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Look and feel your best during the holidays with a few helpful skincare suggestions.
BRANDPOINT - While this may be the most wonderful time of the year in many ways, it's not ideal for your skin. Between frigid temps, brisk wind outside and ultra-dry, overheated air inside - not to mention holiday busyness and stress - your face may not be glowing along with the season. Here are practical tips to help you care for your skin, so you can look and feel your best as you celebrate with friends and family.
1. Empower your shower
While not everyone can improve their hard water with a water softening system, it's not hard to install a showerhead filter. Especially if you have dry, itchy or sensitive skin, a showerhead filter can make a huge difference. Good showerhead filters will remove impurities such as chemicals and minerals that could be irritating your skin on a daily basis, improving how your hair and skin look and feel. You can find plenty of options available, as well as videos online showing how to install them.
2. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize
Yes, you've heard it before, but it's even more true during these challenging winter months. It may seem like an uphill battle, but if you approach moisturizing from a few different angles, you'll notice the difference.
Your environment: Moisturize the air where you spend the most time. Whether that's a whole-home humidifier or portable humidifiers in your home office or bedroom, keeping the air around you from getting too dry will pay dividends.
Your body: Skin care specialists and nutritionists alike will tell you staying hydrated on the inside helps keep your skin from getting too dried out, so this may be a great resolution to start ahead of the new year.
Fill up that water bottle and keep it handy. Don't love plain water? Flavor with a little lemon or lime or sip sparkling water throughout the day.
Illustration: Seidenperle/Pixabay
Your skin: How you moisturize your skin from the outside is crucial. Here's where quality products stand out. Maintain your holiday glow by prioritizing effective skincare during the busy season - a little self-care goes a long way. Products like Neocutis Bio Cream Firm smoothing and tightening cream includes proprietary peptides to help support collagen and elastin production, addressing signs of aging including uneven tone and texture and wrinkles. Illuminating and tightening eye creams help reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles around the eyes, crow's feet, puffiness and under-eye darkness. Miami Board-certified Dermatologist Dr. Roberta Del Campo recommends these during the holiday season, noting "holidays can be particularly challenging for your skin with all the travel and festive gatherings. To keep your skin healthy and radiant, I recommend using intensive moisturizing products that support collagen and elastin production, like the Neocutis Bio Cream Firm for an instant glow. In addition to this, I recommend using a rich illuminating eye cream that will vanish any trace of a dark circle, such as the Neocutis Lumière® Firm." You can also give your skin an additional hydration boost with an intensive hydrating serum that is oil-free and includes a deeply moisturizing formulation with multiple types of pure Sodium Hyaluronate, plus key ingredients to help promote smooth, soft and supple skin and minimize the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. These products are non-comedogenic and dermatologist tested, free of color additives and fragrances.
3. Double cleanse to remove heavy party makeup
After a fun time celebrating, you'll want to be sure that you've removed every trace of makeup from your skin before calling it a night.
Once you've gently removed all of your eye and face makeup, it's recommended to protect the delicate skin around your eyes with high-quality illuminating eye cream like the Neocutis Lumière® Firm Riche Eye Cream to help with your post-party or travel recovery.
Photo: Kinga Howard/Unsplash
4. Upgrade your pillowcase
Sleeping on a clean pillowcase can help you maintain your ideal skincare routine. Many dermatologists recommend using a silk pillowcase, because silk is less absorbent than other fabrics like cotton, so it's less likely to soak up facial products you're applying before bedtime. Some users also find it less irritating to sensitive skin that's prone to dryness and itchiness.
Be sure to wash silk pillowcases according to recommended manufacturer's instructions. You may want to consider having a few available so you can switch them out frequently to keep your skin cleaner overnight.
5. Protect from the sun - even in winter
While you may not be sunbathing when it's chilly outside, any time spent out in the sun can potentially damage your skin. Whether you're into winter sports or just going for a wintry walk, don't forget to protect your skin with sunscreen just as you would during the summertime.
Following these tips, you'll be able to keep your skin looking and feeling wonderful, so you can relax and enjoy the holiday season.
By Dedrick Asante-Muhammad & Chuck Collins
This January marks what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 95th birthday. Nearly a century after the late civil rights leader’s birth, it’s a good time to reflect on the work still to be done.
You may have lost your mother early in life or never really knew your mother. My two sons were only 17 and 20 when their mother passed at the ae of 49 from multiple sclerosis. Mother’s Day is a tough day for them and many others around the world. This day may be very difficult for you.
My mother has also passed on but I remember her as one of the hardest working persons I’ve ever known. On Sunday and often during the week she loved getting dressed up and going to church. One of the greatest enjoyments of her life was singing in a gospel quartet with my dad and another lovely couple.
Eula Hinkle Mollette was just the best mom ever. Yes, I’m prejudiced of course.
Mom helped me with my homework. She washed and ironed my clothes. She put breakfast on the table for me every morning. She had something for me to eat every day when I came home from school. She read to me when I was a child and took care of me when I was sick. During the summer we would carry water from our nearby creek to wash clothes. Typically, we caught rain water in large tubs to wash our clothes but summer months often brought dry weather. We had lunch together every day during the summer break. Usually, it was a homemade sandwich and sometimes a candy bar from Grandpa Hinkle’s grocery store. I once wanted root beer and she said, “You won’t like it.” I debated that I would but I didn’t. I was stuck with the root beer.
She never hesitated to set me straight with a peach tree limb across my back side.
If she were alive today, I would try to make up for all the things I didn’t do or didn’t consider doing. I always had good intentions for all the things I might try to do for mom and dad but they slipped from this life before I had the opportunity.
Missed opportunities happen often to most of us. We have good intentions but often we don’t have the ability to act on those intentions. I’m envious of those who are able to do a lot for their moms and dads and wish that I could have done more.
However, so often what we can do are the simplest things that mean so much. Today, I don’t want my family to do anything for me but call me or visit me occasionally. A hug and some shared times are the most meaningful to me. Some good quality time is actually the best gift we can give to mom, dad or anyone.
Our time is fleeting for us all. To be generous with a visit, conversation and sharing of life is probably the most precious gift we can give.
Mother’s Day is coming. Set aside your best gift – your time.
