Despite that lovely post-summer glow, summer takes a toll on your skin.
It makes it drier, redder, more sensitive, more congested and often causes uneven skin tone.
So post-summer skincare needs to address all these issues while also helping to repair and strengthen skin to get it ready for the onslaught of back-to-work stress and winter weather.
Typically, during summer and summer holidays our skin gets exposed to UV damage, chemical suncreams, salt water, chlorinated pool water, air conditioning, additional sweat and often cheap hotel skin care and hair care products.
In order to repair the summer skin damage, you don't need a complex system of skin care, in fact less is most definitely more.
Instead of using an even wider variety of products to try and combat the effects of summer skin damage, it’s better to reduce the amount of chemicals and complex skincare products you usually use and simplify your skincare routine for a period of time post-summer in order to calm down dry skikn, over-reactive skin and red skin as well as clear congested skin.
The focus needs to be on the fundamentals of repairing skin by replenishing the skin's natural defeneces.
Here are five tips to simplify your post-summer skincare routine to help re-build clearer, calmer and less sensitive post-summer skin.
1. Boost Good Skin Flora
UV exposure, external irritants like chlorine from pools, chemicals in sun creams, make up removers to take off water proof make up, harsh cleansers to remove sun creams and hotel toiletries can all contribute to reducing and damaging the skin’s levels of good skin bacteria.
Good skin bacteria is what keeps the ski more resilient against breaks outs and flare ups. Once healthy levels of good bacteria begin to deplete, bad ski bacteria finds it easier to get into the dermis and multiply quickly, leading to spots, inflammation and irritation.
So you post-summer skincare should include one simply product whose job it is to build back up your good skin bacteria.
Try Clarol Silver Serum which contains a smart silver ingredient that feeds good skin bacteria to help it grow and multiply, while being repellent to bad skin bacteria growth. Use after cleansing in a thin coat under make up or as a stand alone serum.
2. Reduce Skin Sensitivity
Post-summer skin is typically much more sensitive than normal. Skin sensitivity is tricky as its often doesn’t go away of its own accord and in fat often gets worse if not caught fairly early on.
Add to that the stress of going back to the work, kids back at school, the start of the Autumn flux of weather and the likelihood of a lowered immune system from seasonal colds you can end up with increasingly sensitive post-summer skin.
Using a de-sensitising base cream with no chemicals or perfume in it can hugely help reduce and address the risk of escalating post-summer skin sensitivity.
Try Kalme Undercoat which is a one-stop desensitising light base cream that can be used under make and SPF’s, after shaving, under any perfumes or as a standalone product to help reduce skin sensitivity and to help dampen skin reactions to any triggers such as cosmetics or shave gels and external irritants like pollution.
3. Purify Sebum
During hotter weather typically the skin will product more sebum as we sweat more. Add to that frequent applications of sun creams or tinted SPF moisturisers, a change in diet to greasier a richer foods and you have yourself a perfect environment for increased skin congestion.
However, scrubbing away at post-summer skin with exfoliations and cleansers or using sebum inhibiting products might end up causing more harm than good, especially when the skin is more sensitive, dry and fragile after summer.
Increased sebum is actually very beneficial for summer skin as its nature’s moisturiser and protector. The main issue is not the increased sebum itself, it’s when it pools in the skin pore and mixes with external bacteria and air and becomes contaminated. That is when spots and inflammation appear.
By keeping sebum pure when it passes out through the skin pore, your summer skin gets all the benefits and none of downsides of increased sebum production. You want these benefits to carry on through the post-summer period to make sure your skin stays naturally hydrated.
Try Clarol Sebopure which contains a plant-based sebum purifying ingredient take from mustard leaf that acts as a natural ‘preserver’ on sebum, preventing it from going rancid when it reaches the surfaces of the skin and pushes out through the skin pore. Sebopure can be worn in a thin layer under cosmetics and overnight to help reduce and prevent congestion during the post-summer period when ski is still producing more sebum.
4. Repair Skin Barrier Function
UV damage, dehydration, external abrasives like salt water and minor skin reactions to sun creams can all weaken and damage skin barrier function and increase water loss in skin, causing dryness and tightness, especially if you are prone to dry skin conditions like eczema or psoriasis or inflammatory dry skin conditions like rosacea.
Moisturising more doesn’t address the problem, its repairing skin barrier function while at the same time reducing inflammation, in particular overnight when skin cell production increases, which is essential to rescuing post-summer skin and replenishing dryness.
Skin prebiotics are excellently effective at repairing skin barrier function as they supply what the skin need to repair itself. Try Kalme TeQ Serum which contains two different agave extracts which are both potent skin prebiotics, as well as being more hydrating than hyaluronic acid. The serum also contains a caper extract which is proven to reduce redness and sensitivity caused by underlying inflammation.
5. Avoid Washing Skin With Water
You might be tempted after a summer holiday to practice cleaning your skin more, especially if it feels congested.
However, be aware that water is a very caustic substance that also contains chlorine and so for post-summer sensitive and dry skin, its can actually make things worse.
Equally importantly it’s the temperature difference of using either warm or cold water to wash your face that can also trigger rosacea or sensitive skin flares due to the vascular dilation of the blood cells below the skin’s surface.
Water-free cleansing with a moisturising cream-cleanser for very sensitive skin is much more beneficial for post-summer skin suffering from redness, dryness and sensitivity than daily facial washing.
Try Kalme Water-Free Cream Cleanser which is free from chemicals and perfumes and contains natural moisturising ingredients to gently cleanse off dirt and make up without drying skin or triggering any sudden temperature changes.
