Our skin is not only classified into its types and conditions. It naturally reacts whenever contacts in certain circumstances. I split the list into two parts to be a little deeper. Here are the first seven that takes place within our body:
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7 Internal Reasons Why We Have Different Skin
- Sebum. Its production may come from one’s diet, weather changes, or from the parents’ legacy. Sebum is needed to ensure skin elasticity. However, the amount of it should be controlled to avoid any skin troubles, like breakouts.
- Genetic Inheritance. If you are having troubled skin, you can blame it on your parents. Asking parents when their acne stop when they were teenagers may help to give a piece of information about when you will get back clear skin again. Well, the hope is there, at least. If you are with clear skin, I bet you must be taking it for granted. My humble suggestion: please don’t take it for granted.
- Melanin. The portion of melanin one has highly decided by the biological parents. The higher portion of the melanin is, the darker skin it will be. Darker skin or high melanin-contained skin increases its durability toward the heat. Ever wonder why our black friends may feel just slightly warm when our white friends may feel very hot in summer? Try to touch their skins, you will know why! The darker skins absorb heat perfectly.
- Heat Retention. Mostly from the amount of Melanin in melanocytes, i.e. cells that are located in the bottom layer ‘Stratum Basale’ of the skin’s epidermis, or the outer layer of skin that is visible. Yet in some unique cases, some skins may have a higher ability to hold the Sun’s heat, although its melanin amount is lower. It is due to its sun tanning habit, for example.
- Body Water. The higher amount of water contained within the skin cells, the healthier the skin is. It is simply because the skin cells are made up of water. The capability of our skin to hold its moisture is defined by the amount of existing humectant in the skin cells. Therefore, drink plenty of water during the daytime helps skin to pack itself with a humectant, to keep itself moist.
- Age Number. I agree that ‘age’ is just a numerical point. But, this number also holds a status to our skin conditions. Most skin damages due to aging. Aging brings every cell to slow down its rhythm. Imagine the rusty iron. On the skin, this ‘rusty’ look will be similar to sagging, looser, rougher, and duller skin condition. Enlarged pores, dark or brown spots, fine lines and wrinkles will also join the party when you are adding age!
- Hormone. Sometimes it is not about adding the age that may cause the skin to change its type and/or condition. Most of the time, it is simply our hormonal imbalance. During pregnancy, I was happy to have a ‘baby glow’ where my skin and hair looked extremely healthier, glowing, and fuller. While, during breastfeeding, my skin and hair were exhaustedly drowned. The same goes for teenagers with their breakouts period. Blame it on the hormone.
Although those seven points above have been set and code-locked internally inside our internal body system, we can always do some precaution towards a better skin treatment to keep all those settings run like clockwork devices. Therefore, most of the skin problems that come from these settings combination, it needs a little more hard work to reset themselves to have a ‘normal’ skin type and ‘balanced’ skin condition.
Worry not, before I offer you a solution, let’s dive in a little deeper to get to know the ‘outermost settings’. They are:
5 External Reasons Why We Have Different Skin
We are living under our skin. Therefore, understanding our skin’s need is part of our living tasks, -either we like it or not. After getting to know our skin from the inside settings, it is time to understand our skin outside-in. In the hope, knowing how amazing the skin works daily, each of us will appreciate our skin a lot more. Our skin is an organ harbouring several types of immune cells. Therefore, the will to take good care of our external layer will also increase.
- Weather. Living in a four seasons country like in Korea where summer is offered with the heat-wave and winter with the cold-wave, it suffers the skin even more. Weather changes slow down the skin to glow healthily because the skin is busy adapting itself to another weather change to be able to survive.
- Pollution. Just like us, skin also needs to breathe! Therefore, the level of micro-dust in the air will express skin surface happiness. Avoid direct contact with the skin with air pollution from cars and cigarettes, whenever possible.
- UV Light. Exposing skin to the Sun’s damaging light like UV-A and UV-B on regular basis may surely break the skin cells into pieces. Premature aging and over-drying skin may follow after. Limit sun exposure by wearing an umbrella, hat, sunglasses, and apply toxic-free sunscreen may help prevent the skin from UV light damaging effects. Especially on delicate baby skins.
- Blue Light HEV. Unlike UV light that is invisible to the eye and only happens highly during the daytime, this HEV or ‘high-energy visible’ light is repetitively exposed to the skin day and night. Every time we are in contact with any digital screens, like phone, TV, laptop. Every time we hold any electronic devices; every time we go under the Sun as the Sun also carries some HEV; every time we enjoy the nightlife as signboards are lighted by either LED or fluorescent lights. Often, this blue light is one of the main causes to disrupt the normal sleeping cycle, it causes the skin to have stress. Once the skin is stressed, it will make it harder for the skin problems to heal.
- Bacteria Amount. The number of bacteria on the skin is mostly related to weather changes and body heat. Increased temperature and humidity level on the skin can imbalance the beneficial microorganisms. Balanced skin flora is essential to healthy skin. Imagine the Rainforest as healthy skin and ‘Orang Utan’ is the bacteria. Now imagine Rainforest without Orang Utans. The imbalance is never a beauty!
It is now clear that our skin types and skin conditions are affected by internal and external factors. Which, most of the time, we cannot do anything about it. Some of the routines also affect skin beauties. Luckily for us, these habits, we can control every single thing of it. One of them is the Skincare Routine. How you treat your skin daily has the same principle as treating your belly full and well-balanced.
8 Habits That Affects Skin Beauties
- Diet. Our skin needs the essential fatty acids by healthy food consumption on the daily basis, and also by less or no alcohol and sugary soda drinks intake. So, watch closely the green leaf and colourful fruits eating habits. It may make your skin smile for the day.
- Stress. Just like us, skin also needs to rest to regenerate its skin cells naturally. Get 7-9 hours of quality sleep in a day is a must for stress-free skin.
- Muscles Expression. This is especially to put a habit for facial skin beauty. Put in mind every time how to best position the head and the face when sleeping. Switching sides regularly every night to limit the habit of sleeping sideways. The one-sided sleeping habit may inhibit the free flow of blood and oxygen on that pressed-side of the face. A balanced sleep position is one way to get healthy glowing skin underneath. Muscles expression is good to be considered once we awake as well. Put the smiles on in every moment. Imagine I am typing this article while smiling. Because honestly, this is what I am doing. I hope you are also reading this blog with a smile. So, we are smiling at each other through a different time zone. Cheers to us!
- Squeezing. With or without zits, sometimes we are born with ‘itchy’ hands. Our nails are home to ‘alien’ bacterias. When we squeeze the skin with the nails, it transfers those ‘aliens’ onto the skin. Deeper squeezing eases those ‘aliens’ to enter into the skin without knocking on the door. Now every neighbour can see the results of this squeezing, as it may bloom into breakouts.
- Cleansing. Some people tend to neglect a twice-daily cleansing routine, especially at night time before bedtime. Sleeping the whole night with makeups on will make skin unable to breathe with ease. Sleeping time is the crucial me-time for skin, as this 7 – 9 hour is needed to renew and heal itself. Therefore, selecting the best ingredients in cleansing products is highly suggested. It is the primary step in any Skincare Routine.
- Rinsing Water. While weather changes and climate temperature is unalterable, —unless we move to another place with a better offer in weather changes–, choosing the right water temperature while cleansing the skin is rotatory, —unless your faucet is stuck or the hot water system is off–. (Too) Coldwater may close the pores and (too) warm or hot water may open the pores while rinsing it. Remember, “Imbalance is never a beauty!”. Lukewarm water is suitable for any skin types and conditions.
- Makeups Tools. Just like ‘nails’, we talked about above, brushes and sponges are also a home for ‘alien’ bacteria. If you like to use brushes and sponges, make sure to replace them often and wash and dry clean them often. This is one of the reason, in FridaSkincare, we never suggest using any of those beauty tools. Besides it is against our Minimalism Skincare concept, it is also not crucial to have it in your beauty cabinet to keep the skin healthy.
- Skincare Routine. Believe me or not. Skincare Routine is insanely needed for the general health of our body. Our immune cells are located in our skin’s outer layer. This is ‘why’. However, using products that do not ‘talk’ well to the skin type and its condition may cause skin problems.
Click here if you want to check your skin type and skin condition on your own. I give you some doable tips at your fingertips!
I am very convinced that most of us agree about the importance of eating healthy food daily for healthy living. Yet, I believe that not everybody agrees that the same principle goes with skincare. So, here are five principles that skin food is also crucial:
5 Principles Why Skin Routine is as Important as Your Stomach Diet
Stomach Digests: If one cares about its digestive system for the sake of health and wellbeing, being cautious on food and beverage is a way to go. The same goes for the skin routine. Furthermore for the skin, because the skin has no digestive system like our stomach.
Skin Absorbs: So, it means that any ‘unhealthy’ or ‘toxic’ ingredients from skin products are absorbed through passing the layers of skin. And because the skin has no digestive function, this absorption goes deeper into the bloodstream.
The blood is the Marathoners, they are not the Digesters. Without sports shoes, they are running everywhere inside our body. Carrying any harmful materials or nutritive ingredients from the skin products that we routinely apply day and night, may cause other parts of the body to suffer at the end, including our cells.
Through the Bloodstream: That is why, nowadays, in the skincare and cosmetics world, the word ‘Carcinogen’ pops out as one of the effective marketing tools. The carcinogen is a substance capable of causing cancer in our living tissue, and it is scary!
Beauty in Balance: Always remember me saying this, again and again, “Imbalance is never a beauty!” Having a balance toxic-free skin care regimen along with the stomach diet on daily basis will help skin and the overall organs in the body to glow beautifully and to grow healthily.
Toxic-free in Food and Skin Products: Our little family has been built on these two foundations. We try to consume only nutritive food and avoid harmful ingredients in any skin-contacted products. Therefore, the selection of a Hand & Dish Wash product is also as important as selecting the healthy ingredients to cook. The ‘rest assure’ hand & dish liquid wash would not only help confirm toxic-free during washing our hands but also to our dirty dishes.
To feel simply safe that both our stomach and skin are treated with the toxin-free product, will surely make our life a lot lighter.
Safe Beauty is the control of recognized hazards through toxin-free skincare.
FridaSkincare promotes Safe Beauty through our Legendary Formulas.
WRITTEN BY: Frida Pigny
Photo Credit: @stellacine