In the past few years, I had encountered an odd thing happening with my skin and since I’ve had quite a few clients lately with the same problem, I decided to share my tips with dealing with it.
Here’s the dilemma I had. I have very dry skin. I’ve got the fine lines and the start of wrinkles to prove it. But I get break-outs; I always thought that they were for greasy-faced teenagers. I had tried using products designed to clear them away (all the acid and peroxide products), but all I succeeded in doing was turning my face into one giant, flaky mess! I didn’t think anything could be done!
After talking with some colleagues about my situation, we were able to come up with why I was breaking out (it was NOT due to oily skin!) as well as come up with a plan of attack to fix my problem.
My break-outs were actually caused BY my dry skin, Go figure! As my skin cells died, they were not being fully sloughed off. The edges of the cells would curl up slightly which is why dry skin is notorious for looking dull and flaky. Then, dirt, make-up and bacteria would get stuck underneath those flaky cells. Without the cells being removed, regular cleansers couldn’t reach under the cells to clean out the bacteria and PRESTO! Those pesky break-outs formed.
So, in other words, my break-outs were caused by dry, flaky skin. And so, to get rid of them, I needed to get rid of the dry, flaky skin.
Our plan of attack consisted first of a good exfoliator. Those dead skin cells needed to come off and it needed to be done NOW. I started first with the No7 Radiance Revealed Exfoliator (it was a little gentler on my skin due to my break-outs) and now I use the No7 Glycolic Peel Kit (scared me at first to think of using DIY glycolic acid, but this stuff is HEAVEN).
Now that the flaky cells were gone, the second step of our plan was to keep my skin hydrated to minimize future break-outs. I’ve started using a really rich hydrating mask immediately after I use my exfoliator. The current one of choice for me is the No7 Intensive Moisture Mask. The vitamins A, C and E are amazing and it makes my skin feel brand new. Most of the time, I even leave the mask on all night long and wash it off in the morning. When I wake up, my skin feels like silk!
Depending on what I’ve been doing lately and what the weather’s like, I’ll do my exfoliator/mask treatment two to three times a week. And on off-days, I make sure that I use really rich daily moisturizers and serums. Doing this has really cut down on the number of break-outs I get now. I do still get them occasionally. But now I only get them when I’ve been a lazy girl and haven’t scrubbed my face recently (even though I’m in the industry, I’m still a bad girl sometimes too).