Skin Care Routines ...

Good morning!

This month I have had a couple of really good chats in the treatment room about skin care routines. Let's face it; they are boring. Every day we have to fix our face in the morning and evening and then a Therapist turns round and says, 'Oh Honey, you are missing a vital step! You also need to make time for exfoliation and a face pack twice a week!'.

Oh boy. The amount of times I have heard my own advice given back to me by my Skin Care Therapist and my heart has sunk. Doesn't she know how stressed I am? Doesn't she realize that I have dead lines, a house to organize, people to see, a life to live and a business to run?! Well, it's time we stop procrastinating and face the fact that if we want great skin, we have to make routines that work for us.

A routine is only as good as the person doing it.

Morning

Sun Rise From Our Balcony Jan 2012.

The morning is a great time to face the day and if you are Fly Baby like I am, you'll know that FlyLady gets us to dress to shoes before the day starts so that we are ready for anything! Well, if your skin is not clean, fresh and moisturized you are not going to be ready and you'll have sleepy-dust crusted around your eyes ... It's not a good look.

So in the morning we need to do a few simple things in that can be done in the shower and then when we have brushed our teeth.

1. Cleanse your face properly! Use a Pre-Cleanse that will help you to remove all the excess oil based debris, including night creams, on the skin. Rinse it off and follow with your cleanser which will remove all the water based debris the clings to the skin. 
2. This is optional, but I use my Daily Microfoliant at this point instead of at night as I find that it buffs my skin wonderfully and preps it for moisturizers and make-up. 
3. Hop out of the shoer and quickly spritz 3 pumps of your chosen hydrator on you your skin. 
4. Pop a Spf 15 Eye Cream around those peepers to help protect them from the aging UVA, UVB, and Infra-Red rays. 
5. Moisturize! Make sure you are using at least a Spf 30 during the day and that the cream is hydrating for you. 

Then your make-up is optional, but you know you have the best start to the day and you have prepped your skin and done the best you can for it. Honestly those five steps done each morning, including washing my hair and body (including moisturizing it), doing my bathroom Swish and Swipe and doing teeth and eyebrows takes 15mins. Any more and I would be bored ... life is too short to spend any longer in a bathroom each morning! 

Evening

The 'Night-Time Routine' needs to be re-branded as an evening routine. There is no law that says that you have to do your skin care routine just before you go to bed. If you have little ones, why not do your skin care whilst you are in the bathroom with them as they splash and play with their rubber ducks? If you are like me and don't have kids, why don't you do it when you get in from work at 7? The point is that if you want to take care of your skin on a daily basis the timing has to work for you and you only, so look at your evening routines and see where this will EASILY fit in to your life. 

1. Cleanse your skin with Pre-Cleanse and follow with your skin cleanser. (You need to do this for precisely the same reasons as in the morning and this time your Pre-Cleanse will also get rid of the makeup for you). 
2. Spritz your skin with three pumps of your skin hydrator. 
3. Pop a nourishing eye cream that will help target your own personal eye care issues. (Mine is always dryness!)
4. Use a great quality overnight serum or cream that will help your skin to radiate. Why bother with a different cream at night? Simple; your skin repairs itself at night and so whilst your skin cells are working overtime, nourish them with targeted treatments that matter to you. Use the time that you are asleep to get these great creams working ... Why waste the time just sleeping?! 

Now, for my personal battle. Finding time to exfoliate and masque. 

For years I procrastinated over this as I didn't see how I was going to get all my other stuff done around the house if I did a exfoliation and face pack twice a week as it would take half an hour (my exfoliator sets and needs 10mins before my masque!!). I realized that I could do 10mins of ironing whilst the first part was on, go wash it off and slap a face pack on with very little effort, go back for 15mins of ironing and then pack the ironing up, take the face pack off and then nourish my skin with my night time serum. There ... 2 jobs in one ... Fantastic skin and no ironing pile building up. 

So, what if you have kids. Simple. If you are doing your evening routine when they are playing in the bath, just carry on your routine of reading them a bed time story and tucking them up with your face pack on! They will think it is a hoot and you'll have great skin. What more can we ask for? Laughter and skin health. It's all good. 

So, I hope that this has helped you see that skin care doesn't have to be so precious and you have the power to buck the advertising trends and make it your own. 

As a final note, I know all the links here are to Dermalogica, but I hope that you will understand that Cornerstone Therapies has had a fantastic relationship with them for 9 years . There is nothing else that I would want on my skin and I passionately believe that it's the best professional product range for you too!