When it comes to beauty, habits and consistency are important for clear, healthy skin. There are a million ways to get great skin, but there are a few habits that will guarantee that unwanted sun spots and blemishes will pop up. By nixing those bad habits early and replacing them with positive ones, you're skin will be balanced in no time! Here are my suggestions:
Bad habit: going without washing your face (especially when you have make up on). Make up settles in your skin, clogging pores and creating premature wrinkles. Replace this with a good habit: using make up remover wipes or washing your face every night before bed. Even after a long night when you're exhausted, 10 seconds of wiping your face with a make up remover soaked wipe will prevent serious damage from occurring. You can follow this up by cleansing your face with water and a foaming cleanser or just hit the sack immediately. Your skin will thank you for the extra effort in the morning!
Bad habit: skipping SPF. Sunkissed skin has been in style since Coco Chanel returned from vacation with a deep suntan in the 1920s, but no trend is worth longterm health problems like skin cancer. The only way to prevent this is with a good habit: wearing moisturizer with SPF or wearing SPF over your moisturizer. Make sure to cover your face, neck, chest and every inch of exposed skin (skin covered by sheer material is still exposed) with SPF at least 20 minutes before you head out the door— and don't forget the often-missed backs of your hands! This will prevent skin cancer, premature winkles, sun spots and acne scars. Reapply every 2 hours or after you are in contact with the water.
Bad habit: allowing hands, lips and nails to get dry and brittle. Nothing feels or looks worse than raggedy hands and nails (especially those tough cuticles!). For the amount of work they do, we don't really give our hands enough TLC. And dry, cracked lips? Uncomfortable and unattractive! Tackle this with a good habit: use a hand and lip salve combo or use a cuticle cream and a lip balm throughout the day. I like to apply my hand cream immediately after I wash my hands. I've been doing this the last few weeks and have noticed a huge difference in the way my hands and nails look and feel. For lips, I try to apply lip balm at least after every meal, right when I get up and before bed. My lip balm has SPF in it too, which prevents the dreaded lip sunburn!
Bad habit: not getting enough sleep. Beauty sleep is real. Not just for looks, but also for health in general (see this, this and this post about sleep— I am obsessed). There is no way to fake 8-10 hours of sleep, so start this good habit: aim for 8-10 hours of sleep every night and consider switching your pillow case to silk. I don't use silk pillow cases, although I change my cotton cases very regularly. Silk pillow cases are less abrasive on skin than cotton, making for softer skin and fewer sheet creases.
xoxo
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