E80 Winter Skin Tips and Setting Intentions for 2023

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast Emilie here better known as the meta fairy and welcome and cheers to 2023! It has been a really lovely holiday season. I hope you guys had a good time and you had a chance to be with your families. I was actually away on a trip and I went hiking in the southwest. So I went to Arizona, I went to New Mexico. It was a really nice break from the wintry season that we have here up in Canada. We did get a lot of up here apparently we got some heavy duty snow but also some heavy duty rain. So when I came back, it was freezing rain and it was like okay, well welcome back to your hometown. So that was great. So I hope you guys had a really good time. I wanted to start off the year with a short and sweet episode on winter skincare tips. I know we talk a lot about the skin here but this is just going to be a really short and sweet episode to give you the best tricks that you can utilize when it’s cold and when it’s wintry. And when you see that your skin needs a little bit of TLC, because that’s what’s that’s the important thing that happens. That I’ve noticed on a lot of people is that during the holiday seasons, or during busy times of the year we tend to get off track our regular routines and that’s totally normal.  I’ll take myself as an example. I went away on my trip I had minimal skincare with me I had you know sunscreen, serum moisturizer and that’s pretty much it. But I did notice that my skin you know my skin is not easy. I do have an acne prone skin and as I get older, it tends to get somewhat easily dehydrated so I gotta balance it out, but I have to be careful not to clog it. So, you know, it’s a cocktail of, you know, I have to be careful with my skin.

So I noticed during my trip even though I was eating you know super well trying to eat super well because I’m still on a trip so I’m still having fun, but it’s easy to get off track. And it’s easy to notice a huge difference when you have a consistent routine when you have a consistent way of living. How when you get off track and whether you get off track for a specific purpose like a trip or it just because life is busy and you just get off track. He you can tell the difference in your skin when that happens. So that’s one of my biggest for the year. You know, we talked about the new year and all that jazz and for me, I think one thing that I’m going to stick to is nothing changes if nothing changes. Okay? And I say this to our clients all the time. If you expect really big and great and grand results with your skin. There are some things that are going to have to change you can’t expect your skin to magically transform itself. After all the years of damage that you’ve you’ve received, you know as the UV rays hit your skin and the way that you live and you know, scarring from past acne and all that jazz. It’s hard to fix a skin in a very little time if nothing changes. So and I think that’s a model that I’m going to use in a lot of things in life. Nothing changes if nothing changes, so remember that if you want to get into a new fitness journey, go for it. You have to change what you’re doing. You can’t expect things to just magically appear if you don’t do anything about it.

So that brings me back to my trip and noticing that my skin was not doing super well. Because obviously with the air traveling, it’s super dehydrated, and the inflammation oh my god, the inflammation is a real deal when you travel. There is so much inflammation internally that can happen because first and foremost, especially when you do air traveling. It sucks the life out of your skin so it’s easy for the skin to feel dehydrated to feel dry and to feel a little bit more irritated than usual. So that’s one thing. And then you’re obviously on holidays so you’re not eating super well. You’re you know you’re drinking, you’re having fun. You’re probably you’re probably not doing your routine like you should be doing. So inflammation guys is a real thing. So that’s what I noticed on my trip. I need to always make sure that the inflammation inflammation levels within my skin is really really low. So this brings me to winter skincare. I know we did a little rerouting with new year model but it brings me into the winter skincare tips. So as the new year comes along, most of you probably live in a climate that is a little bit more harsh during the winter months. So what we’re going to do, I’m going to give you some tips so that you can take care of your skin better during the colder winter months. I’ll start with the inflammation levels because I do feel that during this time of year inflammation levels are a lot higher than the summer months and the reason behind that is because the weather is so harsh and drying that obviously it’s going to influence your moisture barrier. Your moisture barrier is going to be under attack quote unquote. And you have to do everything to make sure that the moisture barrier is nice, healthy and hydrated. That’s the base of a healthy skin when your moisture barrier is not healthy. And it’s unbalanced and it’s irritated and it’s dry. The rest of your skin is going to be totally out of whack so you got to make sure to moisture rise a lot of people switch to a heavier moisturizer during the winter months because they need that extra cocooning which is part of the first tip here. Make sure that you have a hydrating but heavy enough moisturizer for your skin type to make sure that your moisture barrier doesn’t get unbalanced. That’s tip number one.

Another thing that you’re going to do is that you are not going to stop exfoliating. There is no point to hydrate skin cells that are dead and dry. So that’s why you need an exfoliation step in your routine so that you can remove that dead and dry skin cell buildup so that you can hydrate. A nice baby fresh cell that is coming up to the surface after you’ve exfoliate it. And that baby cell can be nicely moisturize so it’s important to always have somewhat of a regular exfoliating routine because it’s easy in the winter much to say. Or to think that oh it’s the winter. I’m not supposed to exfoliate, you’re always supposed to exfoliate. You can use a different type of exfoliator you don’t have to be as abrasive as you would be in the summer months. You can change the type of exfoliation that you use. You can use a chemical instead of a physical if that works better for your skin type. Or you can just slack off the times of the week that you do exfoliate. I think a good point would be two to three times a week. That’s a good balance to have. As soon as I got back from my trip I didn’t have that’s a stupid thing that I did. I forgot to bring an exfoliator with me so I could tell that my skin was really first of all it was dehydrated because of the desert and because of all the traveling but when I got home I was like okay, I need an express mini facial because this is crusty, like I could see the dead skin cell flakiness that was all around my face. And I was like, oh, gotta remove that because there’s again, there’s no point trying to hydrate skin cells that are dead and dry. So that’s tip number two, make sure that you are always having somewhat of an exfoliating routine in your winter skincare. Switch your type if your skin is more sensitive in the winter, but make sure that you still do because there’s no point in moisturizing, dead dry skin cell buildup, it’s not going to bring you the benefit of exfoliation when you don’t exfoliate.

Now tip number three is a pretty simple one. Make sure that you’re masking. Masking is especially cream masks. Masking is a really really fast way of giving your skin an extra boost in moisture or in nourishment. So again, the number one problem in the winter especially if you live up north in Canada, it is easy to have a dehydrated and inflamed skin because the weather is so harsh on the skin. So having somewhat of a masking routine that you can do every time you exfoliate. So once you remove that dead and dry skin cell build up, boom, do a quick mask a 10 minute mask that’s going to bring somewhat of an occlusive action so it’s gonna seal all the good stuff in your skin while you’re putting on and letting the mask act on your skin. So make sure that you have a nice green one. I can recommend you one. In the Guinot line we have the Essential Comfort Mask it is to die for it makes the skin so comfortable but also so radiant, and it doesn’t dry your skin out it’s a nice heavy clay mask but a clay mask that does not dry. So I’m gonna put the link below because it is a great mask to utilize in the wintertime. I love doing it on my clients. They love the feeling of the mask and the skin is so beautiful after. So make sure that you have a masking routine because that’s really really important to make sure that you’re getting extra treatment to your skin.

Now treatment wise when you go see an esthetician regularly I like to use LED. So funny thing LED. You’ve heard me talk about this many many times but it’s a light, right? And a light is energy for your skin cells. So that light is going to trigger a response from your skin cells. So when it comes to inflammation and dryness, I love to utilize led therapy because it will send the message to your skin cells to repair what’s going on in your deep layers within the skin. It’s going to lower the inflammation levels it’s going to increase circulation, it’s going to bring more oxygen and nutrients to your skin cells that are alive and need an extra boost in order to work efficiently. So one of the best treatments that I love to give during the winter times is an LED infusion with a collagen mask or a mask that that will be so good for your skin that you’re going to leave and you’re going to look like an amazing glowing light bulb basically. So utilize led therapy if you have an esthetician ask for LED therapy if you don’t feel free to pop over into give us a shout because LED is one of our favorite technologies to use on the skin. little sidenote, even if I was on holidays, I do like to still keep my learning up to date and I learned a little bit more about light therapies and the difference between the different wavelengths. It’s all things that are already new. But it’s nice to have a refresher because it’s easy to kind of, you know, be in the same routine and keep in your little routine like I said so. So I did take a few courses on on light therapies and it was really interesting but yes, light is a really really nice way of treating the skin without being abrasive especially when we talk about led we’re not talking about IPL and lasers because in that situation we are injuring the scan so that it can repair itself. But LED is the best non invasive light that you can use and it is really really recommended when we are in colder weather or when we are in the seasons where there’s a lot of inflammation that can occur. Within the skin layers.

So let’s recap. Tip number one, make sure that you’re using a heavier moisturizer super important. Tip number two, make sure that you’re exfoliating you want to keep that routine of exfoliation somewhat present even if it’s the winter months. You want to make sure that you’re still doing it so that you can get the full benefits of the exfoliation on the skin. And then you want to make sure that you have a somewhat of a masking routine. Every time that you exfoliate. If you want to make it even better, even more efficient within the skin. Make sure that you have a nice cream mask that can nourish your skin and that can bring back the radiance and the life in your skin cells. Because it is the winter and I’m sorry but the winter time is so harsh on the skin. We need the best tips to make sure that our skin doesn’t die on us. And if you need a little bit of professional help, you’re gonna go see your esthetician and you’re gonna book an LED therapy infusion treatment. All right. So those are the tips that I have for you for for the winter. There. I mean, I’ve got a lot more than that, but these are the general tips that I can give you that can that will definitely help your skin.

If we get into more specific tips concerning people that do have acne breakouts especially inflamed acne, I am one of those people so hello to you. But one of the tips that I like to use when it comes to inflammation. Because you know when we have inflamed acne, it’s not great. You can’t play with it. You’re going to spread the inflammation underneath. So you have to do everything in your capacity, your capable hands to make sure that you lower inflammation levels as much as possible. So what I like to do is to actually use ice cubes. Ice cubes are a really quick and efficient way of lowering inflammation levels. So what I’ll do is that I will take an ice cube I’ll put it in a wet paper towel, and I’ll just slightly kind of rub it on the areas where I do have inflamed acne and I do that for about 10 minutes. And I do that every night until the inflammation is reduced significantly. So that’s when you have a fresh blemish that is coming up. And you see that it’s going to be either cystic or anything with inflammation, do the IceCube trick. It’s really, really, really efficient on the skin. And if you have an at home led mask, I would recommend that you do that as well to send the message to your skin cells to repair the skin as much as possible and to flush the inflammation.

So that would be a specific tip on people that have more acne in the winter months because their skin is drier. And if you don’t have an you know what happens is when you have a skin that is prone to acne in that when you don’t exfoliate, because you’re scared of irritating it. You’re actually building up a dead skin cells a dead skin cell Bill build up at the top of the surface of the skin and that will block the sebum from coming out. So imagine a slide with kids that are sliding down the slide but you don’t have any water on the slide or you don’t have anything to bring the kids down. So every time there’s a kid that goes down, he’s getting stuck and that’s what’s going on with the pore lining. And with the sebum. It’s going in, but it’s not coming out because the pore is blocked. There’s no oxygen that’s penetrating.

Okay, so it’s important to exfoliate the skin so so so important to exfoliate the skin to make sure that you do have oxygen that gets into that lining and that you are reducing the chances of getting a breakout because we all know when there’s no oxygen that see acne bacteria is just going to thrive in there and that’s when you get inflammation so use the ice cube trick if you’re that specific person that does get breakouts with that are more inflamed, especially in the winter months when your skin gets drier. So hopefully this helped you out and remember 2023 Nothing changes if nothing changes. All right.

So if you are someone who wants to get into skincare, do it, but do it the right way. Go see a professional. Come and see us book a consultation. We’ll be happy to talk with you if you have if you want to have a longer conversation, send us an email hello@themetaesthetique.com Send us a DM on social media @metaesthetique we’ll be happy to answer there as well. And you know same with any other areas that you want to get better at if you want to have a better nutrition lifestyle or if you want to have a better gym lifestyle or if you want to get into a sport. You know nothing changes if nothing changes so go for it and I encourage you to do what you want to do in 2023 All right, so hopefully you guys are doing super well and we will catch you on the next episode.