Beautiful radiant skin makes you appear younger and more vital. We quickly associate a dull gray skin with illness and decay. How do we keep the skin in optimal condition and ensure that we still look youthful at the age of forty? About daily care, healthy nutrition and matters that can have a negative effect on the condition of your skin.
Daily care
For daily care, washing with water and possibly a face wash and cleansing in the evening with a cleansing lotion is sufficient. Do not use soap to wash your face. This dries out your skin too much. It is especially important to prevent dehydration, especially for older skin. The skin around the eyes is most sensitive to dehydration. Use a good day and night cream every day. This protects your face against weather influences and makeup. If you have oily skin, do not use a night cream but cleanse your skin thoroughly in the evening with a skin lotion.
Opening the pores
Make-up or oily skin can clog the pores, resulting in acne and other forms of skin irritation. You can prevent this by steaming regularly. You then sit over a bowl of hot water for ten minutes with a towel over your head. Preferably before you go to bed so that the skin can rest all night. Do not cover the skin with a night cream afterwards, but keep it clean.
Food for healthy skin
- Drink at least one and a half liters of water every day.
- Eat one of these products every day: sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, nuts, legumes and whole grain products. This is especially important for acne, eczema complaints and stretch marks. These skin complaints may indicate a zinc deficiency, which is contained in the above-mentioned products.
- Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Fruit and vegetables contain antioxidants and these prevent the aging of the skin. Grapes, green tea, citrus fruits, plums, tomatoes and red peppers are examples of foods that contain many antioxidants.
- If you have dry skin, make sure that you regularly consume oily fish in addition to fruit and vegetables. This prevents the skin from drying out and prevents inflammation.
Source: AdinaVoicu, Pixabay
The skin around the eyes
The skin here is thinner than elsewhere on the face. The skin often dries out more easily here, resulting in wrinkles. If you suffer from drier skin around the eyes, it is a good idea to moisten a cotton ball with baby oil and treat the skin around the eyes with it every other day.
Do not
- You probably hear it often enough, but don’t smoke. Smoking has a bad effect on the skin. Blood circulation decreases and the elasticity of the skin decreases. This causes a smoker’s skin to age faster.
- Too much sunbathing. Too much sunbathing also reduces the elasticity of the skin and therefore causes skin aging. Moreover, a walk in the sun gives you a much nicer complexion than baking in the sun.
- Consuming too much chocolate, fried food and sugar. These unhealthy substances also have a bad influence on the elasticity of your skin. This influence is smaller than that of smoking and too much sun.
- Look out for heating in winter and air conditioning in summer. If you do not ventilate enough and the air is not humidified enough, a dry indoor climate is created, which is bad for the skin. If you work in a room with a poor indoor climate, go for a walk during the afternoon so that your skin comes into contact with healthier air.