Natural Skin Care Blog

The water in your shower can make you look older. You may want to rethink that hot shower you’ve grown to enjoy. The basic problem is that the chlorine which makes your water safe to drink, is corrosive. It irritates delicate body tissues like your lungs and your skin.

Unfortunately, the heat releases the chlorine so not only does it float into your nose, it has an oxidizing effect on your skin. The heat and moisture make your pores more able to absorb substances — chlorine, in this case.

The longer you stay under that steaming stream, the greater the damage.

Get those teenagers out of the shower? A good idea – but they will be hard to convince because the damage being done won’t usually show up for several years.

It is, however, one of the factors that scientists say is aging their skin more rapidly than young skin aged in the past.

The damage comes from both the water and the steam which produce compounds that attack surface cells, stripping them of protective oils. Repeated exposure increases the rate of damage.

And don’t think that slathering on oils or lotions after your shower — even immediately after — will reverse the drying effect already created. Alas, your shower has added a bit more “age” to your skin.

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Whatever it is you do — bottom line is: hot, burning feet at the end of a long day.

You stand behind a counter serving demanding customers …

You rush from kitchen to table, serving hungry patrons…

You run errands through endless corridors, in and out of offices…

You patrol a school, a neighborhood…

You lead hiking parties…

You chase little ones around the house, the yard, the playground

Those new shoes look real cool, but … oooof!

Don’t have time for a long foot soak? (Feels great but leaves your skin dried out and kinda wrinkly.)

Here’s a quick tip to perk you up.

It’s just what your skin cells need — hydration.

Tap water does not provide the hydration necessary for healthy skin. Too many minerals and undesirable chemical residue.

To hydrate fully, water must be treated to remove all of the above. This is done by oxidation and electrolysis, a process that purifies water and re-arranges the molecules in such a way that they can penetrate deeply into the layers of your skin.

(How? We’ll have to ask the chemists, I guess.)

A quick spray with a specially formulated hydrating mist cools instantly — and more.

Here’s a short list of what it can do for your suffering feet:

Refresh by cooling

Reduce inflammation

Destroy/prevent odors by its anti-bacterial action

Prevent infection where skin is broken, rubbed off (those new shoes, maybe?)

Heal damaged skin

Reduce rashes, athlete’s foot and other yucky stuff that thrives on hot feet

There. Now don’t those feet feel better?

For a final soothing touch, give a quick spray and follow with your favorite moisturizer or hand cream.

Ahhh… Goodbye to hot, burning feet. For now.

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Exfoliation sounds like something to do with leaves. And it does, but that’s not what we’re interested in right now. Our question is: What does it have to do with your face?

“Exfoliation” – one of those big words intended to impress us ordinary human beings. A sort of insider’s jargon to make us think they know something we don’t know.

Well, let’s blow their cover.

There are some ordinary little words that say the very same thing – and wouldn’t scare anybody.

Exfoliation simply means to clean away the outer layer of cells from the surface of your skin. These no longer have a purpose because they are dead cells.

If you don’t remove them, they just sit there plugging up pores and encouraging wrinkles. Also, as semi-permanent debris, these useless ex-cells (I made that up because I need a word for them) attract bacteria.

As you know, bacteria just loves stuff that’s been sitting around too long – like that week-old pizza slice in the back of your refrigerator.

So you see, it’s important to remove accumulated “junk” from your face.

Wait! Wait! Put down that scrub brush… Not a good way to remove dead cells.

Gently. Works far better – and is far safer. The rough stuff causes microscopic tears in your skin. And here come those bacteria, inviting themselves in.

The people who know cells suggest using a botanical mask on a daily basis. A specially formulated light gel mask can do this in about 7 minutes. Rinses right off.

There. You have done your exfoliation for today and your face is clean and soft, ready for any final touches. Now, go face your world with confidence.

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Yes, I’ve seen them, too … the ads that claim you can get rid of blackheads in 72 hours or even minutes.

There are products that offer to scrub them off, burn them away with chemical mixtures — even dig them out of your pores.

There is a basic flaw here. These remedies, in addition to being extremely harsh, are all external applications.

The reason this approach is flawed is that the blackhead you see on the surface of your face didn’t just land there and start clogging your pores.

Cell biologists know cells like nobody else. They study how cells grow and how problems develop. What have they found out?

Here is a scenario for the development of a blackhead.

A bacterium gets into an oil gland. It soon becomes a horde of bacteria, then an infection.

The infected waste is pushed up through the cell to the skin surface.

Upon reaching your face, this material is exposed to air.

Free radicals in the air get to work (the same way they do on a cut apple).

This is oxidation. The exposed material turns darker and becomes visible.

You see a new blackhead.

When you remove the dark top by scrubbing or chemically destroying it, you don’t see the blackhead anymore. You could say you got rid of it, in a way.

You got rid of the part of the blackhead you could see –

What you can’t see is that the problem is still there, working its way up from below.

Your blackheads have not gone away.

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“Axle grease! On my face?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it… What an idea!”

Not so fast… Didn’t your grandmother (maybe your mother?) say you didn’t need any of those expensive creams and lotions to care for your skin? Nothing, they said, works better than petroleum jelly.

Now, don’t be too hard on them. They didn’t have much to choose from. Many of the so-called beauty products of their day were simply nice-smelling “goop in a jar.”

And because in those days other “beauty products” sometimes contained suspect chemicals, Great Aunt Maude was much better off using her petroleum jelly.

But you don’t have that excuse. You can select from an endless array of skin care products produced under strict regulations designed to ensure that your choice is safe to use.

Not necessarily effective, but certainly safe.

Why did I say “axle grease”?

Because petroleum jelly is the “white grease” taken off early in the refining of petroleum. After that, the rest goes on to fuel your vehicles and lubricate their moving parts.

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Senior citizens always have skin that looks like a map from the automobile club. Or so anyone who hasn’t yet been invited to join AARP seems to think.

Deep wrinkles in the cheeks

Sagging skin

Age spots

Dry, crinkly-looking surface

Drab, drab, drab

Far too many people display these unattractive features as they add years.

Does that mean these are inevitable? That there is no way to avoid them? Or at least minimize them?

I’m glad you asked those question (you were going to ask, weren’t you?)–

Short answer?

It’s the shortest possible answer, actually: No.

No to all three parts to that question. (Or all three questions, if you prefer.)

Perhaps when we stop expecting to look like that, we’ll start to take effective measures to repair past damage. Then move on to positive steps to prevent future problems.

The present and future condition of your skin is largely under your control. Accept the wear and tear of gravity, the blueprint your ancestors passed along in your DNA and get started on the many ways you can improve your appearance. (And, no, you will never again have skin like a twenty-something.) You’ll be surprised at how much you can do.

Here are a three simple suggestions to start you off:

Remove dead surface cells gently and completely. (You can learn specific techniques for doing this yourself.)

Protect your face 24/7 from further environmental damage with a surface shielding product suitable for your skin type. Not just AnyOldCream.

And the third?

Healthy skin is beautiful skin.

Beautiful skin grows – from the inside out – it is not applied to the surface. Take a hard look at your eating habits…

Healthy “Senior Citizen” skin can be beautiful, too.

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