Beautiful Skin Starts Here

Sensitive Skin
How to Tell If This Type Is You
Does your skin turn red and blotchy at the slightest provocation, particularly when you've used a fragranced skincare product? Is your skin easily irritated by extreme temperature fluctuations? If so, like 40 percent of the population, you have sensitive skin.

How to Treat It
Products created for sensitive skin have one thing in common: minimal ingredients (fewer than 10 are recommended) with no unnecessary bells and whistles such as dyes and fragrances. Since sensitive skin is often dry, a simple splash of water will effectively remove any surface oils in the morning. Wash with a very mild cleanser in the evening, when you have makeup and the day's debris to get rid of. While you might think that you should go nowhere near an exfoliating scrub, you still need to help your skin shed that dead upper layer quickly -- rest assured that a gentle scrub will get the job done effectively. Next, moisturize, which is important both to increase skin's resilience and to boost its ability to protect itself from environmental irritants. Always use a daytime moisturizer with sun protection. Finally, choose a night cream that's targeted for sensitive skin. Some experts even recommend baby moisturizers, which are particularly gentle.

Dry Skin
How to Tell If This Type Is You
Do you feel like you're on a never-ending mission to quench your skin's thirst? Does your skin always look dull, with visibly dry patches and flakiness? If so surprise, surprise you have dry skin.

How to Treat It
According to David Colbert, MD, a dermatologist and the founder of New York Dermatology Group, dry skin is very common, and is usually a result of aging and environmental factors. "Every year our skin's outer layer is less able to hold on to water," he says. Therefore, you have to look for gentle cleansers and rich moisturizers to make up for this deficit. Start the moisture-boosting process with a creamy, nonfoaming cleanser. Next, exfoliate once a week to rid yourself of those pesky dry patches. Finally, moisturize liberally both day and night with products containing proven hydrating ingredients such as glycerin and hyaluronic acid, which is found naturally in our skin but diminishes over time.

Oily Skin
How to Tell If This Type Is You
If you're always patting away shine, retouching your faded makeup, and hiding blemishes, you have oily skin. "Gauge your skin in the middle of the day. If your entire face feels slick, that's the sign," says Fran Cook Bolden, MD, a New York City-based dermatologist. (Many women with "combination skin" fit into this category, and can treat their oily T-zones accordingly.)

How to Treat It
Fight your natural inclination to cleanse your skin roughly in hopes that this will help clear its surface. Oily skin actually needs a routine that controls oil while preserving the skin's moisture levels. Pick a gel cleanser and follow with a fine-grained exfoliator. In the morning, use sunblock during the summer, or an oil-free lotion the rest of the year. At night, skip moisturizer in favor of a salicylic acid-based spot treatment if your skin is acne-prone. If your skin feels dry, top it off with an oil-free or glycolic acid-based moisturizer.

Mature Skin
How to Tell If This Type Is You
Are you suddenly seeing wrinkles, particularly around your eyes? What about your skin's texture: Does it seem less smooth than it used to? Finally, do you have beauty marks, which look like freckles on your nose but like spots on the rest of your face? If this sounds familiar, it's time to step up your skincare regimen to help keep signs of aging at bay.

How to Treat It
First, choose a cleanser with anti-aging ingredients, such as soy extracts, which feed your skin vital nutrients and can ward off future damage. Next up is an exfoliator, essential for boosting your skin's sluggish cell turnover rate (which in turn will increase smoothness). Finally, your daytime moisturizer must contain sun protection as well as antioxidants. Together, these ingredients help guard against lines and wrinkles. In the evening, you can use a moisturizer with a higher percentage of active ingredients; many are designed to work with the skin's natural ability to repair itself.

How To Have Great Skin

Skin & Hair
Great health is first noticed on the outside of your body with your skin and hair. Learn how to look after your outer nutrition for a healthy glow no matter your age.

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How To Have Great Skin
Great skin is something that nearly everyone can cultivate. Our skin is affected by our:

• Genes
• Inner nutrition - what we eat and drink
• Exercise
• General health and well-being
• Emotional health, and
• Outer nutrition - how we take care of our skin

While we can't alter our genes, we can improve our skin by making the necessary adjustments in the areas we can influence. Read on to discover the basic components of a healthy outer nutritional plan for your skin. If you seriously want great skin the very first thing to do and wear a hat and good quality sunscreen when out in the sunshine. Having said that, let's move on to understand the next three basic foundations to great skin.

If you want your skin to look and feel great, careful cleansing is very important. This should be done first thing in the morning and last thing at night to remove pore-clogging dirt. Don't cleanse enough and you could find yourself prone to spots. Cleanse to often and you could be stripping away essential oils and be susceptible to dry skin or even eczema. Understanding your skin type (normal, dry or oily) and using a cleanser to match is the best foundation for great looking skin. Remember to rinse your face with warm water after using a cleanser, as any residue will continue to work on the skin if not completely removed.

Our grandmothers used soap and water…isn't that good enough? Soap is not very good at removing makeup because it does not contain enough oils to dissolve the staying power that most cosmetics have today. Remember the 'tight' feeling after your have washed your fact with soap? Soap can be very drying on your skin and may wash away essential oils. Another reason not to use soap is that it is not matched to the natural balance of our skin. Soap is generally alkaline, whilst skin is naturally acidic.

The second step to great outer nutrition for your skin is to tone. Toners are designed to remove any last traces of cleanser, while also helping to tighten and refine pores and prevent the build-up of dead skin cells. After toning your skin should fee and look revitalised and refreshed, and ready to be moisturised. Again you will need to apply a toner that matches your skin type.

The third foundation step is to apply moisturiser to help restore the moisture loss caused by the drying effects of sunlight, central heating, wind, cold and pollution. A good daytime moisturiser would contain a sunscreen and will be easily absorbed into the skin. At night you should use a richer, more nourishing cream, as this is when your skin more readily absorbs moisture.

Despite the plethora of products on the market and the myriad of additives…. the most important ingredient of any moisturiser is water! If water is just splashed on the skin it will not say there. Moisturisers are basically oil and water emulsions which contain a humectant (a substance added to another to make it moist), which attracts water and helps 'fix' it in the upper layers of the skin.

Moisture that is lost firm the skin needs to be replaced quickly so that the surface of the skin is kept both soft and smooth. The living cells in the layers need water so that they will not shrivel up and die. A moisturiser can protect the skin by providing a barrier between the skin and the external environment. It also prevents the loss of moisture from the deeper layers of the skin.

Should people who have oily skin use a moisturiser? Moisturisers are particularly recommended for people with dry skin but everyone can benefit from using a moisturiser. You simply need to ensure that you choose the correct moisturiser for your skin type. People with oily skin should choose a moisturiser that hydrates their skin whilst helping absorb any excess oil.