Your face is like a book–it tells a story. As a result, a lot of us search for skin care product lines that claim to produce amazing results that never come. So you go back to the land of products and the cycle continues.
- The truth is, it’s hard to find products that work! Considering the number of skin care products available, you would think a large percentage of them would be effective.
- Unfortunately, many products make outrageous claims and most of them cannot produce the results you want to believe. So keep in mind that there are no miracles, short of going under the knife, that can dramatically change your skin overnight. Proper and consistent care is the key to healthy skin.
- The determining factor in knowing whether a particular product/product line is good will always be: how does it make your skin look and feel?
- Determine the product’s effectiveness as a whole as well as what it’s made of. The ingredient list is the first think to look at when analyzing a product. You want an ingredient list you can read and understand. Is it all synthetic (using long chemical names) or are the ingredients identifiable?
- An ingredient list should have some recognizable, everyday words like sunflower seed oil or chamomile extract, etc. Not all complex words mean an ingredient is synthetic (for instance, vitamin E may be listed as tocopheryl acetate), but if the entire list is unrecognizable, it’s a probably synthetic product.
- For example, essential oils are very powerful. These essences contain many chemical constituents that render them active even after they are extracted from their plant sources. Natural-organic essential oils have an inherent medical benefit on the skin’s surface. On the flip side, lab-created inorganic or synthetic essential oils are made in a chemist’s lab with similar molecules and can mimic the real thing.
- A telltale sign of the purity of essential oils is price. For example, essential oil of rose is one of the most expensive essential oils on the market because it takes five tons of rose petals to extract 2.25 pounds of essential oil!
- Unless you know the ins and outs of essential oils and how they are individually priced, you won’t necessarily be able to tell if you’re buying unadulterated oils or not. My point in telling you about the prices is to simply alert you to the fact that pure essential oils aren’t cheap.
- When looking for products, I recommend looking for ingredients that connote real substances with organic matter employed. Your skin is a 9-lb living entity , and will respond to real, organic products over synthetics.
- Look for organic ingredients, or at least predominantly organic in the products you use. If the products you decide to use are entirely organic, it is likely that a preservative base is not used and the products will become unstable, easily contaminated, and inconsistent over time.
Tips:
- Beware of a product that is a moisturizer and a sunscreen and a foundation, or any other combination of actions. The more feats a product claims to carry out, the more inorganic/synthetic ingredients it contains and the more likely it’ll cause skin sensitivities.
- Burning and/or itching is always a cause for concern. Products that are right for your skin will feel good and not cause irritation.
- Department store products require a lot of money for marketing and advertising. Many times what you end up with is expensive, grocery store-quality products with pretty packaging and famous models as spokespeople.
- Find a product/product line that employs essential oils and rely on the manufacturer’s expertise to create a beneficial-organic aromatherapy product.
Until the next blog… feed your skin!
