How To Practise Self Skin Love
There’s no doubt about it - we’re going through unprecedented times, and while we can congratulate ourselves on the steps that we’ve all taken to protect ourselves and each other by heeding the advice of the healthcare authorities, our heads and minds might take a little while to catch up.
We are going through a period of isolation and uncertainty, and it can be all too easy for our minds to turn on us, and for us to become focussed completely on something that we think we have control over - namely, our skin. We need to be mindful of the fact that stress can manifest in lots of different ways. It’s possible that your skin could be responding to recent stress in any manner of ways, despite your excellent treatment of it.
Our skin, how it appears and what it’s going through can have an enormous impact on how we feel in ourselves, too. Skin conditions can have a huge impact on mental health, and women are even more likely to be prone to mental health difficulties as a result of skin conditions such as acne.
At the Nerd Network, we work on creating a skincare routine and regime for you which can help to tackle the skin concerns which might otherwise be getting you down and affecting your confidence. We want you to achieve the results which make you feel confident in your hardworking, well- cared for skin, and so we have a few tips on just how to go about feeling good about your skin and taking care of numero uno - and showing yourself some proper nerdie love.
At our worst, it can feel like our skin is our enemy, conspiring against us to make our lives worse. It’s sod’s law that the ‘better’ we want our skin to appear, the worse it seems to get - usually just in time for a big event, yum! This frustration isn’t an uncommon feeling, but it’s not really doing us many favours, and the stress that we feel about our skin can really become a self-fulfilled prophecy.
Frustration and even anger can be feelings that we associate with our skin - but our skin is part of us. It’s our largest organ (holla), and does its absolute best to protect us, all day every day, and therefore it deserves a bit of respect, a bit of patience, and a whole lot of love.
How To Practise Self Skin Love
Wear Your SPF
It might go without saying (but actually we love to say it, so nevermind), but wearing your SPF every day is the single best way to show yourself and your skin some real and true love.
Wearing a broad spectrum SPF protects your skin from UVA, UVB, HEV rays and infrared light, too. All of these can contribute to collagen degradation, which might cause your skin to age prematurely. There’s a more serious reason to wear SPF, though - wearing SPF can help to protect you from developing skin cancer. It’s your everyday parasol between you and the sun, and it’s one of the easiest ways to show yourself some real self-care and love.
Even while staying indoors, SPF is still key. Blue light emitted from our screens can also damage our skin, and some studies have found that in can increase oxidative stress in skin, which means more free radicals can be produced. It can also cause photo-ageing of the skin, just like sunlight - so it’s not the time to be complacent.
When it comes to SPFs, we can recommend our own creation (we’re a little bit biased), Skingredients Skin Shield SPF 50 PA +++. This is a moisturising and priming SPF day cream with a light peachy tint, which prevents photo flashback and provides a dewy base for your makeup, or is perfect for daily wear. It’s suitable for all skin types, too!
We can also recommend IMAGE Prevention + Daily Matte Moisturizer SPF 32, perfect for the more oil-prone hooman. It’s oil-free and contains antioxidants, too!
Pamper Your Skin, Don’t Plague It
Sometimes, particularly with a condition like acne or psoriasis, it can feel like our skin is really having a laugh at our expense. It can be tempting to find heavy-duty products which might seem more suitable for paint-stripping than skincare, and apply them to our skin, in the hope that the stinging means that it’s working. And that the more it stings, the more effective the product truly is - right?
We can attest to the fact that this is really not the case. It’s more important to select skincare products which contain the active ingredients that can tackle our skincare concerns, rather than finding the stingiest products around.
Catch Some Zzzzs
It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Getting an adequate amount of sleep is one of the kindest things that you can do for your skin. Sleep affects the regeneration process of your skin, as well as its ability to heal, and not getting quality shut-eye can affect these processes.
We all know the difference between a solid eight hours and a ragged five - it shows on our skin as well as our souls (or so it feels). Getting enough sleep isn’t just skincare self-care, it’s care for the hooman who deserves to get some rest.
The best thing about sleep? It’s absolutely free.
Eat Your Water and Up Your Good Fats
We’ve all heard that increasing our intake of water is helpful when it comes to skin health, but we like to go a step further. Essential fatty acids (EFAS) help to lubricate your skin from within, which is part of the reason that we often advocate for taking omegas as a supplement if you’re concerned with dry skin.
Your body can’t produce the required amount of EFAs which is why we take them in through our diet, by eating omega-rich fish like salmon, mackerel, and even oysters, as well as nuts and seeds like walnut and chia seeds - and avocado too, happily.
Essential fatty acids can lock goodness into your skin and can help lower inflammation which can otherwise lead to flare-ups of eczema, psoriasis and acne, too.
Also, they’re good for you and the foods which contain essential fatty acids are properly delicious, so do some self-care and chow down!
Get Some Skin-Zen
The fact is that every single hooman has something about themselves that they sort of wish that they could change. This is true of skincare hoomans, too.
Flawless skin doesn’t really exist - but we are all doing our best to achieve skin which makes us feel confident. Sometimes, this path is a little bit twisty and turny, and sometimes traditional methods of treating skin conditions don’t always work at the pace that we want it to.
Sometimes, it can be necessary to seek the help of a medical professional, and other times our skincare conditions might be something that we need to manage all throughout our lives.
Your skin is at all times trying to do its best for you, and this is pretty admirable. Both literally and figuratively - your skin has got your back.
Follow Some Skin Positive or Neutral Influencers
When your social feeds are filled with flawless skin, it can be hard to love your own skin if you feel it doesn’t meet the standards you’ve set for it.
There are heaps of skin positive and skin neutral influencers, such as Em Ford (MyPaleSkinBlog) and Sofia Grahn (isotrenitoinwiths), who focus on loving your skin or not allowing your skin to contribute to your self-worth at all, both great things.
We suggest that you show yourself some skin self-love every single day, because your skin deserves your love and respect year-round. We don’t suggest treating it mean to keep it keen - it’s doing its very best all of the time, and so are you.
You can get personalised advice on the best way to care for your skin and love it through all of its ups and downs by joining the Nerd Network.