20 best tips for a natural & organic skin care routine
Having a good skin care routine is very important for achieving and maintaining perfect skin. But we don’t all have the same skin. While the Internet is abundant with pointers on how to care for your skin, what products to use and how to apply them; such advice rarely deals with how any of this helps.
You’ll find 20 tips below, that offer insight-based counsel on an effective skin care routine that is most suited to you.
Before you begin, you need to understand that it’s not only about following skincare tips, but also knowing the type of skin you have, avoiding issues and bolstering its state.
Begin by identifying your skin. You could have either:
- Normal to oily skin– which means you needn’t bother all as much, because your skin is naturally resilient, not to mention usually well-balanced and often refuses to pose any trouble. But this doesn’t mean you will be let off scot-free. You will still need to ensure you take the best care of your skin, as it can range from being normal to excessively oily for just any given reason under the sun, be it your food, the climate or the humidity.
- Dry skin– is typically characterized by skin that seems under-moisturized and less-elastic. Regular care is required to keep dry skin looking healthy and supple. It isn’t always that you will be able to treat your dry skin by merely applying heavy layers of moisturizer. This is because in most cases, your skin will begin to appear dry again within a matter of a hours.
- Combination skin– Such skin would show traits of both ‘dry’ as well as ‘oily’ skin, and can be tricky to care for without the right knowledge. It is important to understand how to care for such skin properly as the wrong moves can worsen your grievances as well as your skin. A timely care schedule that meets with the demands of your skin is the most apt method of dealing with combination skin.
- Sensitive Skin– would have you work tirelessly to ensure you don’t have a flair-up, unless you know what’s right and what’s not. To many, sensitive skin acts like much of a curse, hindering their daily habits. But this can all be overcome by simply understanding to respect that your skin is not built for most harsh beauty products or home remedies.
Working towards having and maintaining great looking skin is not as much about using OTC (Over-the-counter) ‘products’ to follow a successful skin care routine; as it is about providing what it ‘does’ and avoiding what it ‘does not’ need.
Useful skincare tips for oily skin
1. Use moisturizer when going to bed
When you’ve got oily skin, try not to use moisturizer during the day. You’re bound to step out of home and the moisturizer will render your skin greasy, attract more grime and leave your skin appearing dull.
Using lotion whilst going to bed will ensure your skin is hydrated as well as so it stays clean. Ensure to take off all the excess lotion when showering in the morning, so your skin doesn’t stay sticky when you step out of your home.
2. Avoid using a paper towel or handkerchief on your face
As I’ve mentioned above, oily skin tends to become grimy; and merely wiping your face isn’t good enough as it only spreads the dirt over your skin across the area you wipe. Rinse your face instead, even if it’s just with water.
This is especially true if you are frequently plagued with acne. Using a kerchief on an acne ridden face will allow the bacteria to spread hence causing you to break-out in new areas too.
3. Use gel-based washes
Crème-body wash and face wash tends to strip your skin of more oil than a gel-based wash would. Your oily skin will work twice as hard to produce sebum (natural oil produced by your skin) to maintain its natural state, leaving you looking stickier, sooner.
Try using a mild wash to ensure you have less oily skin. Also try and avoid products that are heavily perfumed as they tend to contain higher levels of alcohol which also strip nutrients from your skin.
4. Know the difference between day and night cream
If you must decide to use product on your skin in the day, you should know that a day cream helps protect and ‘mildly’ nourish your skin, while a night cream would repair, fortify as well as ‘deeply’ nourish your skin.
Do not use a night cream in the day, it’s too sticky. Pick a light water-based lotion for you to use in the day. Test it on the back of your hand before using it all over so you can ensure it is not sticky and that it works for you.
5. Use clay to take away excess sebum
Make use of a mud or clay mask on your skin, its benefits are numerous. These masks have nourishing and healing properties that boost the appearance of your skin and also absorb excess oils, leaving it just with just the right amount of ‘sheen’.
Alcohol-based toners will strip excessive sebum, leading to oiler skin. Use a mud-pack every once in 15 days or even just once a month if you’d please. This should sufficiently nourish your skin leaving it with that perfect matte look.
Useful skincare tips for combination skin
1. Always read the label
If you’ve got this type of skin, you should be aware that you must use products devised solely for your type of skin. This is because, while the areas around the forehead, nose and chin, also known as the T-zone may be oily; the other parts of your face may be terribly dry.
Using the wrong product will almost always worsen your problems and it is better to the safe than sorry when it comes to your skin.
2. You may need to segregate care
In some cases, care for combination skin is targeted based on the problem, where the drier areas are treated differently from those that are naturally overtly oilier. This means that you would approach the issues on the dry and oily areas differently.
Although this might seem cumbersome, it is the only way to care for combination skin in the correct manner, and develops as a matter of habit over time. Once you figure what’s right and what’s not, it should all run like clockwork.
3. Pay close attention to your skin
This type of skin is usually harrowed with a number of issues because its either too oily or too dry, making it tricky to care for. Depending on where you live, your daily routine and the weather you will need to alter your skin care schedule to suit the needs of your skin.
For example, when you notice that the humidity has increased considerably, your skin will begin to appear greasier and shinier. This is because its producing a ‘LOT’ of sebum. You will need to battle this differently from when your skin appears dry and wrinkly, which is likely to happen in the winter.
4. Don’t try and fight it, simply care for it right
Some of you may have a combination skin type because you were born with it. Others begin to realize the change in their skin when they hit puberty and hormonal irregularities begin to fuel changes within the body.
If your skin does turn excessively oily due to your hormones, it’s likely it may go back to normal as things regularize.
5. Try a layer of honey
Merely smothering your skin with honey can work wonders for combination skin. Its healing agents and active minerals ensure great care for dry skin whereas its antiseptic properties help fight bacteria and infections among the oily parts.
Just use a fine layer of raw and natural honey on your skin. Let it sit for 20 minutes and rinse it off with tepid water.
Useful skincare tips for dry skin
1. Don’t go overboard with the moisturizer
Your skin appears dry because of a natural ‘condition’ and excessively slapping-on even the richest moisturizer won’t bring magical results. Give your skin as much as it can take, which is little at a time.
Lotions that provide ‘deep hydration’ are advisable to use at bedtime. You should be warned that these lotions usually render the linen on your bed quite sticky owing to the product’s rich nature. Hence, use only as much as required.
2. Limit exposure to the sun
Dry skin suffers from under-nourishment as it is. Regular and prolonged exposure to sunlight only makes things worse. Try and use a jacket and/or scarf when you step into the sunlight. It will help reduce if not completely avoid the damage caused. Get into the habit of using a sunscreen when moving out of home always.
When you do have to spend a lot of time outdoors, step out of the sun when not crucially required. Look for a shaded place to stand in, it is no shame to want to avoid damaging your skin.
3. Don’t agitate your skin
If your skin begins to appear flaky, do not try and scrub it off like you would do with dead skin. Dry skin appears flaky because of lack of moisture. Using coconut oil as a home-remedy for dry skin should be a detrimental factor in your skin care routine.
When cleaning your skin, ensure to use random motions when scrubbing lightly. Using pre-set or circular paths to scrub your skin is abrasive and causes the area to lighten, while the areas ignored stay darker.
4. Try not to use hot water
One of the best skincare tips to be followed by those with dry skin is not to use hot water. Unlike cold or tepid water; the hotter the water, the more natural oil it strips from your skin.
Not to mention it leaves the pores on your skin wide open for quite a while; enough to accumulate dirt and pollution to cause a clog. Clogged pores will naturally cause acne and other similar conditions, making it tougher to deal with your skin.
5. Avoid astringents and acid based products
Alcohol based astringents and acid-based (AHA, glycol, retinol) cleansing agents tend to gradually phase-off the upper layer of your dead skin to reveal a new layer that is suppler and more vibrant. If you however have a dry skin condition, you should avoid such products so your skin is not further damaged.
A lot of you might want to use a facewash with a mild acid so your skin stays vibrant looking, but choose your products wisely and continue using it only if it agrees with your skin.
Useful skincare tips for sensitive skin
1. Don’t try a million products
When you have sensitive skin, it’s best to always be careful. Do not experiment with a range of products to see which provides to quickest outcome, but stick with those that allow your skin to stay comfortable and trouble-free.
Sensitive skin is prone to allergies as well as rashes. This means you’ll find that only 1 in 10 products would probably bring you the results you look for. So if you find that something, stick with it.
2. Use mild washes
As mentioned earlier, most skin cleansing products come with a mild acidic base, usually derived from fruits, which help peel off the top-most, weathered layer of your skin. Sensitive skin usually reacts poorly to such acids, leaving your skin prickly and slightly painful.
A water-based cleanser should work wonders instead. These don’t contain such acids and merely do an excellent job of gently cleansing your skin of dirt and impurities.
3. Avoid toners or alcohol based astringents
Like acid-based skin-washes, alcohol-based toner too does not agree with sensitive skin. It’s best to simply stick with a mild wash and pat your skin dry.
If you do use a product that causes your skin to look angry and become inflamed, do not apply anything to it further. Simply grab a cube of ice and gently slide it over the affected area for immediate relief.
4. Learn from your mistakes
What happens you fall for a product because it’s advertised well or because someone you know uses it and it fails you. You learn from your mistakes. Sensitive skin can be tough to take care of, considering a lot of products may leave you disappointed.
Check the contents of the product and try to figure what caused the issue. You can avoid the cause in your next experiment if you should have one in the future.
5. Try a mild hydrating moisturizer
Use something on your skin that will ensure it remains well cared for, yet doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable. Try and avoid body oils and sticky products as they may cause minor irritation to hyper-sensitive skin.
This is because the moisturizer blocks your pores and it’s not uncommon to be uncomfortable when your skin can’t breathe.
General skin care routine tips
Here’s a general skin care routine list to outline what you should do in order to care for your skin. Be sure to keep the skincare tips mentioned above in mind whilst adding any of the activities below into your daily regime.
1. Cleanse, Scrub and Moisturize
Choose a cleansing agent that does its job without worsening the condition of your skin. Always ensure to cleanse your skin well, twice or thrice a day on the face is perfect. If a gentle scrub doesn’t cause your skin any irritation, it will help you get rid of the dull skin that forms the top most layer.
Even mere soap causes damage to your skin; this is to tell you that you do need to moisturize, no matter how unfrequently you have the time to do it. This is something you must try and abide by as it’s the very basis of clean and healthy skin.
2. Don’t wear make-up to bed
You must not suffocate your skin. Make-up clogs the pores on your skin and wearing it all night will result in a poor overall appearance. You need to take off all make-up before you go to bed, or everything you follow in your skin care routine will be for nothing.
Ensure you use a cleansing agent that is able to take off all the stubborn make-up as even a few clogged pores may lead to blemish causing acne. If possible, do not wait until it’s bed-time to get your make up off, wash your skin clean as soon as you’ve stepped into your home.
Wearing lipstick constantly is known to darken your lips noticeably, same is the case with the use of foundation on your face.
3. Sleep well
You must get 8 hours of sleep so you look and appear healthy over being tired and worn out. Allowing your body to rest as required during the night also allows it to repair and fortify itself while you sleep, this is especially true for your skin too.
You will also notice an overall uplift in your general demeanor when your body is well rested.
4. Eat discerningly
Ensure you allow your body enough roughage to get rid of toxins and wastes, as well as nourish it with the required daily intake of nutrients.
This helps you fortify your skin in the process and will keep it looking supple and well-cared for, much longer than topical products might. You can’t possibly achieve healthy skin without nourishing it from within, regardless of how hard you try.
5. Wear Sunscreen
No matter what type of skin you have, you must resort to wearing sunscreen when moving outdoors. Although it is not immediately evident, exposure to sunlight not only causes darkening and ageing of skin, but also brings a patchy look to its overall appearance.
If you are seated near a sunny window at work, try and use partial blinds to make sure your skin is not drastically affected.
Conclusion
Taking care of your skin should be simple. You needn’t try out endless skincare tips to figure what works for you. All you need to do is sit yourself down and analyze what it is you are battling, and treat it accordingly. The best skin care routine is usually one that is not borne down with multiple remedies.