SkinCare Mythbusters - True or False

Hey Lovelies, I got chatting to a client about advanced skin care today at work and it dawned on me that actually magazines, TV programmes and other marketing all print stuff about beauty and skincare that we instantly take for gospel, even GPs don't know true skin care - so here are my top myth busters of skin care, some or all of them you may already know but if not here are some real truths about skin and how to look after it.

You don't need to wear an SPF in the winter?

FALSE: No matter where you live in the world you should wear a minimum of Sun Protection Factor (spf) 30 in the summer months and a minimum of 15 in the winter months. Even if its bouncing down with rain or dull and cloudy UV rays still penetrate the atmosphere and still cause skin damage. The worst time to not wear an SPF is when it snows as the white snow reflects sunlight even more, causing the rays to bounce from the floor up to your skin back up to the sky causing even more damaging effects on the skin. Whether it's in your make up, moisturiser or a topical spf put it on EVERY DAY! You'll be thankful for that extra time in the morning when your a pensioner and have the skin of a 40 year old. Sun damage is the biggest cause of premature aging within the skin. So what's the best anti aging cream you can buy? An SPF!!

I have oily skin I can't moisturise?

FALSE: I made this mistake for many years. I have such oily skin, and I'm not talking I have to blot once a day oily, I'm talking within an hour/two hours I have to practically re-apply my whole make up. That is until I changed my skin care. The worst thing to do is deprive your oily skin of moisture you just have to make sure it's the right kind. Your skin is lacking water not oil. If you put water and oil into a bowl they separate and the oil floats on top. Same for your skin if you have excess oil it pushes the natural water away. Look for HYDRATING moisturisers and go for lotions rather than creams or an oily formula as these are light weight. Hydrating means water based rather than oil based. Give it time....I'd say anything from 2 weeks to a month. Use the product sparingly and I guarantee you'll see a difference. Don't get me wrong I'm still oily but it takes a lot longer for it to show through make up, my skin is in better condition and my make up goes on better.

There's a reason to have a separate day and night cream?

TRUE: No this isn't a marketing ploy from skin care companies to get you to buy more, there is a genuine reason for separate day and night creams. In the day we need a product that is going to protect us from pollution and the elements, provide spf, maybe be an antioxidant and provide moisture. In simple terms you need a product that is going to be active and fighting, but when we sleep our skin heals itself, provides new cells, new collagen and works within calm waves. You need a night cream that is going to aid healing and work gently within the skins natural rhythm at night.

If my skins dehydrated I need to drink more water?

TRUE AND FALSE: So this phrase gets said to me every single day and I repeat myself every single day. So yes if you drink water your skin will become more hydrated BUT what people don't understand is exactly how much water you have to drink for this to happen. When you drink water all your vital organs take it first, yes it will reach the skin but by the time it reaches the surface of the skin there's not much water left, therefore you wont notice a massive difference on the surface of your skin. To combat dehydration you need good hydrating products such as moisturisers or masks and a combination of drinking water too. To see a difference in skin you need a consistent 2-3 litres a day of the clear stuff.

Cleanse, Tone and Moisturise are the most importantly things in skincare?

FALSE: It has been drilled into us for years to cleanse, tone, moisturise and so people do this religiously without thinking about what they are doing. Yes cleanse to get rid of any make up, pollution and oil from the skin to create a clean surface. Yes tone as this gets rid of any trace of cleanser and allows better penetration of products. Yes moisturise as this keeps the skin feeling soft......What are you missing??? TWO key steps to a routine, which without these there's almost no point in toning and moisturising. They are Exfoliating and Serums.
Once you have cleansed your skin use an exfoliator to gently buff away dead skin cells and excess product revealing healthy skin underneath. Dry skins with no exfoliation have a build up of dead skin meaning when you moisturise you're actually moisturising dead old skin instead of the healthy skin underneath. A bit of a waste of product. When a client with dry skin asks me to change their moisturiser as its not working I always ask them to either start or up their exfoliation first, 9 times out of 10 that's the solution. Oily skins create a glue on the surface of the skin trapping dead skin, old oil and make up onto the skins surface this makes the skin look dull along with the risk of creating blemishes and blackheads. No matter what your skin type exfoliate once to twice a week NO MORE! Any more and you sensitize the skin. Do it at opposite ends of the week like Thursday and Sunday for perfectly fresh, clean and healthy skin.
Next use a Serum. Moisturisers only target the top layers of skin while serums work on the lower layers of the skin. They do this by being a smaller molecular size (the size of the ingredients are smaller so they can penetrate through the skin layers better) Our skin renews every 4 weeks (28 days), so what's at the top of your skin was at the bottom 4 weeks earlier. If we target the bottom layers we treat how it rises, so we want anti aging, healthier collagen, more elasticity, more hydration. Treat the skin before it comes to the surface.


I hope you learnt a little something or you finally understand why you are told to do certain things. I have much more information like this if you want to know more. Or if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments below and I shall answer them in my next Mythbusters blog.

Enjoy having amazing, healthy skin

Night night

Lizzie =)