5 Skincare Hacks for Clear Skin
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It’s hard to maintain clear skin in our world today. With busy, stressful lives our self care often takes a back seat. On top of that, it’s easy to slip into habits that don’t move us closer to our goals. Reaching for convenience or fast foods after a long day, or falling asleep in front of the T.V. before washing your face.
But, you don’t have to go on a diet or say goodbye to the T.V. to start improving your complexion and get glowing skin. By starting to incorporate a few tiny habits into your daily life, you can see big improvements.
In this post, I’m going to share five hacks for clearer skin - all of which have helped me go from a face full of acne to clear, calm, healthy skin.
Hack #1 - Clean Your Pillowcases Often
I know what you’re thinking but DON’T skip over this one! I think almost every human on the planet has heard of this tip, BUT I think I have found an additional caveat.
How you wash your pillow cases is just as important as how often. You need to be mindful of the laundry detergent you are using to wash your pillow cases (and all of your clothes for that matter).
I found this out a few years ago. I had been using a “clean” detergent (or so I thought) for years. However, I learned that even though brands may be labelled as “green” or “clean”, they often times still contain chemicals or artificial fragrances that can irritate and inflame your skin. You have to be careful and pay attention to the ingredients.
My favorite laundry detergent is called Biokleen. It is reasonably priced and it comes as a concentrate so it lasts me a VERY long time. It has super simple, clean ingredients and is the best laundry detergent I’ve found so far. The only down side is I haven’t found it in any of my local big box retail stores. Another alternative I like is called 9 Elements which can be found at Target. When I switched over my detergent, I did start to notice my skin was calmer and less inflamed.
Hack #2 - Don’t Sleep With Makeup On
This is another obvious tip, but it is one thing to say you need to stop sleeping in your makeup and another to actually stop doing it! This one has been especially hard for me to overcome. After a long day at work, making dinner, and then sitting down for my latest T.V. series addiction (which is Goliath on Amazon Prime; I am obsessed!), getting up to wash my face and do my whole routine is the LAST thing I want to do.
For me, I’ve found that establishing a solid evening routine has helped me stay on track of my skincare game. The key to my evening routine is that as soon as I get home from work I do my workout. Then, immediately after that I wash my face before I can move on with the rest of my night. It’s using the power of habit stacking to make sure I do that task every night. The end of my workout is my cue (or trigger) to go in the bathroom and wash my face. Doing it before dinner and my relaxation time allows me a higher percentage of success by not needing the motivation to get my lazy butt off the couch at night.
Hack #3 - Be Mindful of Your Toxic Load
If you’ve never heard the term “toxic load” before, it refers to ‘the harmful chemicals (or xenobiotics) that accumulate in the body through exposures to things such as air and water pollutants, numerous categories of food additives, chemicals in personal products and household cleaners, medications, plastics and other environment exposures such as herbicides and pesticides’ (Roth, 2021).
Over time, a high toxic load can lead to a number of different health issues. Especially for women, it can lead to hormonal disruption and imbalance. But, it’s often not talked about in traditional medical settings or even among natural health enthusiasts who tend to focus mainly on fitness and nutrition.
In our modern world, being exposed to toxins is inevitable, and we don’t always have control over other people’s environments. But the empowering part is we have control over our own environment and our own bodies. Reducing your toxic load in your own home might look like using essential oils instead of candles, getting a water filter, or investing in non-toxic makeup products.
It took me a long time to slowly transition all of my different beauty and personal care items to be less toxic to my body and to figure out which ones I liked and worked for me. You don’t have to change everything all at once.
Once you start to lower that burden on your body, it doesn’t have to work so hard at trying to get rid of the toxic things coming from your environment. It can then start to focus on areas that need healing. Additionally, reducing your toxic load in your own environment will help you build resilience when you do go into other environments.
Hack #4 - Don’t Over Cleanse
When I was first dealing with severe cystic acne, I used a harsh exfoliating cleanser every day because I thought it would target my acne better than a product that was gentler. I later learned that over using harsh products on my skin was actually keeping my skin irritated and inflamed. Exfoliators can be good a few times a week to remove dead skin and get a deep clean, but may be too irritating for every day. It can lead to an imbalance in the skins moisture barrier. It took me a while to get used to the strategy of “less is more” when it comes to skincare. But once I did, it changed the results I was seeing in my skin. Which leads me to what my current skincare routine is and my fifth and final hack.
Hack #5 - Use the Oil Cleansing Method
I talk a lot about the oil cleansing method because it literally changed my life. It helped me finally achieve clear skin after dealing with cystic acne for over five years (which I talk more about in my post “How I Finally Cleared My Acne After Years of Struggling”).
Oil cleansing is definitely all about the “less is more” philosophy because it only uses two products; AND it can be a cleanser and moisturizer all in one - no other products needed! For people with skin issues, doing a skin reset by oil cleansing is what I recommend based on my personal experience. Once you regain balance in your skins moisture barrier, then it will be in a better place where you can start to add other products - and they will actually be effective!
Conclusion
Trying to improve your health doesn’t have to be some huge undertaking. You don’t have to take on everything all at once. In fact, doing so would likely lead to frustration, overwhelm, and wanting to quit. A more sustainable and effective approach is incorporating little habits one at a time. So try incorporating one or two of these hacks to start and go from there. Eventually, the little habits lead to big results!
To help you get started, I have created a FREE 15-Day Skincare Glow Up Challenge. This is a fun challenge you can try to slowly introduce small, daily habits that focus on different areas of health that are important to begin healing your skin (or any other issue) from the inside out.
Get it by signing up below:
FREE 15-Day Skincare Glow Up Challenge
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References
Roth, M. (2021, April 9). How to Reduce Toxic Load & Prime the Body to Better Handle Toxins. Blythedale Children’s Hospital. https://www.blythedale.org/news-media/how-reduce-toxic-load-prime-body-better-handle-toxins#:~:text=Toxic%20load%20refers%20to%20the,exposures%2C%20such%20as%20herbicides%20and