As your full beams cut into the fog on a dark drive to work and the pillowy clouds of breath protruding from your lips look dense enough to catch between your mittens, it’s hard to start thinking about springtime skincare.
While your skin may not be ready for you to swap out your rich moisturiser for a lighter day cream, what you can do, to prepare for the new season, is to have a good old fashioned spring clean.
Here are five steps to get you started:
1. Blow off the cobwebs and throw away old, undesirable products that you just won’t use. It’s easy to cling to old products – especially if the packaging looked particularly pretty on your shelf.
The old “but I might use it for this occasion” excuse might make an appearance, but the truth is, if you haven’t used it in a year, you probably won’t find use for it again. For natural products, chances are the ingredients are out of date anyway, or at least no longer capable of optimal performance.
2. Give your make up brushes a really good clean. You wouldn’t apply your moisturiser with dirty hands, so why allow dirty application tools to touch your face either. For a natural way to clean make up brushes, take a cup of hot water and add two teaspoons of white vinegar.
Swirl and press your brush along the bottom of the cup, keeping it submerged in the solution. Rinse and allow to dry.
3. Treat yourself to a new product. Try introducing an eye cream or serum to your skincare routine so see the difference it makes to your skin. There is little harm in experimenting once in a while and if you know your skin type then you can’t go far wrong with natural products.
4. Be conscious of your body care. It’s easy to be seduced by creams and balms for your face. Too often, we forget that our skin extends way further than our jawline. Invest in a great body scrub to boost circulation and buff off dead winter skin and a body moisturiser to hydrate dryer areas and you won’t know how you lived without.
5. Add an SPF. Everyone knows that throughout summer, an SPF is essential in stopping harmful UV rays affect your long term skin health… but few people extend that extra care to their skin all year round.
As winter sun can be just as harmful as in the summer months and with less general awareness and subsequent precautions taken throughout this season, skin can be vulnerable to damage.
Look no further than our award winning Optimal Skin ProDefence SPF15 to protect the skin from UVA and UVB rays, as well as environmental pollution, wind, heat and the cold – optimal defence, all year round.