Natural Facial Treatments and Seven Tips for Dry Skin

A contributing factor to dry, flaky, skin in winter is a drop in temperature. Although winter sometimes feels damp, there is usually less water in the air than on your skin and that creates a moisture vapour loss from the skin. As skin becomes drier, its surface layer stops producing the natural lipids which prevent moisture loss, and water cannot be retained so easily. Dry skin will also show wrinkles more easlit and contribute to an aging appearance.

Herbalist Greta Breedlove came up with this natural homemade skin care recipes face utilizing the seed of the avocado. It makes a moisturizing face scrub, especially for dry skin.

AVOCADO FACE SCRUB

Let an avocado dry a few days until you can remove the skin easily. Chop, then pulverize in a blender or food mill. Moisten with a little milk and smooth over your face, throat.

AVOCADO FACIAL CLEANSER

One egg yolk, beaten until light and frothy
1/2 cup milk
1/2 avacado, peeled and mashed

Beat the mixture with a fork until you have a thin cream or lotion consistency. Apply with cotton balls as you would a cleanser.

As a result of all these factors, sometimes skin on the face and body tends to be in worse condition in the winter months than at other times of the year. In extreme cases, a constant drying effect can even lead to cracking, flaking and redness.

These four tips for helping to keep dry skin at bay during the colder months come from Dr. Kucy Pon, Olay dermatologist.

1. A moisturizer is essential - A moisturizer performs several important functions, including replacing lost water. Water-binding ingredients, such as glycerin, help keep it in the skin.

2. Create an oasis - Put some moisture back into the air by using a humidifier in your home or office. It will counteract the drying effects of indoor heat.

3. Drink lots of water - Increase your body’s natural moisture level by staying hydrated throughout the day.

4. Keep wrapped up - Dress for the season and try to limit your skin’s exposure to harsh temperatures and damaging winds.

If you have dry skin, then you probably already know it can be really difficult to care for. When you don’t look after it properly, it can become flaky, and if it gets really bad, may even become irritated and red. Although it’s possible to find plenty of products that claim to be able to solve dry skin problems, unfortunately most of their claims are sales hype.

Although most over the counter products don’t do much to combat dry skin, there are a number of things you can do to improve the condition of your skin. It’s mostly a question of making some basic changes to your daily skincare routine. It won’t take long for your skin to appear more healthy and vibrant.

With dry skin, you have completely the opposite problem to someone with oily skin. Basically, your skin is suffering from a lack of sebum, the oil that helps to keep the skin moist and supple. People with oily skin produce far too much sebum. Sebum is actually made from skin cells, and is an essential ingredient in healthy, supple skin. Because dry skin has insufficient oil, you need to replace it from both inside and outside.

5.  Moisturize

One of the best things you can do for your skin is to use a good quality moisturizer. Choose a cream that is rich, but not heavy. Consider choosing a natural cream with aloe vera and chamomile. Both these ingredients are very soothing, as well as helping to reduce dryness and improve the skin’s healing abilities.

6. Choose Healthy Foods

You also need to look at the type of foods you eat. It’s important to choose healthy foods, because the healthier your body, the healthier your skin will be. You may not realize this, but your skin is actually the largest organ of your body. So it needs to be nourished just like all the other organs in your body.

7.  Supplement

Depending on the types of food you already eat, you might need to consider taking a supplement, such as Vitamin E, Omega-3 oils and B-Complex vitamins. Making sure you get enough of these important nutrients is a great way to improve the condition of your skin.

By nourishing your skin in all these ways, you should soon a marked reduction in the level of dryness. Helping your skin to be more supple and moist also helps to slow down the process of aging, so you’re the winner in two ways.

By Tom Turner

What is Organic and Natural Skincare?

Today’s busy lifestyle means that our skin takes a battering from the elements and from all the chemical contaminants that we unavoidably come across at home and in the workplace. Recent research showed just how many unwanted chemicals we now have in our bodies. Some of these undoubtedly have been absorbed through the skin and most of these chemicals did not even exist 50 years ago. Unfortunately our quest for ever more cost effective cleaning, beauty and garden products has meant the introduction of new chemical concoctions, some of which are now being identified as potentially carcinogenic and dangerous and others as toxic. Our grandparents lived lives where natural skincare was the norm and undoubtedly skincare is more complicated today. But if we take time out to study the ingredients in our skincare products and chose them carefully we can chose the best natural skin care products.

Skin care is important, not only to keep you young looking, but also to assist in warding such dangers as skin cancer. With a major abundance of skin products on the market today, it is difficult to know which are most beneficial to your skin. All of them say they are good for your skin, but naturally that is part of the marketing strategy. One way to narrow down you choices for skin products is to choose organic natural skin care products.

The term “organic” refers to items that are not modified genetically, are not grown with the use of pesticides and involve no use of growth hormones. Many may wonder how organic can be used in terms of skin care. Simply put, the ingredients contained within the specific skin product are organic. This basically indicates that there are less chemicals and preservatives and more ingredients from nature. Something being natural refers to it as not being artificial. Therefore, when you combine the terms organic and natural you see that they both basically entail not using anything artificial. They are basically of the same meaning when placed in the context of organic skin care.

When you look at what makes a skin product organic and/or natural, you can see that often you can make your own home remedies for skin care. For example, a facial steam consisting of herbal tea such as green tea or chamomile opens pores and cleanses them of impurities. A mix of the same type of herbal tea combined with olive oil slathered on the face and body soothes and not only moisturizes, nourishes, but also cleanses and restores the skin. This is just a very small example of organic items that can be utilized to create your own skin care regime at home.

Another organic item of nature that you can use to treat your skin is raw honey. Raw honey has a natural antibiotic contained within that is useful for ridding the skin of some types of acne. Even if you don’t want to do a lot of research to find out how to create your own homemade skincare items, there are ways to ensure when buying products already made and marketed at stores are truly organic and truly appropriate.

First of all an item cannot be labeled as organic unless 95% of the ingredients contained in the product are organically grown. You must be careful when reading labels; however, because there are those that state that the product is made with organic ingredients. With this only 70% of the ingredients contained within the product are organically grown.

Skin care is important, not only to keep you young looking, but consider also that your skin is the largest organ of your body. Most people do not think of their skin that manner, but considering that it helps protect, detoxify, enables entrance of important nutrients into the body to keep you healthy and protects the body from environmental changes it is a vital part of one’s body that should be well taken care of.