As summer approaches, keeping your look as fresh and healthy is always key. Due to the brutal summer heat, and constant sweating, it is important to take care of your skin during this time.
The Essentials for Fresh Skin
The opening of oily glands from the high temperature can contribute to clogged pores and breakouts. Personally, the summertime can be the worst time for my skin. I’ve learned the 3 most important tips and tricks in the past years that have helped me maintain a clear face and a beautiful glow.
1. Avoid Make-Up
Make-up is not always needed. As someone who used to wear make-up on a daily basis, I can say that it made my skin worse making me feel as if I needed to wear make-up consistently to cover my acne. It was a vicious cycle of breaking out and trying to cover it up. Pores are already highly susceptible to getting clogged in the summer due to the heat, adding make-up to this doesn’t make a good equation for skin.
However, it took some time to gain confidence to not reach for the concealer and foundation. If you’re like me, taking baby steps is great in this case. Wearing make-up less and less to events such as grocery shopping, hanging out with friends, and especially going to the pool, can improve your skin significantly.
2. Drink Water
It’s the #1 health rule. Drink water! I can’t stress this enough, keeping yourself hydrated will provide some of the best benefits for your face, and even the rest of your skin. Drinking water has been shown to prevent dry skin (which is extremely common in the summer), help fight against breakouts by keeping you hydrated, and help skin avoid wrinkling from the sun. Although it can not prevent sunburns, drinking water in the summer can certainly help in getting rid of sunburns after they have happened.
Plus, who doesn’t love water? Winter, spring, summer, or fall, water is great for your body and necessary for proper skin health.
3. Use Good Sunscreen
As an early teen, I stopped using sunscreen because I thought I wouldn’t get a good tan if I wore it. However, contrary to that belief, one can still get that gorgeous bronze look without putting yourself at risk for skin cancer.
Besides preventing harmful diseases, sunscreen has a lower scale of benefits. Just like drinking water, sunscreen can help reduce wrinkling from the sun. It can also help avert facial brown spots and discolorations in the skin.
When using sunscreen, use the proper type for your skin. Oil-free sunblock is good for your face so that it won’t cause breakouts. It is also advised that SPF 30 and up are the most protective of your skin.
Dealing with Sunburns
If you’ve reached the sunburn stage of the summer, don’t worry. There are some amazing natural remedies for fixing it. Here are the top 3 that have helped me the most in these situations.
1. Aloe Vera
Aloe Vera is great for soothing and moisturizing skin that has encountered the harsh ways of the sun. Using the aloe Vera plant itself can help moisturize for peeling skin. However, there are many products specifically for sunburns that contain aloe Vera, along with other ingredients. These products are considerable since some are made with things such as lidocaine, an anesthetic that helps alleviate pain caused by the burn.
2. Apple Cider Vinegar
Vinegar has shown to help relieve a sunburn overnight. It’s my favorite remedy to reduce the redness. Many sources say apple cider vinegar is the best however, if you have regular vinegar now, that’ll work also. Vinegar should be slightly diluted before application to the skin to avoid a burning sensation. I typically do this at night before showering since the smell isn’t always so pleasant.
3. Hydrocortisone Cream
Although hydrocortisone cream is not as natural as an aloe Vera plant or vinegar, it still has amazing results. Hydrocortisone cream can help reduce itchiness, pain, and swelling. It is also helpful in reducing redness that comes from a sunburn. It’s definitely been useful in making me look less like a tomato and more like a glowing and tan model.
Even though there is so much more to skincare, these tips and tricks are some of the best to keeping your skin looking flawless and helping against summer sunburns!