Natural Skin Care Products, the importance of purity and freshness

In our pursuit of natural beauty and natural skincare have we overlooked the simple and natural skin care products and practices that our Grandparents used? We so often slavishly follow those glamorous advertisements promising ever more miraculous solutions, but despite decades of research and billions of pounds of funding worldwide, the cosmetics industry has still not discovered that panacea of eternal youth. The best that most of the expensive anti-aging creams can do is smooth over wrinkles or plump up the skin and even then they are often just giving new names to old products.

We know so much about how our skin works but we still ignore its basic needs. We know that our skin ages depend partly on genes and partly on lifestyle. The cosmetics industry and their billions concentrate on gene technology and trying to find ways of interfering with their natural process. Through identification of the DNA involved with skin aging, researchers are trying to create drugs and creams which can stimulate some genes whilst suppressing others in the hope that this will restore youthful looks. Does this sound like a dangerous game? Why are we not concentrating on the lifestyle issues and benefiting from the knowledge and natural cosmetics that nature has provided us with?

Skin is a miraculous living organism whose condition and properties depend on temperature, hydration and the environment. We know that skin gradually over time loses its ability to retain water and without hydration the skin can develop those fine wrinkle lines. The solution is to hydrate our skin in two ways. Firstly we need to drink plenty of water to hydrate and keep those skin cells plump and elastic. Secondly we need to use an effective moisturiser that helps prevent the skin from drying out. We also know that different skin types have differing abilities to absorb active ingredients.

Three simple and practical first steps to achieving skin purity and freshness are of course the right cleaning, occasional exfoliation and eating a balanced diet of fresh foods. Cleaning not only removes dirt and pollutants but also when you use warm water (not too hot), opens the pores of the skin. When kept moist, the skin becomes better able to absorb the beneficial vitamins within moisturising creams and to hold the moisture within the skin's pores. (If the water is too hot it can accelerate skin aging). Two tips are not to spend too long in the bath or under the shower especially if you live in an area of relatively high chlorination in the tap water.
You can find some more helpful tips over at 3 Steps to Natural Skin Care.

Now the question of what to put back onto our skin. This is an important decision because up to 60% of what we apply to our skin will be absorbed into our body? That means that not only is our body absorbing the good ingredients, but it is also absorbing the bad ones that cosmetics companies use as preservatives and additives. Even if we choose ranges that are marketed as 'natural' they can contain an alarming list of synthetic and potentially harmful ingredients. It is therefore important that we read labels. If the ingredient list reads like a telephone directory and you have no idea what all those long names mean, the chances are that you don't want them in your body. A large number of high street products contain potentially harmful chemicals, including carcinogens and pesticides.

Moreover the so called fragrances that many companies use are no more than a cocktail of chemicals, most of which are not identified on the label and many of which have been scientifically linked with causes of allergies and nervous system toxicity, reproductive problems and cancer. And the biggest companies are the biggest offenders. It is a scary statistic that on average we apply over 100 unique chemical ingredients on the skin daily, adding up to some 2kg of synthetic chemicals into our skin every year. This cannot be good.

The answer as my heading suggests is to adopt the fresh and pure route when buying our moisturizing creams. Fresh means natural and organic ingredients and ideally products that were freshly made and have not hung around for months.

To look after our body and our skincare needs we should ensure that we are only using ingredients that are organic and hypoallergenic. If it doesn't say it's organic on the product it will not be organic and that means that you are chancing the danger of putting residues of pesticides and fertilizers into your skin. Not to mention the still unknown dangers from genetically modified (GM) products. Organically grown products generally contain more beneficial minerals than those grown by non-organic methods.

A good moisturiser should contain an effective barrier cream, vitamins such as A, C and E which are moisturizing, soothing and healing to the skin and if a fragrance is required, ensure that it is a beneficial organic essential oil. These are the products that our Grandparents used and which were effective for them. They did not contain the wonder ingredients of today's all promising products and they did not contain all the preservatives and chemicals that are necessary for the prolonged shelf life of today's high street brands. Finally we should beware of too long a list of ingredients even if they all look natural and organic. Often an ingredient alone can be beneficial, but when combined with another equally beneficial ingredient, the result can combine into something which can be harmful. Simplicity is best.

Freshness and purity can only come from a fresh product that is not full of chemicals and preservatives. Thankfully there are now some small companies, producing all natural skin care products in small batches to order. If you are interested in learning more this article is interesting at 3 Steps to Natural Skin Care.