Subscribe to our feedfalling for you
Have you been good to your skin this summer? Hope so. As the days get shorter and Autumn approaches, let’s take inventory.
Summer means sun, and we all know the drill. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve avoided the peak rays and also protected your skin with SPF every day, even if you work in an office 40 + hours a week. So, perhaps as the seasons shift, you’re thinking it’s time to moisturize more—but wait.
As I look around, I see lots of skin; it’s warm in L.A., as it usually is, so people wear tank-tops year-round. And I do think that lots of people get the message about faithfully sunblocking. But here’s the thing: sunblock is tenacious stuff.
If you’re a surfer, out in the churning waves under a blazing sun for several hours at a stretch (lucky you)—this formulaic tenacity is a good thing. But this stick-to-it-ive-ness also means that sunblock stays with your skin here on terra firma. Perhaps longer than you realize. And this may cause problems.
This is why, at summer’s end, I see lots of breakouts, and lots of milia, which are tiny inclusions under the skin. They look and feel like grains of sugar, just beneath the surface. Yet, the skin may also feel and look dehydrated. The worst of both worlds.
It’s all because lots of us aren’t thoroughly removing our waterproof sunblock. It’s sticky stuff. A quick rinse in the shower won’t get it off. Waterproof sunblock functions almost like a wetsuit, and won’t let your moisturizer in! It also traps and seals in natural excretions beneath its rubbery, impermeable surface, as (yikes) any surfer will tell you.
Before you look to moisturizing as your next step, I recommend a consultation with your skin therapist and a professional exfoliation—meaning that a pro examines your skin, takes your skin’s history, and gives you a customized treatment that you cannot give yourself. If this isn’t possible, exfoiiate on your own, but please don’t go overboard. No DIY home microdermabrasion kits, please, or rough, tough apricot-pit scrubs (scrubs made with pulverized seeds and pits actually contain sharp, pointed fragments which create tiny scratches, and inflame the skin).
Choose a gentle exfoliant—perhaps start with Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant, which lightly polishes away residue with rice bran and rice enzymes. Another Dermalogica favorite worldwide is Skin Prep Scrub, which scrubs a bit more deeply with the naturally rounded particles of corncob meal (no jagged edges). I also recommend that you use Dermalogica PreCleanse at the end of every day, especially when you’ve been using sunblock, which should be every day. The PreCleanse melts away whatever cosmetics you’ve applied to your skin, so your exfoliant won’t have to work so hard. And you won’t be tempted to get in there so aggressively, as though you were sanding down an old end-table.
THEN select the moisturizer which suits your skin condition—you see, if there’s a barrier of waterproof SPF, the moisturizer can’t get down to your skin to do its work properly.