We are talking about winter skin woes. I'm just going to be sharing a few tips on how to really keep your skin soft and supple over the winter. Because that winter dryness is real and I bet you've experienced it yourself.
Tip number one is my very new favorite thing! My new skincare obsession, which is double cleansing. I talked about it more in episode 136 if you want to go back and listen. Previously, I didn't really know why I should double cleanse. I kind of was like okay, just another step in my skincare routine. That's kind of annoying. But now that I have really adopted this new skincare routine, just one more step, it's not that hard. I actually find that my skincare routine is like a part of my nighttime routine, right? It's like helping me settle in and get ready for bed. Doing those steps really helps me prepare for sleeping and makes my sleep so much better. It sounds silly but I really do think it helps. I love the double cleanse process because I just feel like it so effectively cleanses my skin while at the same time really making it soft and not drying it out at all. Why should you double cleanse and what is double cleansing? If you haven't listened to Episode 136? Well, double cleansing is where you first use an oil based cleanser to remove everything that gets on your face during the day. Your makeup, your sunscreen, any pollution that your face is exposed to. It really gets in and gets way more of those impurities off your skin. Then the second cleanse actually works more effectively. Double cleansing also really revitalizes dull skin, and it helps your skincare products that you use after double cleansing to penetrate the skin more effectively. It's really good for oily and teen skin and makeup wearers. Even though I don't have oily skin I do love my makeup. I really believe that that extra oil that you're putting on before you cleanse with a bar really helps, especially during the winter with that extra dryness, and really balances the skin so you're not having dry itchy patches, which is what I used to have before I found skincare that had ingredients in it that were actually really good. Those other products I was using prior really did not moisturize my skin enough or keep it well balanced enough to keep it from having those dry itchy patches during the winter. When you're following up your double cleanse with great skincare, like anti-aging products and moisturizers, it really just helps balance the skin. Another common misconception is if you have oily skin, you don't need to moisturize because your skin is oily enough. I find this happens. Actually, I thought that when I was a teen because I had oily skin and so I wouldn't moisturize. But what I find happens is that because the skin is actually a little bit dry after washing the skin produces extra oil. If you have oily skin you definitely need to be moisturizing with a light moisturizer after you cleanse because otherwise your skin is going to overproduce oil and make your skin even oilier and have more acne. That's a really important tip that I share when I talk with people about their skincare. I have been loving the new Crunchi I Am The Balm. It is so awesome. Like I cannot tell you how much I love this new double cleanse process. I take about a couple teaspoons of the I Am The Balm and I put it all over my face including my eyes. It does not make my eyes sting at all. I put the I Am The Balm everywhere, I massage it all in my face. It gets all that extra makeup off. Oh my gosh, it's so good at getting makeup off. Even the heaviest eyeliner and brow pencils. It is so good. I put that all over my face. Then I get my Crunchi charcoal facial bar wet, and I lather that up and put that all over the I Am The Balm. If you don't want to do that you can just take off I Am The Balm with a washcloth. But I prefer not to use a washcloth on my face because I feel like it can get too harsh. That's my second step. I use the charcoal facial bar then I follow up with my anti-aging skincare which is of course the Goldenlight facial serum, then the Powerlight eye cream. For evening I use the Nightlight nighttime moisturizer. If you’re ready to try Crunchi go to bit.ly/tft10OFF for $10 off your first order!
Pay attention to the ingredients in your products, they could be making your skin more dry. I found this to definitely be the case. I switched out to toxin-free and safe skincare and my skin is so much better. In the winter my face definitely had itchiness and dry patches. It just was not happy. Then because it was extra dry, I would have breakouts. I cannot stress to you how important it is to switch out your skincare products. One ingredient that you really should look out for is Methylisothiazolinone. Now say that fast three times, Methylisothiazolinone. It's also called EMI. The reason why EMI is not good in your skincare is because it can irritate your skin. In 2013 the American Contact Dermatitis Society named it was the contact allergen of the year. It's also related to organ system toxicity and neurotoxicity and it may impact the development and function of organ systems and central and peripheral nervous systems. It's just not good so you definitely want to look out for Methylisothiazolinone in your products. I know people that struggle with eczema on their hands and I have a friend who switched out her hand soap and it did not have EMI in it anymore. Her hands got so much better because that EMI in that soap was making her eczema worse. Other ingredients that you want to look out for are formaldehyde releasing preservatives. These are often on ingredient lists as DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, and quaternium-15. We want to look out for something like the DMDM on the ingredient label or anything that says quat on it. I will put these in the show notes because I mean who wants to remember these long names, but the reason why you want to watch out for these is because they are formaldehyde releasing preservatives. Formaldehyde is not good for us. You also want to look out for PEGs and phenoxyethanol. I recently was comparing the I Am the Balm ingredients to another sort of balmy cleansing product that's very popular. What I found on that label was PEGs and PEGs are not good. They say PEG-6 or PEG-8 or PEG-60 on an ingredient label. PEGs are made through the process of ethoxylation. In that process carcinogenic ethylene oxide reacts with other ingredients. The reason why they do this process is because it makes ingredients less harsh on the skin. Unfortunately, through that process 1-4 dioxane is created and can be left behind within that product. Not good. Dioxane is not good for us. Another ingredient that you want to look out for is phenoxyethanol. It's a very controversial ingredient. Many clean, beauty brands still use it. But there really are safer ways to preserve products. You don't have to use phenoxyethanol, but you definitely do want some sort of preservative in your product. If your ingredient label does not have any preservatives, that's a concern as well because it probably means that the company is probably lying about what's in their ingredients. There are safe preservatives out there. That's why I love Crunchi because they found unique safe preservatives to use within their products. The reason why phenoxyethanol is not good is because it's a member of the glycol ether family. It is a product of the reaction of corrosive phenol with carcinogenic ethylene oxide and like the PEGs, it may contain residue amounts of both the glycol ethers and the ethylene oxide. Also, the American Society of Contact Dermatitis lists phenoxyethanol as one of its core allergens, even in concentrations as low as 1%. You do want to avoid phenoxyethanol. Of course other ingredients to watch out for are fragrances. Then as a sustainability aspect, you do really think about how your products are packaged. A lot of cleansers are packaged in plastic, and those can be leaching BPA into your product. Crunchi uses glass packaging as much as possible. They even are plastic positive, meaning that they take out more plastic from the environment than they put in. For example, the glass container of I Am The Balm has a plastic lid. Honestly, there's no real way to get around that at this point in time with packaging. There just isn't another sort of lid to have for glass that's not plastic. But Crunchi works with an organization that actually goes and collects plastic out of the ocean. Even though Crunchi is putting a little bit of plastic into their products, there are zero products within their product line that are primarily packaged in plastic, which we're very proud of as a part of Crunchi. They're also working with this organization to take out more plastic than they put out there. Then the facial bars are packaged in recycled paper that you also can recycle and when that bar is gone. The most sustainable cleanser you can find is a bar. So that is tip number two is to just pay attention to the ingredients that you're using. Know that harsh ingredients can really make your dry skin during the winter so much worse. If you switch to a toxin-free routine, and again, I'm happy to help you with that, then you will find that your skin will be so much more moisturized, happy, and just look and feel so much better.
Exfoliate. I hinted about this earlier and I do this two to three times a week. The way that my skin feels afterwards is absolutely just so soft. It's like a baby's bottom. I absolutely love it. I don't do it every single day because it's not necessarily recommended to do it every day. I know some people do it every day and they find great results. But personally, I do it only a couple times a week because I guess I'm a little bit lazy, you know? It's just one more thing to add to that routine. I use I Am The Polished by Crunchi for my skincare routine. Yes, I also absolutely love it just like I Am The Balm. The great thing about exfoliating as well is that the products that you use after, like your anti-aging products, it helps them work even better. If you're using a serum, you're going to find that it penetrates the skin even better after you have exfoliated. Those pores are open and they're ready to take in that serum so that it can do all the magic that it does. What I love about I Am Polished is that it uses a safe physical exfoliant that uses pumice to get off those top layers of your skin and make sure that there's no dry skin and just cleans out all those pores. Then it also has a safe chemical exfoliant component as well. It gently resurfaces and refines the texture of your skin to really minimize, this is what I love because I have large pores, it really minimizes the appearance of your pores, your fine lines and your wrinkles. If you leave it on for like five minutes, it's like a treatment mask. It's just awesome.
As I said earlier, if you're ready to switch to Crunchi you want to try the I Am The Balm and the I Am Polished as part of your skincare routine, you can email me to get personalized recommendations at megan@detox.design or you can go and shop yourself right now by just going to bit.ly/TFT10OFF. That will get you $10 off orders of $50 as a new client, and then I can follow up with you and see how you're doing and loving your products and all the things.
Thank you so much for listening today. The light within me honors and sees the light within you. Namaste.
