Skin Care Advice From The Dermatologists

Skin care is an historic topic, with many of our predecessors offering advice that has sometimes seemed odd or questionable. Whether it was bathing skin with incredibly hot water to open the pores or apply an oatmeal mask, we are surrounded with often diverse choices as to what is best for our skin. As baby boomers age, the quest for youth becomes even more of a hot topic and the marketing companies are filling the channels with a ton of products that offer miracle cures. So what is the best advice for good skin care?

Dermatologists offer some rather common sense thinking to the topic of skin care. The first thing is, unless you are wearing waterproof makeup, do not use makeup remover or facial cleanser. These products may do more harm than good, especially if they contain an exfoliate ingredient and you wash around the very delicate eye area. Another piece of advice is that skin toner should only be used by those that have a very oily complexion. A toner is designed to reduce extremely oily situations. If you have a combination skin or do not have very oily skin, use a mattifying cleanser and you might think about using mineral makeup, which is designed to soak up the oil in the skin.

Another myth of today is that anyone with acne or oily skin shouldn’t use a moisturizer. The newer products no longer contain anything that will clog your pores and, when used appropriately, can actually help to reduce acne breakouts due to drier skin that does clog the pores. Just because a product is expensive, doesn’t make it the best one to buy. There are a lot of lesser priced skin products that contain retinol peptides as well as antioxidants including vitamin C that are just as beneficial. Make sure that you read the label to ensure the product doesn’t contain too many other chemicals that could offset the benefits.

If you have oily skin, don’t fall prey to the misconception that washing your skin a lot will reduce the oil and potential acne breakouts. It actually does the reverse by drying the skin and setting your oil glands to try to compensate by producing more natural skin oils. Use a facial pad twice per day to help clean out the pores so that they won’t be blocked by dirt, bacteria or dried skin. If you see a pimple or whitehead, do everything you can to not pop it Apply warm compresses to the skin and it will bring the infection out. Popping it will open the area up for infection and the area itself will often look worse than the original blemish. Apply acne or drying product to the area that contains salicylic acid or colloidal sulfur.

One of the worst remedies that have been hard over the years is to apply toothpaste to acne. This is an absolute NO. The chemicals that are in toothpaste are for your teeth and can actually cause harm to the skin. Another myth is that cocoa butter will help to prevent stretch marks. While it is true that cocoa butter does moisturize, it will not eliminate the stretch marks themselves. So far, to date, dermatologists have not found any cream that is proven to remove those pesky stretch marks.

The key is to use common sense when it comes to your skin and know what type of skin you have for the best treatment. Not all skin is alike and you need to focus on your particular skin needs.