Back to Basic Skin Solutions

One of the best things you can do to solve skin problems and keep it beautiful is to devote a certain amount of time and attention to your skin each day. If you do nothing else, make these simple care, exercise and nutrition skin solutions part of your daily habits:

Basic skin care routine example:

• Skin cleansing
• Applying toner
• Applying moisturizer

Eat nutritious food

Make sure to include a variety of colorful vegetables and fruits, whole grains (these are optional), proteins like meat and eggs, and good fats like olive oil, butter and coconut oil. This habit is probably the most important habit of all. If you want glowing skin, eat food that is nutritious, fresh, and whole. Do not eat processed foods (foods made with chemicals and preservatives), old food, and trans fats. Avoid sugar and white flour (stuff like bread and pastries) like it’s the plague, which it almost is.

Supplement foods with a multi-vitamin.

No matter how nutritious your food is, it’s wise to take a multi-vitamin because it’s difficult to meet your daily vitamin requirements with just food without getting fat.

Drink enough water

The debate over how much is enough continues. Some experts say you drink 8 to 12 glass a day, other say to drink half your body weight in ounces, and still others say just drink when you are thirsty. We have tried all of the above and they all work, especially because your skin and body will let you know if haven’t been drinking enough water. If you have dark circles under your eyes, if you’re tired, if your skin looks grayish or lacks luster, it’s probably time to increase your water intake.

Get plenty of sleep

Eight hours is the average recommended amount. However, if you’re super active or stressed, you may need a lot more. If you can’t get it at night, try to catch a 20 minute cat nap during the day. Even five minutes will help your skin.

Keep a regular cleansing routine

Probably the best practice is to keep your skin cleaning by washing it each morning and night. However, the most important thing is that it’s clean. Everybody is different. Individuals with dry skin sometimes either don’t cleanse their skin in the morning or skin the night routine (if they don’t wear makeup, etc.)

Use a sunscreen

The debate continues over the perfect sunscreen. All we can tell you for sure is that you need protection from the sun’s rays. There are a lot of products on the market, so you need to study labels. If you’re worried about chemicals, we don’t blame you. We’re following the sunscreen story with bated breath. The safest way to avoid sun spots and sun damage is to physically avoid the sun when it is the most intense, generally that’s between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you can’t avoid it, wear protection like a hat and sunglasses.

Exercise six days a week

Did we get your attention yet? Good. But here’s the thing. We don’t really want you to exercise six days a week (although we did say that). We said that because we know that life has a way of getting between you and the gym. And, we also know that if you shoot for at least 20 to 30 minutes of exercise six days a week, you’ll probably exercise 20 to 60 minutes four or five times a week.

Research products

Most people have a skin problem of some sort, and are using one or more treatment products. Even if you don’t have acne, dry skin, oily skin or occasional breakouts, the hands of time are marching forward for everybody and “anti aging” products are the global response. So here’s the habit: Before you put any product on your skin, do some research. Product manufacturers, big and small, will usually tell you all the proposed benefits of their products.

Product	Benefits
Cleanser	Cleanses the skin from dirt and oil
Toner	Tightens the pores and balances pH
Moisturizer	Moisturizes and softens the skin

However, regular folks will give you the real scoop. Therefore before you buy or use a product, ask, look, and read. Ask your friends, family, and workmates they’ve heard about a product. On the internet, go to skin care forums and look for product reviews and use the web to “search” for it by typing: “name of product” (and )“problem”. Once you begin reading, it’s usually very clear if the reviewer is sincere and honest or is a shill (paid to review a product).