Getting Married? Skin Care Prep Tips for the Bride

My wedding day in 2011 was fabulous! Here is my six month plan to ensure the glow on your wedding day.

6 MONTHS BEFORE THE WEDDING:

Find a reputable skin care professional. Six months is the perfect amount of time to ensure that your skin is clear, smooth and glowing for the big day. It’s important to find a trained skin care professional that is able to give your skin everything it needs.  Let RENU U Aesthetics make a plan to get your skin glowing for your wedding day.

Schedule a consultation. What may work for your friend may not be right for you, everyone's skin has different needs and reacts to stress differently. Be sure to ask a lot of questions; particularly the cost of treatments, side-effects and the results they can guarantee.

Fit it in the budget. Generally, a good skin care plan (both professional and home-care products) can range from $500-$2000. Tip: If the budget is tight, let your maid of honor know that getting your skin in good condition for your wedding day is a priority and she may plan a shower where everyone pitches in to give your skin care services as a gift…

Patch test your skin. When starting a new skin care program, be sure to do a patch test if you’re trying out new skin care products as allergic reactions can take up to four weeks to heal. Rub a small amount of product on the side of your neck and wait 24 hours. If redness or irritation occurs, avoid using the product.

Follow the plan set forth by your skin care professional. A variety of skin care procedures such as facials, microdermabrasion, photo facials, and chemical peels will all be beneficial in getting your bridal glow.

IF YOU HAVE BREAKOUTS:

-Exfoliate well. This will keep off dry skin cells to lessen clogged pores and blemishes, and help fade post-breakout scars. Look for products with exfoliating acids and enzymes.  For an at-home exfoliant to smoothe and clear your skin, try Thalgo's exfoliant best suited for your skin from RENU U Aesthetics.

-Keep the skin clear of bacteria. Products using ingredients such as Salicylic Acid and Tea Tree help to eliminate bacteria and prevent the spread of breakouts. Regular High Frequency treatments at RENU U Aesthetics can also help minimize bacteria presence on the skin.

-Be sure to keep the skin hydrated. If you’re prone to blemishes, your skin needs water-based moisture to keep cells healthy to discourage dead skin cell buildup. Make sure to use an oil-free lotion such as Thalgo's 24H Source Marine Gel Cream.

IF YOU HAVE DISCOLORATION AND BROWN SPOTS:

-Use a skin lightener. By combining exfoliation, skin lighteners and daily use of sunscreen, the pigmented cells will slowly start break down and fade their color. Exfoliation is beneficial for breaking up the pigmented cells while a skin-lightening agent like Vitamin C or Kojic Acid will suppress the melanin cells and accelerate the fading process. 

IF YOU HAVE REDNESS AND ROSACEA:

–Avoid washing your skin with hot water. Cooler temperatures will keep reduce redness and keep the skin calm.  

–Use soothing ingredients in your products. Chamomile, Azulene and Sea Whip all help to comfort the skin and reduce redness.

-Make sure you get facials that cater to sensitive skin. Although facials can be extremely calming for red skins, you must make sure that your esthetician has experience in caring for this very delicate type of skin. Avoid strong chemical peels as they will only exacerbate redness. Also, avoid use of hot steam during a facial and use a Lucas Pulverizer.

3 MONTHS BEFORE THE WEDDING

Make a commitment to not pick at your skin. Acne breakouts usually last just 3-5 days, but when you pick at a blemish, the red mark that lingers can be there for three months! We know it’s tempting, but you can make problem skin much worse by forcing bacteria deeper into the skin, resulting in scarring and further break outs. A better solution for problem skin is a regular facial schedule, where your pores can be cleaned professionally. 

Cut back on the invasive skin treatments. If you have been having IPL treatments or a series of skin peels, now is the time to start cutting back on those. You need to start going into maintenance mode. Hopefully, those aggressive procedures helped to clear up break outs, post-breakout acne scars and discoloration and now the focus is on maintaining the results. Get a professional facial every 3-4 weeks for the remaining three months.

1 MONTH BEFORE THE WEDDING

Go easy. Now that you’re on the home stretch, it’s not the time to be experimenting with new products or services. Keep everything gentle by backing off aggressive professional treatments.

Avoid dairy products if you’re prone to acne cysts. Many people have heard that greasy foods and chocolate cause breakouts. Breakouts, especially those that are cyst-like in the chin and jaw line area, most often are related to too much ice cream, yogurt, milk and cheese. Try cutting back and watch your skin clear up!  

Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Sleep is not only important to keep dark circles at bay, but it is also the time when your body is most metabolically active, ridding itself of toxins which would otherwise wreak havoc with your skin. Sleep also reduces stress, the #1 aggravator of acne!

Keep your skin care products cold. When nerves are at their highest, it can cause increased blood flow to the skin. Try keeping your skin care products in the refrigerator. Cleansing, toning and moisturizing with cool temperature products keep the skin calm and soothed.

2-3 DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING

Get your final facial. The facial should focus on skin smoothing via exfoliation and hydration. Keep extractions to a minimum to avoid unnecessary redness.

Don’t experiment with any new products. You don’t want to risk having an adverse reaction to anything—stick with tried and true.

Avoid shell fish. Especially for those who have traveled to a tropical island for their wedding, you’ll be tempted with all the wonderful seafood that is there. Many people are allergic to iodine commonly found in shell fish which can result in very serious skin and body reactions, so now is not the time to be eating foods you have not tried before.

Limit your intake of alcohol. Alcohol leads to skin and under eye puffiness, so for every alcoholic drink, follow it with a 4-8 oz glass of water. This will help prevent unnecessary morning puffiness.

Avoid crying (if possible). With all of the celebratory speeches that are given, it’s only normal that a few tears may be shed. If at all possible, try to avoid crying since it causes the eyes to swell resulting in excessive morning under eye puffiness. (Do cucumber slices on the eyes help reduce puffiness?)

WEDDING DAY

Apply a hydrating mask. Thalgo's Marine Source Masks are water-based so they won’t add any oil to the skin and interfere with wedding day makeup. They calm the skin from wedding day nerves, and gives your skin a smooth, healthy glow.

Drink a lot of water. To prevent skin from puffiness due to shedding tears or alcohol intake the night before, drink cold ice water throughout the day. This will also help prevent your mouth from getting dry due to nerves.

Practice deep breathing. There is nothing better to calm the nerves than frequent deep breathing. Relax. Enjoy. Your day is here.

Wrinkles Why Me?

Why do I have deep wrinkles?

Age

As we get older our skin loses it's natural, bounce and tightness. This is due to a loss of connective tissues call Collagen and Elastin. This causes the skin to begin to loosen and/or sag. 

Exposure to the Sun

Ultra Violet rays cause skin damage, such as spotting such as freckles. This is caused by a chemical in the body called Melasma which is usually the cause of pregnancy mask (a mask of freckles across the face during pregnancy).

Smoking

The chemicals in your cigarettes causes the slowing of collagen production in the skin. Collagen is very important for keeping your skin firm, without it your skin will sag and crease. Making fine lines and wrinkles.

Excessive Facial Expressions

Many deep lines are caused by the repeated motion of your habitual facial movements, such as smiling, frowning, laughing and/or squinting.

Various environmental factors

Wind, water and heat and dirt can cause irritation, dryness, chapping and minor scratches. All of which is can cause dehydration, fine lines etc... 

What do I do about it?

We can't do anything about the ageing process, but all the other factors that cause wrinkles we can work to prevent. 

Sun exposure:

It's a huge factor in ageing and you can protect yourself simply by adding a sunscreen to your regular moisturizing routine! This doesn't just mean that you are going to put sun protection only on your face. Your entire body wrinkles and can get skin damage, this means that always protecting yourself is important. Using SPF 30 is more than adequate for light skin types and SPF 15-20 are good for darker skin types.

Smoking:

If you are still smoking you will have heard this a thousand times, it's important to kick the habit as it's not only deteriorating your lungs and other organs slowly but it's causing you to age fast! So #1 quit smoking.

Next you can book a series of microdermabrasion treatments to help increase collagen and elastin production. Soon Renu U will be offering facial peels as well, which do the same job as microdermabrasion. If you aren't in our area you could certainly find a spa that does Alpha Hydroxy Acid peels.

Regular moisturizing facials will also help to revitalize the overall look of the skin. And a very good facial care routine, will put a dent in the aging process.

Environment:

Protecting your skin from the wind, cold, rain and dirt etc... is as simple as making sure you pick the right clothing to protect you during your activities out doors. Moisturizing before you go out as well helps you by putting a protective barrier between you and the elements. The oils in the moisturizer put a layer that catches the dirt, protects the skin from wind rash etc...

Age:

Keeping up your at home regiment of cleansing, toning moisturizing and bi-weekly exfoliation (exfoliation varies from 1-3 times a week based on thickness of the skin and coarseness of exfoliant). You could also add eye creams and face masks to your regime. Make sure that you work out your face care regime with your aesthetician for best results.


We hope that your face feels and looks it's best, and that you learned ways to stop aging in it's tracks.

Live Well and Be Healthy,

Renu U Aesthetics.

The Secret Ritual for a Beautiful Face

Facials: Your Beauty Secret

A lot of use take pride in the way that our face looks when we leave the house for the day, whether it's to cover redness, under eye circles, wrinkles or even for self expression however only a few of us take into consideration what we are doing to our faces. We don't go for regular facials, and often some of us only wash our faces with soap and water! On the other hand we have many people that own every product under the sun for a certain skin condition they feel that they have and may or may not be correct about.

Regular facials can keep you up to date on your skin type as it changes and the seasons go by, helping you to keep your home care routine up to date and working for you as best as it possibly can. The best skin care plans are the ones that are well thought out and consider your specific needs. Educated aestheticians will look at your skin very carefully and make recommendations for home care products at the end of a service, or ask you how you current face care plan is working for you.

Each skin type has specific needs that can be addressed at your regular facials, and just like a visit to the dentist (we know no one really likes those) your aesthetician will make sure that your skin is responding well to your products, and that every thing is working out for you.

When it comes to skin types these are the ways your facials will be addressing your skin, and how regular facials are going to help improve the texture and over all look of your skin.

Oily Skin:

An oily skin facial will consist of a balancing cleanser, pH balancing toner, manual exfoliation, around 10min steaming, extractions, massage, balancing serums and balancing masks, with matte moisturizers and eye creams.

Machines:

Microdermabrasion can be used to deeply exfoliate the skin, which helps to free the blockages from the skin during the extraction phase and helps to penetrate the oil balancing products.

Violet high frequency for disinfecting purposes. It helps to heal acne and fight the bacteria that causes it through sanitizing the skin.

Dry Skin:

A facial for a dryer skin type facial will consist of gentle cleansing, gentle balancing toner (often with aloe or hydrating algae), light steaming, exfoliation, extractions (IF needed), massage, hydrating serums, moisturizing masks, hydrating moisturizers and eye creams.

Machines:

Orange High frequency for stimulation, cell turn over and blood flow.

Microdermabrasion for the exfoliation and also stimulation of oils and cell turn over can be used on clients with dryer skin.

Aging Skin:

We all want to stay young and beautiful for as long as we possibly can, so anti aging facials are very important as we age and lose oil and elasticity.
It starts with gentle cleanser, none "medicated" toner simply for re-balancing your pH, gentle manual exfoliation and a little steaming.  Too much steaming can cause your skin to feel tight and lose moisture, an aging skin needs all the moisture it can get. As you won't have much oil you won't need a lot of extractions unless there is a lot of old build up that hasn't been very cleared out. This would all follow with massage, anti aging serums, anti aging moisturizers and collagen eye creams (sometime with caffeine for a lifting effect)

Machines:

Microdermabrasion on aging clients helps to increase blood flow, cell turn over and collagen and elastin boosting through intense exfoliation. It can also reduce the look of scaring and age spots and freckles

Orange light High Frequency is excellent for the stimulating cell turn over and blood flow to the face. This means more new skin! 

Sensitive Skin:

Facials of this variety are almost always tricky because the skin is VERY reactive, so it's hard to treat any acne a sensitive client might have, so we'd start with a gentle routine till the skin begins to come around. Gentle cleansers and gentle toners would be used, very limited steaming (warm/hot towels would probably be used instead) and minimal exfoliation, and if any extractions are needed they may be taken care of. All this would be followed by massage and then calming serums and/or masks.

Machines:

Orange high frequency would be use to increase circulation and create stimulation. If any blemishes are present Violet high frequency would be used to kill the bacteria inside.

Microdermabrasion would generally be left alone and if it was going to be done it would probably only be one pass.

Home care Routines:

Home care routines generally consist of the appropriate cleanser, toner and moisturizer for your skin type and perhaps even a manual exfoliator that would be used between 1 and 3 times a week at maximum. This keeps your skin gently cared for in-between deeper treatments at the spa, so that you will get to enjoy more of the massage and relaxation aspect of the facials. :)

We hope this helps you with your choice to have facials.

Live well and be healthy,

Renu U Aesthetics.

Body care: How to get soft skin

This is the way! Trust me!

So we've all experienced the trouble of keeping our skin soft and radiant. There are always those stubborn rough patches that we can't get to go away. It can be frustrating and sometimes even stressful. We are gonna tell you the ways that can drastically improve your overall skin health from the outside. Now you must always remember that it's very important to care for your skin from the inside as well  i.e: having a well balanced diet, getting enough sleep and drinking enough water. These can be difficult for the average person on the run but will help immensely when it comes to soft supple skin.

Now to the from the outside method:
 
#1. Dry brushing

 

 This is something that once seemed foreign to me, probably many others BUT is actually very useful. I would recommend that if you take morning showers that you dry brush your body all over. You should always brush from the extremities towards the heart. It can be very invigorating and sometimes makes me feel like I have way too much energy afterwards. So make sure not to dry brush at night or it could keep you up.

Benefits of dry brushing are exfoliation, increased circulation, stimulated lymphatic drainage, reduce cellulite, improved digestion and kidney function, increase in elasticity of the skin. Most importantly it can aid in stress relief.

What do you need to know about dry brushing? 

 You need to know that dry brushing should be done once a day for best results. Finding a good dry brush is very important! It should be made of all natural materials, and stiff but not so much that you scratch your skin off using it. Three different types of natural materials to look for are jute (soft), sisal (medium) and coconut (course). And if you get one with a handle you can make sure that you can dry brush your back more easily.

#2. Avoid high sulfate body washes!

High sulfate soaps can leave the skin feeling squeaky clean BUT can also dry the skin out very quickly, especially for those people who already have very dry skin. Just imagine what your dish soap is doing to your hands after repeated use. This is from the sulfate content. It is best to use a more gentle soap on your skin.

#3. Shower temperature

The water temperature of the water you use during your showers should not be too terribly warm. You should not turn bright red, if you really enjoy warm showers you should try to reduce your time under the hot water. Hot water can strip your skin of the moisture that you are trying so hard to keep. BUT warm water will open your pores to accept the moisture that you will be applying later.

#4. Moisturizing

When you get out of the shower you should always apply a moisturizer, this is VERY important. Once your skin has warmed up you should apply a moisturizer of your choice as the skin will absorb the product very well. For overly dry skin you can use oils such as avocado or olive oil. For a more oily skin type you may apply a coconut oil as it's a lot lighter and absorbs faster as it's close to our natural oil's composition. When choosing a moisturizer it's good to choose one based on your skin type, and no matter what the skin type moisturizing is important. So for oilier skin types it would be better to choose a moisturizer that absorbs quickly, and is water based. If you are drier you may want to choose a richer cream, it may leave a thick "greasier" feel BUT it will eventually absorb into the skin and help to revitalize your skin from the outside.

#5. Relax and soak

There are so many products that you can enjoy on your days off, or if you are looking to have some added moisture or relaxation to your skin routine. Many of these products are used in the bath tub, such as bath bombs which soften your water and also softens your skin through oils. Another excellent bath additive is Herbal Bath from L'Moor. The water-soluble nutrients in the Moor create a soothing and purifying effect for the whole body. Take a Moor bath for a relaxing, reinvigorating bathing experience. 


Our habits will determine the condition of our skin as we age.  So remember that your choices will either leave you with dull, rough, aged looking skin OR protect your skin, allowing you to be smooth, youthful and age gracefully. 

Live well and be healthy,

Renu U Aesthetics

www.renuuaesthetics.com