Besides good genes, what really helps skin look ageless?
Three years ago, when GreenAcres had its radio show, we interviewed a young woman educator from Derma e, an enormously-popular natural skincare line we carry in all eight of our stores. We asked her to tell her secrets about getting the “glow” from the inside out.
We knew women would enjoy the show, but we were surprised how many men did also. We could tell by the number of men who came into our stores after the broadcast to buy Derma e moisturizers and scrubs.
Apparently, there’s a huge shift where men are concerned regarding embracing products and procedures that help them with their own masculine glow. More men are open to booking facials and hair-care appointments than at any other time in history. After all, both sexes are living longer and want to look and feel their best throughout life.
So we asked Kate Tart, then Derma e’s Corporate Trainer, to give us some thoughts on keeping our city’s “beauties and beasts” in tip-top form. Here’s how Kate responded to our preliminary questions, still relevant today.
Q. I have a facial once a month and feel my skin is ahead of the aging game because of it. Do you recommend?
A. Absolutely! I think if facials are in your budget, getting one once a month will do wonders for your skin. I remember the time I had my first facial, I was 24. I thought I had pretty darn good skin, but my esthetician thought otherwise. She brought up everything that was under the surface and extracted years of accumulated, closed, hardened comedones.
After the torture (sometimes having a facial is not a walk in the park), my skin looked years younger. My pores were tightened, my pimples were freed, the toxins had been removed, and I felt like my skin literally was the cleanest it had ever been.
Apart from the actual benefits of having your skin thoroughly cleansed, detoxified and comedones extracted, facials can be quite relaxing…well, at least the massage part! A skilled esthetician feels like she has 20 fingers. Just like body massage, an esthetician can manipulate the muscles underneath the face to help firm, tone, tighten, rejuvenate, re-circulate and de-puff.
With all that being said, you CAN give yourself at-home facials with the right products. Starting with a gentle cleanser and toner to remove makeup, impurities, dirt and oil is the first step. An esthetician will always cleanse your skin twice, and this is what I recommend as well.
Next step is to exfoliate. Your skin will be smoother, more radiant and less dull when you exfoliate on a regular basis; plus your moisturizers will penetrate better.
After removing all the dead skin cells with a scrub, a clay mask will help to remove further dirt and oil while detoxifying your skin. Clay masks should be applied all over the skin, avoiding the eye area, and left on for 15 minutes. At this point, you can apply your moisturizers or perform self-facial massage. I like using oil as a massage medium because it provides slick, fluid movements.
After facial massage, the last step is to apply your moisturizers. Serums, moisturizers and eye creams are essential to hydrate and nourish the skin with beneficial anti-aging ingredients. Choosing products that are enriched with antioxidants will not only prevent future free-radical damage but turn back the clock from past damage.
To find the right Derma e® products for you, please visit the webpage, www.dermae.com or ask our knowledgeable GreenAcres health and beauty team to recommend.
Q. When my esthetician talks about hydrating—which she does abundantly—is she talking about water in (the body) or moisture on (the body) or both? And how do your products help with keeping the moisture on the face with hot Kansas summers and cold, windy winters?
A. Dry vs. Dehydrated is a subject that I get asked a lot about. Dry skin lacks OIL while dehydrated skin lacks WATER. For dry and dehydrated skin, choosing moisturizing and nourishing products that help protect the skin, improve its barrier function and increase its water content is essential and can greatly improve the look and feel of the skin.
Drinking water throughout the day will help with dehydrated skin, while taking fatty acid supplements can help lubricate dry skin from the inside out. For both conditions, Derma e®’s Hydrating line with Hyaluronic Acid is my #1 recommendation.
Hyaluronic Acid is Mother Nature’s moisture magnet; it can hold 1000x its weight in water. When you have dehydrated skin, your skin lacks water, so having an ingredient that binds to water is crucial. Hyaluronic acid is too large to penetrate the skin, so instead, it stays on the surface, holding the water molecules that it attracts there with it. By this method, the level of surface moisture of the skin increases greatly.
Vitamin E is also an excellent ingredient to combat dry skin, especially weather-stripped skin. Derma e®’s Vitamin E Intensive Therapy was created to deliver unparalleled moisture, antioxidant protection and nourishing skin benefits to rescue and restore even the most severely dry, flaky, itchy, cracked or damaged skin. As the first skincare line to feature naturally-sourced full-spectrum Vitamin E, these therapeutic formulas offer more complete healing benefits for dry skin than ever before.
Q. How can you live in sunny, dry California and keep your skin so radiant? And do you help any movie stars we know keep that same glow?
A. I like to think of radiance as a state of mind, however, there ARE products that can help boost skin radiance, making it appear younger, fresher and dewy-er in appearance.
First and foremost, radiant skin means skin that glows from within, so making sure you are drinking enough water is the first step. Next is protection; choosing products that are loaded with protective antioxidants will help prevent free-radical damage while the addition of sunscreen will protect the skin from the most skin damaging element there is, the sun.
Derma e®’s Evenly Radiant® collection was created to help brighten and diminish the appearance of uneven pigmentation. Utilizing exotic Madonna Lily plant stem cells which interfere with the transfer of melanin to the surface of the skin, along with other known skin brighteners such as Bearberry, Licorice root, Alpha-Arbutin and Niacinamide, Evenly Radiant® will target sun spots, hyperpigmentation and dullness while encouraging cellular renewal for younger looking, more radiant skin.
As for the celebrity curiosity, I never tell. 🙂
There you have it. From an expert. We welcome you to visit with our HABA team to learn what Derma e products might work best for your skin type.