and caking on the cosmetic makeup... but perhaps their skin is not as youthful as they think! In Ireland, most of us wear face makeup every single day, for about 10 hours a day.
That is 10 hours of your skin being smothered by heavy, pore-clogging formulations, drying it out minute by minute. Not only can cosmetic makeup exacerbate acne, but it can cause an acne subtype called acne cosmetica. Are you prone to tiny bumps across your forehead that won't go away no matter what you do? You could be a sufferer of acne cosmetica.
Mineral makeup sits on the pore due to its molecular make up, rather than in the pore as cosmetic makeup does. Cosmetic makeup is like wall filler, being slopped into each pore to make them less visible, leading to the creation of congestion. Mineral makeup still reduces visibility of pores and blemishes without intruding on your skin and disrupting its natural mechanisms of protection. Minerals (for example, zinc, mica, titanium) are not corrosive to the skin, even in their makeup-safe forms of zinc oxide, zinc mica and titanium dioxide.
They respect the skin and do not dry it out. Minerals bind to oils! It is no secret that powder foundation can be key for those of us trying to get rid of the midday makeup slip and slide. The oil-binding properties of mineral makeup means that the natural oils your skin produce become a base for your makeup, meaning that it will go on easier and have a glowy finish.
Both titanium oxide and zinc oxide, two ingredients commonly found in mineral makeup products, act as a physical block from sun damage. I'm not saying to skip applying SPF altogether, but it is nice to think of it as a safety net to doubly protect you against those rays. Zinc oxide has anti-inflammatory properties, and seeing as it is in a much higher dosage than it would be in a cosmetic makeup, it can soothe conditions such as rosacea, eczema and inflammatory acne.
Not all cosmetic makeup brands are the same, so I am not sure as to why people believe all mineral makeup to be on equal footing. It is becoming immensely popular for non-mineral brands to stick the word ""mineral"" somewhere into the name of their product and pass it off as a true mineral product. It is like sticking the word ""educational"" before any old television show and then telling people it will teach their kids long division. When I talk about mineral makeup, I'm talking about the purest of the pure.
For me, that is embodied by the brand that is Jane Iredale. Jane Iredale was a casting director and producer in the US who saw so many young actors having their faces smeared with thick, greasy, congestion-causing stage makeup day in and day out that she decided to provide an alternative.
Jane Iredale use high-quality minerals and cutting-edge technology to create mineral makeup that gives great coverage whilst being skin respectful, and their makeup is 100% talc-free too. Some brands bulk out their product with talc so that they can make the claim that the product is fully mineral, and some other brands that began as fully mineral have started to include non-mineral ingredients whilst carefully excising any mention of 100% mineral-ness from their marketing campaigns and packaging so be wary when it comes to this.
Any liquid cosmetic product will need a preservative and water in some form - pure and simple. This means that the benefits of the minerals are... watered down. Because of this, I always say that powder is better but if you are a first-timer who needs a transitional product, then a liquid formulation is better than nothing. I'd specifically recommend the Jane Iredale Glow Time BB cream. Don't be fooled by the name BB cream.. this bad BB is full coverage. See for your own eyes below...
Here is a swatch of Jane Iredale Glow Time BB 6... on someone who is usually BB 3. Look at that coverage though.
The main worry surrounding powder formulations is lack of coverage and it is completely unfounded. Mineral powders are incredibly buildable and you can layer and layer it to bring it up to the concealment you want - it is important to colour match to the highest level so that you are not left with bright yellow or pink patches across the face as some mineral makeups are highly pigmented!
There's obviously something satisfying about looking like a mixture of a cute panda and a creature from a horror film, but do sheet masks provide the skin with anything beneficial or are they all style, no substance?
Sheet masks are a staple of Korean beauty (or K-beauty, to those of us in the know). Whilst I was on a trip to Seoul, I came across so many different variations of sheet masks, like vitamin, charcoal, hyaluronic acid and even egg. It was eye-opening to me because South Korean women do a sheet mask on a daily basis as part of an multi-product, 7 (or more) step skincare regime. If the people of South Korea value them that much, there must be something to it.
A sheet mask consists of a one-time-use sheet of cotton-based, gel or paper material that has been soaked in ingredient-packed serums or essences, which is a Korean concept.
They come in a foil packet that you tear the top off and extract the mask from. It feels like you're putting your hand in a sachet of scented snail goo - I promise it's not snail goo, although I did try a snail goo one in Korea... don't ask.
The mask has eye holes, a nose hole and a mouth hole and you have to be careful to align the mask properly when you're applying it.
I'm afraid I say this far too often at this stage, but like any other product that you apply to the skin, the benefits are entirely reliant on what ingredients the sheet mask contains!
Penneys' Sheet Masks are affordable and come in 11 different varieties but the one to look out for in terms of beneficial ingredients would be the Vitamin E eye patches (€1.50) that contain vitamin E for its antioxidant qualities, vitamin B5 for moisturising, allantoin to stimulate cell renewal and rose water to calm and soothe.
Penneys' plumping vitamin E sheet mask (€1.50) uses a natural blend of papaya (which has enzymes for gentle exfoliation) and green tea, along with vitamin B5 for moisturising.
One of my big favourites has got to be Seoulista Super Hydration Instant Facial Sheet Mask. The clue is in the name - this super hydration sheet mask is ideal if you've been travelling recently, or if you are just looking for a hyaluronically infused shot of hydration.
Another big love has to be IMAGE Skincare's Biomolecular Anti-aging Radiance Mask (€11.50 for one or €52.50 for a pack of 5) especially for those looking for anti-aging effects from their sheet masks. The actual sheet part is made of their patented hydrogel technology for optimal delivery of volcanic water, brightening botanicals, peptides and antioxidants to give the skin radiance and ultra-hydration.
Tonymoly's I'm Real range come in close second and are available online from Brown Thomas. Tonymoly is the world's leading Korean skincare brand and are actually Korean. Their sheet masks are wildly popular worldwide and they provide sheet masks for so many different skin woes.
The I'm Real Nutrition Avocado Mask Sheet (€3.00) is formulated with avocado extract, and as you are probably aware of, avocados contain nearly 20 vitamins. As if you needed an excuse to get more avocado into your life.
Are sheet masks supreme to the usual type of masks? Not necessarily, but they do have the added advantage of providing a cover to the product that is penetrating the skin. To make a gross but accurate analogy, think about when you keep your socks on after they've gotten wet - how long do your feet take to dry after? Absolutely ages. So, having something locking the moisture and the ingredients on to your skin lets everything soak further into the skin.
Another thing that sheet masks have on regular masks is how they force you to take about twenty minutes for you and only you. If you're a busy mammy, stick on a sheet mask and scare your minis from asking you any questions, complaining or bothering you at all.
Could you imagine trying to go about your daily chores with a wet, sticky piece of material sliding down your chin? Clearly not! If you struggle to allow yourself proper, do nothing pamper time, a sheet mask could be the answer.
So, do we here at Nerd HQ think that sheet masks are a pointless fad with few to no benefits? No - we believe that if you're consciously choosing a sheet mask with the right ingredients, then they are rateable. I'd recommend to use them once or twice a week as that's plenty to reap all of the rewards of sheet masks. Just make sure to enjoy it properly (AKA with a cup of a herbal tea of your choosing)!
]]>It can be difficult, choosing the right everyday SPF for your skin. You know that you need to be wearing SPF all the time by now if you’ve been reading for a while. Seeing as us Irish are a pale lot and thus are more susceptible to light-related skin damage, we truly need to be wearing SPF everyday - full stop.
]]>It can be difficult to choose the right everyday SPF for your skin. You know that you need to be wearing SPF all the time by now if you’ve been reading for a while.
Quick recap: you need to be wearing broad spectrum SPF on your face, neck and décolletage everyday. Broad spectrum is that which protects from both UVA and UVB rays.
UVA rays are the ones that cause wrinkles, lines, age spots - U-V-A-for-Ageing - but are also associated with skin cancer.
Seeing as us Irish are a pale lot and thus are more susceptible to light-related skin damage, we truly need to be wearing SPF everyday - full stop.
Unprotected sun exposure can cause things like solar elastosis which is what it is called when your elastin collects in an irregular way due to light-related damage and creates stiff-looking ridges on the skin, making it look thick and leathery. It is also the cause of age spots, sun spots, liver spots… They are all the same thing, known as solar lentigo.
My usual guidelines for SPF are that it should be…
What do I mean by everyday SPF? When I say everyday SPF, I’m talking about a sun protection product that you wear everyday on your face, neck and décolletage. In this sense, an everyday SPF is not just protecting you from future skin cancer but also the advanced light-related ageing that was mentioned slightly earlier.
When it comes to SPFs for the Summer and for the whole body, the ones you should be wearing from March through to September according to the Irish Skin Foundation, you may need something different.
There are two different types of sun protection: physical and chemical. Physical SPFs are so named as the active mineral ingredients in them physically reflect UVA and UVB rays away from the skin. The most common mineral ingredients found in physical SPFs are titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.
Chemical SPFs have ingredients like avobenzone and oxybenzone, for example, which work to swap UV rays into heat that is then released from the skin. Rather than putting a superhero costume on you to protect from the sun, as physical sunblocks do, they turn your skin into the superhero costume, if you catch what I’m saying.
Each type has their own perks and pitfalls. Mineral-based sunscreens have for years been synonymous with the typical thick-white-smear look but technological advances mean that the particles can now be micronised (ie. the particles can be made much smaller) which makes them appear more appealing! Some believe that chemical sunscreens can cause breakouts but other believe that physical sunscreens can cause breakouts so it is not so cut and dry. Trial and error is key!
The everyday SPF you choose should be down to what suits your specific skin best. Many people don’t want to wear SPF in case it ruins the finished look of their makeup and I see that point. The wrong SPF can cause a slip-and-slide effect that cannot be fixed by blotting paper - I have done the trial and error myself. The consistency of your SPF is important, contrary to popular belief. You will not want to wear it if you don’t like how it feels and there are too many options out there for you to be settling! When you find the SPF for you, it should look seamless under your makeup.
For me, a great SPF is the IMAGE Skincare Prevention+ Daily Matte Moisturiser SPF32. It truly creates a matte, primer-style base for my makeup to sit on and yet protects my skin at the same time.
It would be remiss not to mention Skingredients Skin Shield SPF 50 PA+++ here, too. This is a broad-spectrum mineral SPF which contains niacinamide, is lightly moisturising and antioxidant, too. It's a day cream with SPF, and is lightly peach tinted to avoid the SPF pallor. It prevents photoflasback, is a perfect base for makeup and is a pollution shield, too.
If you are an oily-skinned hooman, you’re looking for phrases like “matte” and “mattifying”, but sure you know that. Murad has a great selection of SPFs for those looking for real oil-control ingredients.
For those who need more hydration, you’re looking for a true hydrator, such as a moisturiser with a high SPF. The moisture-bearing sister of MY IMAGE sunblock is the IMAGE Skincare Prevention+ Daily Hydrating Moisturiser. It contains an ingredient called Aqualance, which specifically targets UV-related skin dehydration. Both IMAGE Prevention+ Moisturisers, matte and hydrating, are mineral-based sunscreens and contain antioxidants, green tea and vitamins to give to the skin while protecting it.
Antioxidants are key at protecting the skin from a little something called free radical damage. Free radicals are found in our own skin cells, in the air and in everything really and are strongly linked to pollution, and as such, they are inescapable. Free radicals are missing an electron which makes them roam around like lunatics trying to find one and they latch on to healthy cells to steal their electron.
In this process of electron-thievery, their free-radicalness spreads to the healthy cell to make another free radical. This process can cause something called oxidative stress as the body cannot handle all of these free radicals. It is oxidative stress that causes the skin to age perhaps quicker than it would have otherwise, hence why I believe so strongly in antioxidant protection.
If you are sensitive-skinned, it is a common suggestion that mineral-based sunscreen will be best for you. I’m of the side who believe in chemicals and do not think they are detrimental for your skin - most things that exist are chemicals and plenty of “chemical ingredients” are naturally found in the body. If you have tried chemical sensitive skin formulations and they all irritated your skin, it may be worth it to give a mineral-based sunscreen a go.
Neostrata Sheer Physical Protection SPF 50 is a high-protection, mineral-based sunscreen with a peachy tint so that you are guaranteed no white cast from it. It won’t provide any concealment or coverage to the skin but it won’t change the colour of your makeup either. All of our NeoStrata SPFs are currently 20% off, and you can view them through the link here!
Your facial SPF is basically your main Autumn/Winter sun protection as you can apply it on any exposed areas, which would usually be just your face, neck, décolletage and the back of your hands.
The Irish Cancer Society recommends at least half a teaspoon for the face alone and a full teaspoon for the face and neck which is not so much at all to those wondering about how it will feel. You should apply your SPF after all of your serums and before your makeup (if you are a makeup wearer).
I usually do not have time in the morning to wait for everything to absorb but for best effects, allow some time after applying your serums to apply your SPF and some more time between SPF and makeup. Use the interims to put on your clothes or brush your teeth so that you’re not just standing around waiting for your products to absorb… or just use it as peaceful, pre-work-day relaxation time!
Many mineral makeup formulations include titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide… do you remember them? They are the minerals that can physically block the sun so you want them around as much as possible.
Jane Iredale’s mineral makeup formulations double as sun protection and makeup for the most part.
The Glow Time BB Cream, for example, is SPF 25 (SPF 17 in darker shades). How and ever, as you do not apply as much makeup as you do SPF, I believe it is a way to boost sun protection rather than a way to replace it. Minerals are naturally antioxidant too, so they will battle free radicals at the same time.
The Nerdie Recap
When it comes to finding an SPF that will simultaneously help your skin and suit your skin, you do not need to go it alone! Book in for a skin consultation with our Nerd or Nerdettes now to get rid of the guesswork and let us help you solve the jigsaw puzzle that is your skin.
]]>Dry skin can mean flaky, crocodile skin across the body, even in those who are usually pumping out sebum (oil) to beat the band. There are usually a few different reasons for this:
What this is doing is impairing the function of our skin’s barrier. For those who aren’t fluent in nerdie speak, this means that our skin’s protective coating, made up of dead skin cells and lipids (fats) is not able to work as it should.
Our skin’s barrier is what protects our skin from the elements, from things that may damage it and from irritants so what we may see when it is damaged is flaking, redness, patches, irritation, rashes and even breakouts. This is particularly pertinent to those with skin conditions that usually signify a “faulty” barrier, such as eczema or psoriasis.
There are plenty of things you can do to prevent and to help with the recovery of skin that has taken a blow from cold weather, including using thicker, emollient creams to create a physical shield across the surface of the skin. This time, we’re focusing on why lipids and oils in particular are beneficial when it comes to stop the dullness, dryness, flakiness and soreness associated with dry skin.
As very briefly mentioned above, lipids already play a pivotal role in the skin in that they help to make up our skin’s barrier. They are the cement between the bricks that are your skin cells. When our barrier is healthy and has enough lipids, our skin holds onto its own moisture quite successfully.
When our barrier is damaged, moisture leaks out through a process known as TEWL or transepidermal water loss. No matter how much water you’re taking in, if there’s a hole in a bucket, it’s not going to stay in there. Lipids you’ll find in the skin’s barrier:
When we apply the lipids that naturally help to form the skin’s barrier to skin, it acts as an additional support to the skin’s own barrier and aids it in restoring itself. When we hear “natural skincare”, we think rosemary, lavender and other essential oils which are beneficial to the skin, depending on the formulation they are in, but products containing ceramides and lipids are the real form of natural skincare as they contain ingredients natural to the skin. What’s natural to a tree is not necessarily natural to me.
If you’re fond of a thick, luxurious night cream, the IMAGE Vital C Hydrating Repair Creme could be a great option for you as it contains ceramides (obviously), as well as pure vitamin C aka l-ascorbic acid, hyaluronic acid in the form of sodium hyaluronate and phospholipids, a component of cell membranes.
Another option would be Skingredients Skin Good Fats. Our ceramide-rich barrier balm can help to repair a wonky skin barrier as well as containing shea-butter glycerides to help soothe and nourish skin without blocking pores, and a patented anti-itch ingredient to soothe skin which might be feeling inflamed.
Fatty acids in skincare
Many natural oils are rich in fatty acids, specifically argan oil, macadamia nut oil, jojoba oil and avocado oil. We tend to find the highest amount of these natural oils in body oils. Some believe that body oils are only suited towards very dry skins but we all need our barrier to be functioning well. It’s especially important when it comes to our body as the sebaceous glands (ie. the glands that pump out sebum to keep our skin moisturised) in some areas like our legs are much more sparse!
Certain oils and lipid-based products aren’t ideal for oilier and spot-prone skin types and can sit heavily on this type of skin, trapping sebum and aiding spots in forming. Even though some believe this not to be true, I see it happen with client’s skin and my own skin too.
This is where squalane steps up to the bat, especially in the cold months when even oily skin may be a bit dried out and dehydrated. Squalane is the saturated part of squalene, a substance that exists in our sebum. Although an oil, it is found to be incredibly beneficial to those with oilier or spot-prone skin without causing pesky surprise Franks (spots so big that you you need to name them) to pop up out of nowhere.
Hydrating Hyaluronic Acid
Humectant ingredients, like hyaluronic acid, work by pulling water out of the air into the skin and/or drawing the skin’s moisture upwards towards the surface of the skin. When there is a lack of moisture in the air, and when the skin’s barrier is compromised, this can end up with the skin’s moisture simply being drawn straight out. It sounds bananas but it does make some logical sense.
When you’re using humectants like hyaluronic acid to combat dry skin, make sure you’re layering it with lipidic, oil-based or generally emollient ingredients too, for example, within a product that also has squalane. This will ensure that you’re getting the plumping and the hydrating rather than simply dehydrating your skin further!
By now, you’re well accustomed to hyaluronic acid. In the last while, the most popular of the cosmetic skincare brands have started to include it in their formulations, meaning that no matter your budget, you can fit the wonder that is HA into your routine. This is a good thing, of course, but you should know when to use it, when not to use it and which types of HA do what.
In the simplest of terms, hyaluronic acid is an ingredient that pulls moisture to it. The nerdie term is “humectant”. Humectants are a key type of hydrating ingredient that you will find in nearly the majority of skincare products – glycerine is a humectant, urea is a humectant… even honey is a humectant.
Hyaluronic acid is better than these guys – it’s the Beyoncé of humectant ingredients, as it can bind more than 1000x its weight in water to it. Wow. I can’t imagine carrying 1000x my own weight. When many see the word “acid”, they think exfoliating acid. Hyaluronic acid ain’t an exfoliating acid so it’s not going to help you to slough off dead skin cells (or possibly irritate your skin).
Hyaluronic acid is a natural ingredient in the sense that it naturally exists in the skin already. Yes, indeed, one of my all-time favourite skincare ingredients is being manufactured throughout your body as we speak. Hyaluronic acid is made throughout the body and in the dermis, and it is part of a number of processes when it comes to the skin – obviously, it’s important for hydration but it is also involved with wound healing (tissue repair).
Bad news if you’re not Benjamin Button – as we age, our rate of HA production decreases and decreases so our skin struggles to hydrate itself as easily as it used to. This is why it’s considered to be an anti-ageing ingredient, even though it’s beneficial for all ages.
Topical hyaluronic acid, due to its moisture-pulling capabilities, can give the skin back moisture. Realistically, if your skin isn’t at peak health (ie. you’re not using a routine that replenishes your barrier, protects your skin from pollution and light-related damage, you’re not getting enough omegas internally etc.), your skin may not be holding enough of its own moisture. If you’ve got the right type of hyaluronic acid (more on this in a sec) in a serum, it can penetrate into the skin and hydrate it at lower layers which is something that moisturisers can’t do due to the size of their molecules.
Other forms of hyaluronic acid can plump up the uppermost layers of the skin, giving you the gift of instant youth. This is why it is known for its use in fillers! Not sold yet? It also works as an antioxidant to protect your skin from the free radical damage that can age the skin faster.
Is sodium hyaluronate better than hyaluronic acid? Yes and no. It’s better as it hydrates the skin deeper but it may not plump up the uppermost layers to the same extent.
Some serums will have a bundle of different forms of hyaluronic acid. IMAGE Skincare’s Ageless Total Pure Hyaluronic Filler contains 6 forms of HA including pure, high-molecular weight hyaluronic acid, sodium hyaluronate and cross-linked hyaluronic acid. This means that it’s hydrating deep down whilst popping out dents on the surface of the skin at the same time.
Skingredients Skin Veg contains a low molecular weight of hyaluronic acid in the form of sodium hyaluronate, as well as oodles of botanically-based antioxidants! This hydrating, anti-ageing serum is particularly loved by MUAs, and works perfectly as part of your everyday skincare routine.
Dehydrated skin
As it is a hydration-blaster, it slays dehydration. It is Buffy the Dehydration Slayer.
Oily & congestion-prone skin
As a non-oily hydrator, it does wonders as a hydrating product for those with oily or spot-prone skin as it doesn’t clog pores and doesn’t leave a greasy layer on the skin.
Mature skin
Hyaluronic acid, specifically high molecular weight hyaluronic acid, gives mature skin back the bounce and elasticity it may have lost naturally. Moisture slightly swells the uppermost layers of the skin so fine lines and wrinkles will look instantaneously less noticeable.
Those with impending nuptials
Brides & grooms can benefit mahoosively from using hyaluronic acid in the run up to and day of their wedding. It will do more than a skin-perfecting foundation will ever be able to do!
If you have very dry skin, it might not be enough on its own. A product that contains hyaluronic acid with something lipidic (read: oily) in there too would work for you though!
If you’re in a dry climate (ie. the desert, Texas, Vegas, or it is Winter?), hyaluronic acid can actually flip its role and dehydrate the skin.
What?!
Well, as it draws moisture from the air, a lack of moisture in the air can lead to it pulling moisture outwards from the lower layers of the skin. Some find that topping their HA serum with a thicker moisturiser can stop this from happening. Most people with very sensitive skin don’t have issues with serums that contain hyaluronic acid and only a few other ingredients – HA itself tends not to be irritating to even those with “princess skin”.
The simple answer is that it usually is nowadays. With brands focusing on ensuring that the majority of their products are suitable for vegans, the HA found in products is primarily not from animal sources. Always check the product or the brand of HA you're using to ensure that it is not animal-derived.
Although hyaluronic acid is an all-rounder, everyone's skin needs different things. Come and have an online skin consultation with one of our expert Nerds or Nerdettes, gain access to our store and tonnes of exclusive content...
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