Why Professionally Recommended Skincare Means You Level Up
With a plethora of choices out there, your skin (and you) need to be choosy. It’s like buying fashion blind, not trying on or at least seeing an item of clothing, and then disaster when it arrives. While with style, a swap means a size change, with skincare it means not addressing your face’s condition, a specific issue or attacking those goals. In other words, the health of your skin suffers. That’s where professional advice from an expert makes all the difference.
Guided Tour: Why Expert Skin Advice Matters
Think of a professional skincare therapist or aesthetic medical doctor as someone who gets to know your skin over time. They treat your skin and its concerns appointment after appointment, carefully understanding its needs, condition and challenges. In other words, they’re your skin guru and your guide. With this knowledge, they’re able to advise you on professional products that’ll make a difference to your skin’s health, helping you see the results you’re after. So, when they suggest a serum or night cream with a specific ingredient, they aren’t just guessing. It’s sage advice. Some tried-and-tested ingredients come up often. There’s good reason for that, as these skin-boosting elements work hard to help with complexion perfection.
Ready For Retinol? It Really IS Revolutionary
Many things have been said about retinol – and it’s deserved of the praise. However, if you’re going to start using it as part of your skincare routine, you need to do so under the guidance of a professional. While retinol is amazing for the skin, it’s often underutilised or misused. This Vitamin A derivative is a powerhouse, targeting most of the top skin concerns. It helps renew and brighten skin tone, reduce acne and boost collagen production. It also acts as an antioxidant to help address free radical damage, which leads to visible signs of ageing. It’s about getting the balance right – that’s why you need a pro to help with an equally pro product. The best time to use retinol depends on your specific skin condition, and this ingredient needs to be integrated slowly and gently. Need a real retinol boost? Lamelle Correctives RA Advance Cream is for skin struggling with ageing, sun damage, uneven texture and scarring thanks to acne.
Vitamin C For Your Skin: The Wonder Shot
For a while now, vitamin C – especially in serums – has become an instant glow-up. While perhaps not as gratifying as make-up, this “good for skin” ingredient is a formidable antioxidant. Just like it does wonderful things in the body when your immunity is low, it works in the skin to slow the rate of free-radical damage from environmental stress such as the sun, pollution and oxygen. When applied via a serum for instance, Vitamin C helps reduce the look of dark marks and sun damage. It also works on revving up collagen production and reducing inflammation. Find it in SkinCeuticals Serum 10, which is also suitable for delicate and sensitive skin types.
Growth Factors For Repair: Why Your Skin Needs More
Perhaps the name confuses you, but this ingredient in skincare essentially works to support the repair of damaged skin. Natural substances, they aren’t to be muddled with growth hormones, they encourage the production of youth boosting collagen and elastin. These two are also critical for skin repair. So add growth factors into a product and you’re basically speeding up healing. This is a very good thing if you want to de-age skin and specifically target issues like loss of volume and firmness. Ditto lines and wrinkles. In other words, you need quite a concentrated, targeted treatment product. Look to Endocare Tensage Concentrate for revitalisation through growth factors and other ingredients like peptides in the formulation.
Resurface With Glycolic Acid: Clear Skin Days Ahead
This ingredient may be familiar and with good reason. Glycolic Acid is a natural exfoliant from sugarcane, and while you may not use it as a mechanical scrub (it’s present in chemical exfoliants), it’s very popular in sloughing skin to reveal a beautiful glow underneath. By simply removing the top layer of dead skin cells, that fresh “baby” skin rids your complexion of its dullness. It also helps to unclog pores, meaning it can help with oil control and less congestion on the skin. For mature skins, reach for Neostrata High Potency Cream 20 aha, as it’s dosed with not only glycolic acid but other alpha and poly hydroxy acids to increase the skin's collagen levels and repair sun damage. It also works on restoring the skin's support structure. Keep in mind that it should be used on skin that is accustomed to alpha hydroxy acids – that’s why working in conjunction with your skin guru to recommend professional skincare is a must.