us cause inflammation. When it comes to skin aging, the damage may not show up when you’re young, but the calamity for skin is certain if you keep eating an unhealthy diet—in the long run your skin will pay for it. On the other hand, a diet rich in antioxidants, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, whole grains, and many other healthy food groups, can be anti-aging and anti-acne. Without question your skin, heart, and your entire body will thank you for it.
Sunscreen. By the end of this book you will surely be tired of hearing this, but nothing is as vital as sun protection. Despite the abundant research showing how damaging unprotected sun exposure is and how tanning causes irreparable harm to skin, less than 20% of the population wears sunscreen on a regular basis (which just causes our jaws to hit the floor). That’s why we keep repeating this: Sunscreen is a cornerstone of getting the best skin of your life now and forever!
Chapter 3
Skin Type vs. Skin Concern
One of the more confusing aspects of developing an effective skincare routine is finding products that work for your skin type and that also address your skin concerns. It’s important to understand exactly what you should be using for each (skin type and skin concern) and why. Here’s how it works.
Skin type is the primary feel of your skin: how dry, oily, combination (meaning oily in some areas dry in others), or normal it is (normal meaning neither oily nor combination nor dry, just normal). Some people would add sensitive skin as a skin type, but because the research shows that skin is reactive to the environment and to everything we apply to it, whether we feel it or not, everyone truly has sensitive skin and must treat it as such.
Once you’ve determined what your skin type is and you know whether it’s normal, dry, oily, or combination, you can then determine what type of products you will need for your core skincare routine. You must look for products that are identified as being appropriate for your skin type. Products for the core routine include cleansers, toners, exfoliants, moisturizers, and sunscreens. These products, with textures appropriate for your skin type, will meet the basic needs of your skin every day of your life. Creamy, rich-textured products will be best for dry skin, lotions for normal skin, and gels and watery serums or liquids for oily/combination skin.
Next, identify your skin concerns so you can add the appropriate treatment products to address those needs. The most typical skin concerns are wrinkles, loss of firmness, brown spots, red spots, sun damage, advanced sun damage, blackheads, acne, occasional breakouts, rough skin, patches of flaky skin, redness, rosacea, keratosis pilaris, and sebaceous hyperplasia.
Because you will use your treatment products in conjunction with your core skincare routine, the textures of the treatment products should generally be lighter weight so as to not feel heavy on skin. They can be absorbent serums, liquids, light lotions, or fluids.
Once you’ve determined your skin type along with your skin concerns, you can begin assessing what types of products and formulas you can combine to get the best results.
Not every skin concern will need a separate treatment product because many treatment products can address more than one concern, and sometimes your core skincare routine is just right to achieve unbelievable results. But, the more concerns you have or the more stubborn they are, it can take multiple products to get your skin concerns under control. This is especially true if you’re dealing with multiple concerns, such as breakouts, wrinkles, advanced sun damage, and skin discolorations.
To sum up: If you have oily/combination skin, you should be using products with a liquid, gel, lightweight serum or thin, matte-finish lotion texture. If you have dry skin, you should be using rich emollient creams and lotions. If you have normal skin, the product textures you should be looking for are soft-feeling lightweight lotions.
Keeping these factors in mind, use them as your guideline to assemble a skincare routine that addresses your skin’s everyday needs. Your skin type is the basis for a routine that should include a cleanser, toner, AHA (alpha hydroxy acid) or BHA (beta hydroxy acid) exfoliant, daytime moisturizer with sunscreen, and a moisturizer without sunscreen for use at night.
Now that you have your basic routine, it’s time to identify your skin concerns and determine what additional targeted treatment products, if any, are necessary. For example, in some cases, a concern (such as clogged pores) might be handled beautifully by one of the products in your basic skincare routine, such as a BHA exfoliant. However, if you also have brown spots, you’ll want to add a skin-lightening treatment to your regular routine to address the discolorations in a more targeted manner than merely using an AHA or BHA exfoliant.
What Every Skin Type Needs
We touched on this topic in Chapter 2, Skincare Facts Everyone Needs to Know, but now we’ll expand a bit on the critical types of ingredients that all skin types need. These substances occur naturally in skin, but due to sun damage, age, skin disorders such as acne or rosacea, and other issues, they gradually become depleted and eventually skin stops producing them. Providing these integral substances to your skin daily can make all the difference in the long-term health and appearance of your skin. Of course, to keep these vital ingredients protected sunscreen is equally important, just in a different way. (We talk at length about the need for sunscreen in Chapter 6, Sun Damage and Sunscreen Questions Answered.)
Antioxidants are a group of natural and synthetic ingredients that reduce free-radical damage and environmental damage. Why is this important? Antioxidants can prevent some of the degenerative effects in skin caused by sun exposure, and can reduce inflammation within skin. [13,14] Inflammation is deadly for skin because it causes the destruction of collagen and elastin, prevents the skin from healing, and thins the layers of skin. [5,6,15] Anything you can do to reduce inflammation is incredibly beneficial, and antioxidants are definitely one group of ingredients that are fundamental for doing that.
The best moisturizers (lotions for normal skin, creams for dry skin, and gels and liquids for oily/combination skin) are formulated with a potent blend of antioxidants that help your skin reduce inflammation and act younger. It’s also critical for these antioxidants to be housed in packaging that will ensure they remain effective, which means they should not be packaged in a jar or in clear packaging because antioxidants break down in the presence of light and air. [5,6,15]
Skin-identical and skin-repairing ingredients are substances between skin cells that keep those cells connected (think of mortar between bricks) to help maintain skin’s barrier. A healthy, intact barrier allows skin to look smooth, soft, and radiant. It also allows skin to repair itself, which is critical for healing breakouts and red marks and preventing environmental damage. There are many skin-identical ingredients, including such well-known substances as hyaluronic acid, sodium hyaluronate, glycerin, and ceramides. [16,17]
Cell-communicating ingredients are any ingredients that can tell skin cells or other types of cells in skin to behave in a more healthy manner by producing “younger” cells. Over the years, because of sun damage, acne, age, and hormone fluctuations, skin cells and genes involved in cellular formation and repair become permanently damaged. The result is that the new cells being produced are now irregular, mutated, rough, defective, and older-acting cells, whereas before the damage they were healthy cells. [5,6]
Cell-communicating ingredients are substances that “communicate” with these defective cells, helping reverse the damage by helping the skin to produce healthier, younger cells. [5,6] In effect, the defective cells receive a message to stop making bad cells and start making better ones! It is an exciting area of skincare! The key players in this group are niacinamide, retinol, synthetic peptides, lecithin, and adenosine triphosphate. [5,14,18,19,20]
Skin Type Determines Formula
We know we’re being
