Fairface Podcast Episode 8:
The Sensitive Skin Care Top 5: What you should be doing for your skin right now
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The Sensitive Skin Care Top 5: What you should be doing for your skin right now
Don’t let your sensitive skin suffer during stress!
Today I share 5 actionable things, that don’t take a lot of effort, that can make a big difference to your skin’s appearance & health - that you should be doing right now.
Hi there!
Thanks for joining me for another Fairface Podcast!
How are you guys doing?
Have you gone a little stir-crazy yet being stuck in your houses for weeks?
I've had my moments, as I've shared before, but right now I am doing ok. I am grateful that my family and I are healthy - that is a huge blessing. And I feel really lucky that I can keep working and have been able to ship our washcloths from my home office, so that has been another huge blessing.
I do have to admit that I have made, probably way too many casseroles and sweets at this point, but I'm trying to think about a more healthy approach to meal planning from now on, and the exercise part is kind of tough. I mean, it's funny, now we have time to do that, but that's really the last thing I want to do.
So, anyway, I hope that you are doing well. I know it's strange that this home stay is kind of becoming our new normal but hopefully it will do what it needs to do so that we can get back to a place of health and safety again for the United States and across the world. So I know it's worth it and I appreciate each of us doing our part.
Today I want to talk to you about what you should be doing with your skin right now.
With our lives kind of turned upside down, our skin care routines should not be.
For most of us, it's probably not be possible to get to your esthetician or dermatologist right now, so it's important to keep up with the health and wellness of your skin from home.
I have identified the top 5 things you should be doing for your skin right now to keep it as healthy as possible.
This first tip is new to even me. I had never done it before and I didn't really know it was a thing. Until now. But I decided that instead of feeling regret and worry for all the years I haven't been doing it, I just decided to start from where I am and hope to make a difference from now on.
So, what am I talking about? I'm talking about wearing sunscreen every day even when you are indoors.
[1 Wear sunscreen every day even when you're indoors]
Maybe some of you have been doing that. If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with wearing sunscreen. I wear it every single day without fail...but I realized I needed to add a disclaimer, and that disclaimer would have been, "I wear it every single day without fail...unless I don't leave the house."
Honestly, on the days that I was working at home, I would look forward to just being able to moisturize and not worry about putting on sunscreen or dealing with make-up.
But according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, if you work indoors with windows, you should still be wearing sunscreen.
According to cancer.org, just because your skin doesn't get burned, doesn't mean your skin doesn't get damaged.
Although windows can block most incoming UVB rays...UVA rays can still get through.
So you need to wear sunscreen every day, even on the days you don't leave the house. Which for most of us, is a lot of days that we are in our houses.
We should all be wearing SPF of at least 30 (which has been the most common recommendation). And technically you should be applying it every 2 hours if you are sweating, or outside or you work next to windows that get direct sunlight, according to cancer.org.
So while many of us are spending most of our hours a day during our home-stay quarantine time, in our homes, it's still important to wear sunscreen every day.
So after this home-stay situation ends, just make sure you wear it every day forever and ever no matter what. The end. That is what I'm telling you about sunscreen. It is an every day, 365 days a year kind of thing. No matter what.
The 2nd thing you should be doing for your skin right now is to try to keep up your regular skin care routines as much as possible...
[ 2 Keep up your regular skin care routines]
...which is especially important right now for those of us who have skin conditions like rosacea, eczema, psoriasis, acne etc. Our skin really counts on these routines and consistency, so irritation from our conditions don't re-emerge, you know, if we suddenly stop doing our normal routines, our skin can act up.
If I suddenly stopped my topical medication or stopped using my Fairface Washcloths on my skin or stopped using my favorite cleanser and moisturizer (which happens to be Vanicream, that is free from most irritants) my skin would definitely start to act up.
And the hard thing is, once the cycle of irritation begins, it can be hard to get it calmed down again. So let's not find out what that might look like for you. Keep up your regular sensitive skin care routines as much as possible.
If you use any medications, whether topical, or otherwise, like I do with metro gel - it's a topical that I put on face, and if you can't or don't want to get in with an esthetician or dermatologist right now, call in and see if they can give you an extra month prescription.
I did this with my dermatologist and she called in an extra prescription for me so that during this whole stay-home period of time, before COVID-19 gets under control, I can have the medication I need and then return to her office at a later date when I can get in.
I want to mention, as part of my clear skin habits that I don't want to leave out, it also includes my pillow cases!
You may not have thought about this before, but sleeping on a clean pillow case every night can do wonders to keep your skin clear. When we sleep on our pillow cases all night long, we can leave bacteria behind and that just gets on our faces and leads to break-outs.
I, personally, like to follow a nightly pillow case, kind of a flip rule. I put on a clean pillow case and I sleep on that side of the pillow that night. The next night, I flip my pillow to the other side and sleep on that side of the pillow case (which is still clean). And then the 3rd night, I actually change my pillow case and throw it in the hamper, and put on a new clean one, and the next night I flip it, and so on.
I know this might sound extreme to some people, but as I've mentioned before, having Rosacea and sensitive skin really is high maintenance so sometimes you have to do things that seem a little extreme, but this works, so I keep doing it. And yes, I do own a lot of pillow cases, in case you were wondering.
The other thing that I'll mention, is that I've found sleeping on a silk pillow case can be something that's really soothing to my skin and my hair. The thing about silk pillow cases is that they don't leave creases on my face like cotton pillow cases can and man, if you've ever had a crease on your face from a pillow case, those are hard to get out.
I looked up how to fix, or how to get rid of creases in your skin from a pillow case, and it said that you should slap your face, you should pinch the areas that are creased, so I did that, and tried to plump my creases back to normal. But it also can irritate my skin because it's sensitive and not so good to be slapping and pinching my face!
But the silk pillow case also makes my hair really smooth when I wake up. I know that it helps to prevent breakage and I can tell my hair looks better after a night on a silk pillow case.
Oh, and one more thing, be sure to use a sensitive skin friendly detergent like the kinds that are free and clear, the ones that don't have perfumes or dyes so you don't get the possibility of irritating your facial skin. Often there are remnants of the detergent left behind after doing your laundry and you just don't want that to be an irritant to your skin.
The 3rd thing you should be doing for your skin right now, is actually to lower your stress.
[3 Lower your stress]
And I know right now this is easier said than done. With many of you trying to work from home and manage your homes, and your kids, and doing home schooling, entertaining them, and the cooking, and the cleaning...and all the things. So you you're probably thinking, how in the world am I going to lower my stress right now? For real! You're crazy!
Lets get to the nitty gritty and I will tell you how stress affects your skin.
I did some research, so I would have the most correct information to share with you.
You know, although we make soft washcloth for sensitive skin and have done a lot of research on that, I am not a skin care professional. So when I want to share podcasts or articles or information with you about a particular skin condition, I do my research so I can give you the best, reputable sources of information I can find.
A common factor of sensitive skin conditions such as Rosacea, or Eczema, or Psoriasis and Acne, stress is highly correlated with flares or break-outs in all of these conditions.
I'll start with Rosacea flares, since I have shared before that I have Rosacea, so - Rosacea flares are highly correlated to stress. The National Rosacea Society has done countless studies and many have found that emotional stress is a huge trigger for Rosacea flares. I know it is for me as well.
According to the National Eczema Association, Eczema flares and increased itching (which leads to scratching) can also increase among those with higher stress levels.
According to the National Psoriasis Foundation, stress is a common trigger for Psoriasis - and not only have people reported that their Psoriasis first started during a time of high stress in their lives, but it also tends to get worse during stressful times.
You might ask, so does stress also cause acne?
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, the answer is yes. It is due to our body's response to stress, by way of hormones, which stimulates our hair follicles' oil glands, which can cause acne.
I will include all of those *sources in the show notes.
So stress can definitely affect our skin.
What are you doing to lower your stress right now?
One doctor, sited in a National Rosacea Society article, suggested some ideas to manage our emotional stress to help minimize or prevent the stress from triggering our skin.
He suggested caring for both your mind and your body with things like meditation, relaxation and even visualization. Making sure to eat healthier and drink more water, making sure you are taking time to exercise, and getting enough good sleep.
And right now, maybe all the de-stress time you even get is taking a walk in the morning before everyone in your house wakes up, or taking 3 minutes longer in the bathroom for the only quiet time you can have.
Maybe you like to read in your bed for 1/2 hour every night before you go to sleep, and after everyone else is in bed, or you literally tell everyone you need 15 uninterrupted minutes, and unless somebody is dying, you don't bother me, and you go in a dark room and sit there by yourself.
So I don't know what it looks like for you, but it's important that you try to get at least a little bit of time that you can try to de-stress.
Stress, we all know, effects our health and it effects our skin so whatever you can do to lower your stress right now can be helpful to your overall health as well as your skin's health. And we know that if your skin does start reacting to the stress by breaking out and flaring, that just adds more stress. So we don't want that.
This leads us to the next thing you should be doing for your skin, which I actually mentioned a few minutes ago, that relates to a healthy diet, and that was to drink more water.
[4 Drink more water]
Now I know there has been controversy over whether or not drinking more water actually helps the appearance of our skin or not. Some say it makes their skin more dewy and plump, others say they don't really notice anything.
I know personally, when I was testing out healthy eating habits for a Rosacea diet, I drank a lot more water and I really did see a difference in my skin. I think it had been dehydrated, so drinking more water really did make it look better.
The University of Washington- Health explained that since your skin is an organ, which is made up of cells, which are made up of water, in order for your cells to function their best, they need water - they need to stay hydrated.
They went on to say, that while most of the water you consume may get to other organs first, it can still help our skin. Some people, like I said, have said their skin looks and feels better when they drink more water, that has been my experience too.
If your skin is dehydrated, it might start to get dry, feel tight or even get flaky. And a tip for anti-aging, so if this doesn't convince you to drink more water, I don't know what will, is that dehydrated skin is more prone to wrinkling.
Not only that, but dry skin can also cause micro cuts to the skin that let bacteria in which can cause redness, irritation and inflammation. So drinking more water is overall, a very good choice.
And right now in particular, while many of us are off our normal routines with the stay-home measures, we end up drinking less water as a result, just because our habits have changed. Like when I used to work at a school, along side my business, I used to carry around a water bottle and I drank from it all day long.
Once I transitioned away from the school and just working on my business, I had to remind myself to drink even a few glasses of water a day. Even now, I still have to make an effort to do that or, really, I just forget.
For Rosacea, drinking water has two benefits. First, cool water can help to bring down your body temperature, which can help reduce flares and flushing, and 2nd is to keep our skin hydrated.
For Rosacea, we often have dehydrated skin on our faces due to an impairment in the barrier function of our skin. So in order for our facial skin to stay hydrated - we should not only drink more water, but we also need to apply water to our skin followed by moisturizer, which actually leads me to my next point...which, the 5th thing we should be doing for our skin right now, is to keep your skin moisturized.
[5 Keep your Skin Moisturized]
This really does go hand in hand with drinking more water and staying hydrated.
In addition to not drinking enough water and risking dehydration, our skin can also start to feel dry with the use of indoor heaters. Many of us are spending a lot of time inside our homes right now, and, here in Seattle, it's still chilly, so we have our indoor heaters running and it can make the air dry and dry out your skin.
Besides drinking more water, locking in moisture to keep our skin hydrated is an important line of defense. Why? Because if the majority of the water we drink ends up going to our other organs first, we have to get moisture to our skin somehow and not let it just evaporate.
So, the University of Washington- Health, again says, that it is by moisturizing our skin within 2 minutes of getting out of the shower when our skin is still moist, so we trap that moisture in. They even suggest you could try adding a product with hyaluronic acid, just before applying your moisturizer since this type of acid attracts and holds water to the skin. I have not personally tried this, but I might consider it.
And all the hand washing we're doing right now? It's helping us to stay healthy, but it is totally drying out our hands!
And, yesterday I was listening to a podcast called, **Skin Care Talk (correction it is called Pure Skin Talk - see below), that is lead by a licensed Esthetician in California, and she shared a tip for kind of a DIY moisturizing treatment for our hands, and I wanted to share that with you.
[ DIY moisturizing treatment for your hands ]
Basically she said, after cleansing your hands, you apply a generous amount of grapeseed oil - which I haven't personally tried, but I think I probably will, and massage it into your hands really well.
Then, she suggested applying a hydrating mask (she recommended a hydrating mask by Le Mieux that she has in her shop) or she said if you don't have that, you can apply a body or hand cream to your hands.
Then you put on gloves or socks or even a plastic bag to warm up your hands, that area that you've slathered with oil and cream, so that it can push everything deeper into the skin. She said it's kind of like steam, so warming that up and sealing it off will push everything deeper into your skin.
Leave it on for about 20 minutes, and then afterwards, you can get the excess off but otherwise leave it on your hands. And she said it's really, really moisturizing. So I think I want to try that this weekend, although I don't have grapeseed oil, but I might start using that because she really likes it and recommends that a lot.
So just to review, it's important to keep an eye on your skin's health, as all of our stress levels are higher than normal. And I hope you'll try these 5 things:
1 Remember to wear sunscreen every day even when you're indoors, no matter what, 365
2 Keep up your regular skin care routines as much as you can
3 Do things that can help lower your stress
4 Make sure you drink more water throughout the day
5 Remember to keep your skin moisturized
These 5 things really don't take a lot of effort, but can make a big impact on the health of your skin.
Thanks so much for being here! Again, I wish all of you the best for you and your families - take good care of yourselves! Thanks again for listening and I will see you next time.
*Sources:
National Rosacea Society
rosacea.org
National Eczema Association
nationaleczema.org
National Psoriasis Foundation
psoriasis.org
American Academy of Dermatology
aad.org
University of Washington Health
uwhealth.org
**Podcast correction - Pure Skin Talk [ PureSkinOC ] see the March 17th episode, "Pamper Yourself" for moisturizing hand treatment and other pampering ideas for your skin.
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