The Importance of Skin Cleansing: Why and How
Achieving healthy and radiant skin is a shared desire, yet often, a crucial step in our skincare routine is overlooked – proper cleansing. In this article, we will delve into the significance of natural skin cleansing and how it contributes to maintaining the health of your skin.
Why should we cleanse our skin?
5 reasons to include this step in your routine:
- Removal of Impurities: Our skin is consistently exposed to environmental pollutants, dust, sweat and residues from beauty products. Regular cleansing helps eliminate these impurities, preventing them from accumulating in pores, reducing the risk of pore blockage, acne and other skin issues.
- Prevention of Premature Aging: Daily exposure to external factors like sunlight and pollution can accelerate skin aging. Skin cleansing helps eliminate free radicals that cause cellular damage, slowing down the aging process and keeping the skin looking youthful.
- Stimulation of Cell Renewal: Skin cleansing stimulates cell renewal by removing dead cells from the skin's surface, allowing new and healthy cells to emerge. This results in smoother and brighter skin.
- Enhancement of Skincare Product Absorption: By cleansing the skin, we remove impurities and any barriers that may hinder the effective absorption of skincare products such as moisturizers and serums. This ensures that these products penetrate deeper into the skin, delivering better results. Thus, cleansing is a fundamental step in preparing the skin.
- Prevention of Skin Issues: Proper skin cleansing is essential for preventing skin problems like acne, pimples, or blackheads. By keeping pores clean, we reduce the likelihood of inflammation and skin infections. Therefore, skin cleansing should not be seen as a burdensome task in our routine but as an investment in the health and longevity of our skin.
Now that we understand the importance, let's explore how to incorporate cleansing into our daily routine.
Customizing Your Cleansing Routine: Where to Begin?
A cleansing routine, like any other, should be tailored to your skin's characteristics and your lifestyle. The key is consistency; cleansing must be done consistently. Incorporate daily cleansing into your morning and evening routines, and preferably everytime you exercising or shower. If possible or if your skin is in need, perform a deep cleanse 2-3 times a week or schedule a professional skin cleansing.
However, moderation is crucial. Proper cleansing does not mean overwashing or using harsh products. It's essential to moderate and tailor cleansing products and processes to your skin type, ensuring you do not strip away natural hydration or disrupt its balance.
Daily Cleansing
Cleanse your face twice a day – in the morning and at night – as part of your skincare routine (If you haven't established a cleansing routine yet, a friend once advised me to add it to my brushing teeth routine to make it easier when feeling lazy).
Morning cleansing removes excess oil and toxins expelled overnight, preparing the skin for essential daytime treatments. Evening cleansing removes makeup or other product residues and accumulated impurities, allowing the skin to breathe and regenerate during sleep.
Recommended Products for Daily Cleansing:
- Earth ⚘ Soap
- Fire ⚘ Soap
- Vegan Cleansing Oil
- LUR Organic Handmade Soaps
- GUEISHA Facial Soap
- DETOX Soap
What is the right product?
You will find a wide variety of cleaning products for daily use, from neutral soaps, gels, milks, micellar waters, balms or oils, to suit each person's needs and taste.
To choose the ideal product for you, you need to understand whether you prefer cleansing with water or not and whether your skin can tolerate the aggression of water or whether it may cause more discomfort or irritation (in case of mature skin with dryness, irritated skin or inflamed), it is also important to take into account whether you use makeup, so you can choose a product capable of removing it. ⚠️ PLEASE ALWAYS REMOVE MAKEUP
Soaps, gels and foams: They must normally be applied and removed with water. Normally, combination or oily skin tends to prefer this option because it gives the skin a greater feeling of cleanliness. As water alters the skin's pH, these cleanses are not ideal for very dry, sensitive, irritated, inflamed skin.
Milks, oils and cleansing balms: These products may or may not be removed with water. They are normally softer and therefore preferred by drier or more mature skin and especially milk cleansers by those who wear makeup. Oils and balms are the best options for mature or sensitized skin because they can dissolve impurities and makeup without the need for rubbing, minimizing aggression.
EXTRA TIP
Deep Cleansing
Perform a deeper cleanse with exfoliation, masks or a combination of both at least once a week if possible, increasing the frequency for oilier skin with more impurities. This procedure contributes not only to better skin texture and radiance but is vital for maintaining balanced and healthy skin.
Overall, it aids in removing dead cells from the skin's surface, improving texture and stimulating the natural process of cellular renewal. It can unclog pores more deeply, preventing the appearance of blackheads or whiteheads due to fat accumulation.
However, care must be taken in choosing products suitable for your skin condition. Exfoliation is not recommended for very sensitive, irritated or inflamed skin. In such cases, it is necessary to calm and balance the skin first.For those needing purification, a gentle clay mask is recommended. In cases of acne inflammation, where exfoliation might spread the infection, a purifying mask is a better choice to decongest the skin. For mature skin, opt for milder exfoliants or masks formulated for mature skin.