What Is Your Skincare Regime?

Here at k:SPA our staff often get asked what skincare regime they find the most effective, so we thought a blog post was in order to pass on our skincare advice to our customers. We cannot stress enough that you do need to ‘listen’ to your own skin, and adapt the regime depending on how your skin looks -  if it is getting irritated, ease up on exfoliation for a bit! It’s also very important to remember that a lot of skin health comes from ‘within’, and that a healthy lifestyle, good diet and plenty of exercise are also key.

But back to our skincare regime – we always start with a 'double cleanse' this consists of washing your face twice in the morning and twice in the evening. Why do we recommend this? The first cleanse will remove make-up, oils, sweat and impurities whilst the second cleanse will actually get into the pores and clean your skin. It is worth investing in a proper cleanser that is pH balanced to your skin and can be removed with just water.   Our skin's natural pH is slightly acidic at around 5.5 so traditional soaps are far too alkaline and will end up stripping your skin of both moisture and protection. Your cleanser is one of the most important products you will purchase, if you use something too alkaline it will strip your skin leaving it open to attack from bacteria for the rest of that day!  Speak to your Skin Therapist if you have any concerns about what you are currently using or would like some advice.

We then exfoliate our skin to help it shed the dull layer of dead skin cells – there are so many options available to you depending on your skin and also how much time you have to spend on your regime.  There are scrubs to remove surface dead skin, or enzymes and AHA's which will go deeper and get into the pores, perfect for skin's who experience breakouts!  You can also use rice bran; so gentle and mild even the most sensitive skins can use it once a day as part of your personal skincare regime.  There are some fantastic products available that use natural enzymes such as pineapple and papaya and even rice to exfoliate the skin, so experiment until you find one that works for you.
We also recommend having a professional exfoliation treatment such as microdermabrasion or skin peels depending on your skin to really enhance what you are doing at home and get you the results you are looking for.  Again there are too many options too list so you would benefit from talking to the skin experts at k:SPA for their professional recommendation!

Finally, we moisturise. Our skin is actually quite good at looking after itself if left alone, but the daily process of putting on makeup, scrubbing it off and exposure to cold weather, central heating and air conditioning means it loses the vital lipids that protect the epidermal barrier. The type of moisturiser you need use will depend on how naturally oily (or not!) your skin is. We really think it is worth investing in a ’daytime’ moisturiser that has added SPF, and a slightly richer ‘night-time’ moisturiser that has plenty of vitamins and antioxidants.

By following this regime, you should notice an improvement in your skin quality and tone, but do make sure you come in and ask us for any further advice on which products are right for you!