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Please STOP using a foaming face wash!

Because it’s making your skin worse by drying it out.

You are causing more damage – it is ageing your skin.

However, preparing your skin is an essential part of your skin health routine.

But it can get very confusing as there is a lot of advice and skin care products out there that promise to solve all your skincare issues – but trust me they are not telling you the truth.

As a skin facialist and nutritional therapist, I call myself a Skin Health Expert.  Let me share with you what I have learnt about how to improve your skin health for younger-looking skin – naturally. 

Learn more about how to exfoliate dead skin using liquid exfoliators for your face and stop using foaming face washes and face scrubs. 

How you clean, cleanse and exfoliate your skin will impact the quality of your skin health each day.

Think of this part of your home skin care routine as the preparation phase. This is the foundation of addressing all your skin concerns. As when done incorrectly face scrubs and harsh exfoliating can be the root cause of most common symptoms, such as dry or dehydrated skin, oily, open pores, blackheads, hormonal outbreaks, fine lines wrinkles and lack of tone. 

Learn how to prepare your skin

Skin Care Routine at Home

Preparing your skin is easy to remember as the three Removes:

1. Remove your makeup
2. Remove natural impurities
3. Remove dead skin cells each day

Preparing your skin is first to clean then cleanse to remove the dirt and the grime. Finish with balancing the pH on your skin to naturally exfoliate yesterday’s skin cells.

The preparation phase will nurture the cells beneath and ensure the skin cells communicate kindly with each other rather than having an augment or dealing with inflammatory or toxic invaders each day.

Products for cleansing your skin

The main products to use in preparing your skin are:

• Clean – Micellar water
• Cleanse – Cleansing milk or cleansing oils,
• Exfoliate – pH balancers, such as AHAs, BHAs, PHAs.

The products in the preparation phase will independently do their job, but as a team, they formulate a skin health routine that can create stronger skin cells each and every day. 

Preparing your skin will enhance the next phase of targeting your skin concerns. There is no point in adding active targeted serums or boosters, such as peptides for firming or retinol for wrinkles when your skin cells are arguing with each other.

How to clean your skin at home

The most common culprit is the use of foaming face wash or soap-based products. Anything that lathers on your skin and works with water.

These products contain high levels of a foaming agent called Sodium Laureth Sulfate.

The main issue with this ingredient is it alkaline and will raise the pH of your skin from the natural level of pH 4.7. Up to over 7 or 8 depending on the chemical formula and the other ingredient in the products

As a result, your skin will feel tight after you have washed it. Some people like that feeling but the is an issue that more commonly when you add a pH balancer or other exfoliants on top of this, you will reduce the pH too quickly.

The pH balancer is a liquid exfoliator approach, but even if you do not use a liquid exfoliator you will more likely be using a retinol or vitamin c serum as your actives and these also have an exfoliation or pH balancing effect.

Initially may not notice much change, but over time, as a consequence of this constant change in pH levels, your skin cells become exhausted and weak.

The skin cell communication will break down and your skin health will suffer.

Your skin will show dehydrated symptoms, such as blackheads, open pores, oily forehead, and even worse Millia, outbreaks and blemishes.

As a result, most people think they have dehydrated skin and keep adding hydrating thick creams for ‘dry’ skin type. As I have explained face creams will not stop dehydration.

Your cream can only preserve and protect the existing hydration you already have, it is not able to create hydration within the skin cell.

Liquid Exfoliators for Skin

Whenever looking to use any pH balancing of exfoliating products, it is essential to start slow and low and gently exfoliate from a neutral pH level.

Micellar waters and cleansing oils or milk to clean your skin. These will keep your skin around the pH4.7.

The pH balancing products are the key to the secret for younger looking skin. 

But like most things you’ve got to get it right as they form part of the exfoliation process of your dead skin cells. The idea is to naturally melt away rather than scrub out the dead skin cells.

This will encourage fresh new skin cell to come to the surface, all hydrated and bursting full of nutrients to give you that bright glowy complexion that you want.  

Scrubbing with the wrong kind of exfoliator can cause damage to the epidermis, and your skin cells won’t like you for it.

Exfoliation of Dead Skin 

Ideally, it would be best if you use a liquid exfoliator with natural enzymatic reactions that break down the glue adherens junctions to hold the cells together. Liquid exfoliators allow targeted serums and creams afterwards to efficiently do their job to target the skin concerns to nourish, hydrate, and then your creams can protect your skin cells. 

The most popular recognized liquid exfoliators, are AHAs. These are water soluble and more often derive from sort of glucose, milk, fruit sugars.

• Lactic acid from milk
• Malic acid from almonds.
• Citric acid from lemons and oranges.
• Phytic acid from oats 

For sensitive or reactive skin AHAs needs to be combined with PHAs to reduce the sensitivity, but the aim is to drop the pH below the four and to give it that natural skin cell turnover gently every day.

Remember, the approach should always be slow and low.

If you want to address your ageing skin concerns such as wrinkles and improving tone, you must address the daily preparation of your skin first.

In summary, if you have dehydrated skin, open pores, blackheads, oily foreheads and chin, and blemishes, the pH of your skin is out of balance.

In conclusion, your daily skincare routine should start with the preparation phase of removing via cleaning, cleansing and naturally exfoliating your skin gently every day. Before you even consider investing in targeted serums and creams.

If you’re struggling with the said mentioned symptoms, focus your time and money on the preparation phase for younger clear looking skin.

Review what you’ve already got at home and have a look at the ingredient in your products that clean your skin.