The average amount of makeup a woman applies per day amounts to eight dollars per face. Putting all that makeup on your face isn't even worth it if you don't focus on skin hydration. Your canvas has to be prepared before you can start applying all that expensive paint.
Your skincare routine is essential in keeping your skin healthy and minimizing the effects of ageing. Don't overlook what seems like a simple, avoidable step in your routine - it's actually the most important of all.
Skin Hydration Tips to Make You Look Your Best
The skin is your body's largest organ and is about 64% water. Skin that isn't hydrated properly can get flaky, dry, and itchy. And maybe worst of all - not hydrating your skin properly can lead to wrinkles.
Drink Plenty of Water
When you realize water makes up more than half of your skin, it's a no-brainer that drinking water is extremely important.
Drinking the proper amount of water can help clear clogged pores and help your body regulate the amount of oil your face produces. Hydrated skin also improves the appearance of wrinkles by helping to plump up the skin's appearance.
An increased and healthy intake of water also increases blood flow to the skin, giving you that healthy glow.
Drinking water is also obviously important for the rest of your body, and helps keep your heart healthy and your kidneys functioning properly. The average person should drink about eight glasses of eight ounces per day.
If you sweat a lot, you're more easily dehydrated, and might need to drink more water than average.
DIY Masks
You can find a whole number of easy DIY face masks to kick your skin's hydration up a notch. Flaky and dry skin tends to strike more in the fall and winter seasons, so you can have some face masks in your arsenal to combat the seasonal dryness.
Ingredients like egg whites help to brighten your skin, and coconut oil is an ultimate moisturizer that's cost-effective.
Other natural ingredients that you can use in face masks, like oats, are natural humectants. That means that it allows your skin to retain moisture more effectively - something you're definitely looking for.
Exfoliate
Exfoliation is key in allowing your skin to absorb the moisture that you're applying. Exfoliation helps to remove the dead skin cells on your skin that may be blocking the hydration you're giving it with moisturizing skin care.
Use an exfoliating peel or a face wash with exfoliation in it to break down dead skin build-up. Make sure you're using gentle exfoliation, though, because if you're too harsh, your skin can suffer.
Eat Water-Rich Foods
Besides drinking water, you can get your hydration through the foods that you eat. Most fruits have a high water content and also contain free-radical fighting nutrients, another benefit when looking to care for your skin.
Fans of avocado will praise the hydrating health benefits - it contains healthy fats that boost the moisture in your skin. You can also make it into a hydrating face mask.
Omega-3 fatty acids also help improve the moisturization of your skin by giving your body the nutrients it needs to produce natural oils on the skin. You can take a vitamin supplement, or add more salmon and oily fish to your diet to get Omega-3 that way.
Don't Neglect Your Eyes
The skin around your eyes is the thinnest area on your face, which means that it also loses moisture the most easily. That makes it easier for the skin around your eyes to develop fine lines and a crepey texture.
Add an eye cream into your skincare routine to avoid those concerns. Make sure it's light and gentle. Apply it both in the night and the morning for extra hydrated skin.
Don't Always Shower Hot
Hot showers can actually strip away natural oils that the body uses to keep your skin hydrated, and can leave it feeling tight and dry. If your shower is excessively hot, it can strip away your layer of skin called the stratum corneum that hold fatty compounds.
Switch to more lukewarm water to keep your skin feeling fresher and healthier. If you're used to hot showers, gradually decrease the temperature of your shower so it's not too much of a shock on your shower routine and your skin.
Get a Humidifier
Using the time while you're asleep to hydrate your body is a great strategy. When you're about to go to bed, you can use a deep moisturizing balm that you wouldn't necessarily be comfortable wearing in the day. You can even wear socks to help lock in the moisture and prevent your sheets from getting messy.
But you can also install a humidifier next to your bed that will help keep your skin from drying out, especially in the harsher winter months. The moisture that the dry seasons steal from the air can be replaced when you use a humidifier in your home.
Humidifiers can even help alleviate other symptoms associated with dry skin, like itchy skin, dry nasal passages, allergies, or even dry or cracked lips. You can leave it on overnight and also keep it going in the day to achieve maximum moisture benefits.
Get More Proactive
Even though you can take these steps to make sure your skin is looking fresh and hydrated, with ageing, it's almost impossible to get back the skin hydration you had when you were younger.
Botox injections might sound a little scary to you, but they're actually minimally invasive and extremely popular. You might not even realize that your friend has had Botox, but you wondered how she started looking so good lately.
You can even get a skin hydration treatment called Profhilo that helps boost the collagen of your skin and restore youthful hydration more effectively than any other cream or lotion out there.
Hydrating your skin is extremely important at any age, but giving it an extra boost can take your confidence to the next level.
