Cold outside, warm and dry inside. It’s a recipe for skin disaster. Keeping your skin in prime condition can be a challenge at any time of the year, but particularly in winter when, not only are conditions more extreme, but your skin is also facing sudden changes in temperature.
Helen Ambrosen, Lush Product Creator & Co-Founder, recommends keeping skin gently stimulated in order to maintain a healthy circulation at this time of the year. “The face has millions of tiny nerve endings, which react to extremes in temperature. By keeping skin stimulated you’ll encourage the elimination of toxins, ensure a healthy turnover of cells and stimulate muscle tone. This will combat the drying effects of cold and central heating. You’ll also find that skin tone improves and you’re less likely to look blue with the cold!”
Here are a few additional tips for winter survival – to help overcome some of the most common skin problems and keep winter ailments at bay.
DRY
Lush moisturisers have been deliberately formulated to not only put much needed moisture into skin, but also have humectant properties to help the skin maintain its water balance. They also make the skin feel comfortable. Emolliency is really important in winter as it helps stop skin losing moisture. The moisturisers contain organic cold pressed vegetable oils as well vegetable butters.
Lush’s Skin’s Shangri La moisturiser (25.50 for 45g) is fantastic in winter, deeply softening and protecting against the elements. Rich, but light in texture, it is a rejuvenating and remineralising cream that leaves the skin feeling soft and plumped up. It has a multitude of cold-pressed, organic, supremely nutritious oils and butters, plus antioxidant wheatgrass and toothed wrack seaweed to protect the skin from free radicals.
Hands can often be left feeling dry and itchy in cooler temperatures. Smitten hand cream (6.10 for 100g) is rich in moisturising and emollient cold pressed organic natural oils, including wheatgerm and avocado, together with almond oil. It’s easily absorbed and soothing, leaving hands deliciously almond scented. And to help keep feet soft, supple and hard skin free, Fair Trade Foot Lotion (7.95 for 225g) is a richly emollient cream with Fairtrade certification for the organic cocoa butter used. This foot cream not only benefits you, but also the farmers being paid a fair wage for their produce.
CHAPPED
For soothing sore, chapped skin wherever it may be on the body, Lush’s Ultrabalm (7.50 for 40g) is our eco-friendly version of Vaseline, without the petroleum jelly but with a super softening, emollient base of rose wax, candelilla wax and jojoba oil instead. Perfect for any skin type, this multi-purpose balm can also be used as a lip balm; to alleviate any dry skin; as a cuticle softener; to shape brows into place; to banish hard skin on heels and elbows; or to soothe windblown noses. Be sure to have one with you at all times for any necessity.
Not forgetting your lips, one of the most delicate and sensitive areas on your body and susceptible to the elements. Sweet Lips lip scrub (4.50 for 25g) is a sugary sweet, chocolate and vanilla scrub that smoothes winter lips, leaving them tasting of Crme Brule but without the calorific intake! Not only does it taste incredible, it’s also a winter must have – containing scrubby Fairtrade sugar to exfoliate away any dry, flakey skin, along with organic jojoba oil to nourish, soften and keep silky smooth. Once you’ve exfoliated lips with Sweet Lips, smother them with some Lip Service (4.75 for 10g). A Fair Trade cocoa butter, shea butter, olive oil and kernel oil infused balm that is softening and healing for cracked lips.
PROBLEM SKIN
Constant changes in temperature can cause the skin to over compensate making an imbalance in the production of sebum, which can then lead to breakouts. According to Helen, “Never use anything that leaves your skin thirsty. If it feels sore or taught after using a product, stop using it. What the skin misses in winter is emolliency to help stop it losing moisture and keep it soft.
Lush’s Ultrabland (5.75 for 45g and 9.25 for 100g) is excellent for all skin types and is a wonderfully gentle deep cleanser that softens and helps keep moisture in.”
Follow cleansing with a facemask… Cupcake (4.95 for 75g), which contains rhassoul mud, is exceptionally deep cleansing, is a powerful antiseptic and also has antimicrobial properties making it ideal for problem skins or breakouts that can occur at any age. Rhassoul clay also absorbs excess sebum lifting off any dry, or scaly skin flakes. Lush has also added glycerine and Fair Trade cocoa butter to soften the skin and help reduce moisture loss.
DULL
Regular exfoliation is the most important step in a beauty routine to keep skin stimulated and working at its peak. It also gives skin a brightening boost as the natural glow of the healthy skin cells can be blocked underneath by the excess dead skin. Helen says, “Make sure your chosen product is a blend of exfoliators but also just as importantly a blend of skin softeners. When you get those two things together that’s when you get the best effect.”
Helen Ambrosen recommends: Ocean Salt (6.10 for 120g or 11.20 for 250g) … a stimulating foaming facial wash with a vigorous polishing action. Formulated with fresh lemon, lime and grapefruit infusion to brighten up skin, along with seaweed and granules of sea salt, which as well as stimulating the skin and removing dead surface cells, also contain minerals that are beneficial to the skin. Fresh avocado moisturises and softens, while violet leaf absolute calms and nurtures. Follow this with The Sacred Truth facemask (4.95 for 75g)… your ticket to a revived, vibrant complexion! The vital antioxidant action of wheatgrass, ginseng and green tea, cleansing clays and nutritious butters, all combine to defend the skin. Papaya will cleanse and refresh and you’ll look visibly radiant. This mask delivers live, fresh, active ingredients, which enhance and revive the complexion.
WEARY & TIRED
Have a soak with one of Lush’s Avobath Bath Ballistics (2.90 each)… a moisture treat containing olive oil and fresh avocados rich in unsaturated oils, to hydrate, nourish and soften the skin. Olive oil is a refined vegetable oil, containing anti-oxidents, so extremely good for the skin. The Lemongrass oil is stimulating and energising – ideal when you’re flagging and in need of a recharge.
Then smother yourself in Sympathy for the Skin (9.70 for 240g pot), a soothing, calming, richly moisturising body treatment for when winter has done you in. Contains vitamin-rich, emollient bananas, calming vanilla and two of Lush’s most widely used skin softeners – almond oil and cocoa butter. The calming and soothing benefits are enhanced by the blend of labdanam, sandalwood and lemon oil.
NEED A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA?
Skin toners are effective and designed to make your skin feel smooth and flexible, but they also remove leftover cleanser and deliver essential oils to your skin’s surface, according to your needs. Lush toners are alcohol-free and made with essential oil waters as an extra way to make your skin feel and look better.
Sitting indoors by the fire and heaters may keep us warm in the depths of winter, but it dehydrates our skin in the process. A Breath of Fresh Air (3.25 for 100g / 6.35 for 250g) is made of nutritious gifts from the sea. Sea water is revitalising and beautiful for dry, tired skin and Irish moss seaweed gives skin back the moisture it needs.
Source:cosmeticnewsportal.com