Skin regulates body temperature, insulating against both heat and cold in order to keep it within a relatively stable range. When skin is intact, it prevents invasion by pathogenic micro-organisms and external pollutants from water and air.

Your skin is your body’s main contact with the outside world, reporting to your brain the constantly-changing situations through which your body is moving. It transfers information about pain, temperature, textures and smells.

Your body needs protection against the damaging rays of the sun. Your skin does its best. In the process, it may suffer serious damage itself — sunburn and skin cancers. The first is damage from an external source; the second is a malfunction of the cells themselves which often develop from previously damaged cells.

As a living organ, your skin will not stay the same day in and day out, year after year. It will respond to external changes as well as your internal health. Expect to adjust your skin care program to best aid your skin as it guards the rest of you from your hostile environment.

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.

“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.

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.

Skin is a living organ, as important as your heart, lungs, digestive system. It, too, needs proper care to keep it in tip-top shape.

Nobody, except maybe your doctor, is going to admire your lungs.

The whole world sees your face.

Isn’t that a good reason for making sure your world sees the best you possible?

So, how do you care for your complexion?

How do you get beautiful skin – soft, supple and radiant?

Learn to understand what your skin needs and how to give it gentle natural care, the kind of care nature intended.

Your efforts will be rewarded by an improved appearance, a better-looking you.

Beautiful skin can be yours for life, no matter how many years go by.

Healthy, radiant skin may start as a gift from your ancestors through your DNA. After that, it’s up to you.

The sooner you take control, the sooner you see results from your efforts.

(Sorry, this won’t happen overnight.) Nurture your skin. Protect it — especially against environmental damage.

These short messages are to give you some guidance, to help you through the maze of information available. (And — yikes! — is there ever some weird stuff out there…)

Bookmark this page for easy return. You don’t want to miss the information about complexion care that could be most important to you…

It’s a distressing skin ailment. You hate it. You’ve tried “everything”. It seems to go away for a while, then it comes back.

Cheer up! There is something you can do – several things, in fact.

Start here: toss out most of what you’ve been told about how acne occurs.

Forget Today’s Miracle Product– you know, the one you must rush to buy… right now. “Hurry! Our Special Introductory Offer ends soon.”

Your skin is paying no attention to the pronouncements of the beauty industry’s gorgeous spokesmodels or the razzle-dazzle of their highly-paid marketing teams.

Unfortunately, there is no One Cause for acne — which means there’s no one way to clear your skin of this nuisance. A tendency toward skin problems may be written into your DNA, your genetic code.

Is it likely you can really “Get rid of acne in three days” as the ads suggest?

The solution to the adult acne problem is in your cells and skin cells don’t work that fast.

The condition of your pores is controlled in part by your DNA and your age. No one can change these for you. This represents at the most 20% of the pore size problem.

The rest is due to the way you live and how you look after your skin. You can find both people and products to help you but the choices are yours. You are free to attack your face with too much scrubbing, chemical burns, or simply too much of the wrong kind of make-up.

Everybody seems to be looking for some one or some thing to get rid of the problem for them. They really don’t want to have to work at it themselves.

But they are your pores and you are responsible for their condition. You can do something to improve pore appearance if your are willing to take a few easy steps, recommended by cell biologists — the people who study pores and how they work.

The researchers advise against any harsh treatment. Their work has shown conclusively that popular solutions like microdermabrasion (basically scraping off a layer of cells) or scrubbing with gritty pads and grains are far too harsh and lead to future problems.

Those large pores may be annoying now … Do you really want to make them worse?

Complexion improvement in two words? Cell renewal.

New healthy cells create the only lasting change possible. The renewal process goes at its own, maddeningly slow, natural pace. It takes several weeks for the normal growth cycle to bring new cells to the surface of your face.

Is it worth waiting for? (You are the only one who can answer that question.)

What happens when you attempt to speed things up through chemical or mechanical means? Cell shock, that’s what. You shock the developing cells — with potentially damaging results.

Prolonged use of unnatural methods (chemical and mechanical) can cause serious, sometimes permanent, cellular trauma.

When cell “memory” is destroyed by repeated attacks (such as rough treatment and/or chemical damage), cells eventually lose their ability to renew themselves.

They’ve lost their instructions and no longer develop in the way nature intended.

Once lost, this ability cannot be restored.

Of course you want to improve your complexion. Just be careful how you do it. Natural skin care has been proven to be the safest and longest-lasting way.

(This is the point where I should put in a little lecture about how you have just as much time as… and some remarks about getting your priorities in order — but let’s skip it. OK?)

We’ve all been there — the killer schedule, the unexpected added demands popping up, making you frantic…

Your stress level is headed for the stratosphere…

You grab a superquickgreasy and wolf it down on the run..

And there comes your Aunt Maude and you just know she’s going to ask you to…

Aaaaaaarg!

What’s all this got to do with your skin?

Well, you see, all of the above create more junk for your skin cells to deal with.

It’s their job to get rid of it. They get no time off and there is only so much they can do, depending on the conditions they must work under. (Just like you, right?)

Even the simplest skin care routine helps them get the job done.

Now you’re so busy you’re giving them less help exactly when they need more.

Here’s how it works: the softer the surface skin is, the more flexible the cells are and the more efficiently they can shove out the unwanted material.

A good skin care system keeps your skin flexible.

There’s a bonus, though. (Don’t you just love bonuses?)

You look better. So take a few of your precious minutes to look after your face.

Both your health and your appearance benefit from keeping your skin soft.

Hold on a minute, my friend. Of course you don’t intend to hurt your face. The difficulty is that the results from your cleaning methods may not show up for weeks – maybe longer.

By the time you notice that something isn’t quite right, the damage messages in the cells are already set.

A cross section of skin looks a bit like a layer cake. New cells start at the bottom and grow up until they reach the surface. On this journey, your cells are constantly communicating their little cell messages through their RNA. (If you want in-depth information on this fascinating process, go find a cell biologist and get all your questions answered.)

When surface cells are attacked in any way – harsh soap, dust particles, sun burn…whatever – their RNA may be hurt to some degree. They pass this information on to the cells next in line. These, in turn, adapt to the nature of the damage, so they rise to the surface as damaged cells. The injury suffered by the older cells is replicated in the new ones.

After the damage message is sent, your body starts cellular damage control. Suppose you were trying to dry out acne on your face. The counter-measure below the surface is to produce more oil to reduce the tightness, in an attempt to keep the skin flexible enough for it’s crucial job of pushing waste out from inside you.

The best way for you to get your face clean without injuring it depends on your skin type and the present condition of your face. One size does not fit all when it comes to facial cleansing.