E87 Skin changes between Winter and Spring, and how to tackle them!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast Emilie here as usual, better known as the meta fairy. Today we are talking about how your skin can change from winter to spring and how you can navigate those changes. So yes, we are officially in the spring season, depending where you are in the world. You might not have as many extreme seasonal changes but up in Canada, we do. Most of the time, I would say it’s winter and we have a very short summer. But no, that’s just me complaining because I’m Canadian, about the weather, but the spring season is here. It’s feeling a little bit warmer, we have the less and less snow. It’s feeling really great. You can feel the warmth of the sun as well when you go outside even through your windows.

Which by the way, if you’ve listened to my past podcast episode, make sure that you get efficient amounts of sunlight in the morning because it actually does activate your dopamine levels in your brain. And I’m not saying to just lay in front of the window for hours. This is according to a neuroscientist that I listened to. His name is Huberman. It’s very interesting. He talks about how sunlight affects the dopamine levels of your brain and there’s a lot clinical study backups on this and yeah, so when it’s sunny outside, you can just go out for 10 minutes, if it’s really sunny and just look at the sun (obviously blink!) but this will actually activate dopamine levels in your brain. It’ll get you set up for the day, and it’s just a good mind booster.

So anyways, I’m talking about this now because I’m sitting recording the podcast and the sun is just hitting me so I just thought I would mention it but anyways get as much sunlight as you can. Obviously with sun protection. It’s really good for your mental health.

So spring, a lot of people so what happens is obviously when you go from winter to spring, the skin is going to act a little bit differently than when it is the winter. Because in the wintertime, especially if you live up in Canada or in places that we do have different seasonal changes! The thing that happens is that in the winter, the air is really really dry and the air will automatically try to pull out moisture from our skin which will lead to the moisture barrier disruption. The moisture barrier wants to protect the skin and wants to keep the moisture inside but because of the environmental triggers of this dry air trying to pull out as much moisture from your skin as possible, the moisture barrier is going to have a little bit of a harder time if you’re not doing the right things at home to keep it to keep the moisture inside your skin. So obviously your skin is going to be a little bit more dehydrated, more dry, you’re going to be more sensitive. You might see more fine lines because when your skin’s in dehydration, which you know it happens a lot in the wintertime. Your surface wrinkles are going to look more preeminent like they’re going to look more obvious in the wintertime. So example for your hands: you know how when you wash your hands in the winter all the time and you put that hand sanitizer, you see how they look when they’re always dry versus a nice moisture to summer hand. Very different look right so the wrinkles the surface wrinkles, the fine lines are going to show up more when your skin’s dehydrated so these are just some of the few little things that can happen in the winter some of the main concerns that can happen, but then as you transition into the spring, there’s a few things that will happen.

One of them will be that your moisture barrier is going to produce more oil because the temperature rises, right, so some people will probably feel a little bit more oily than usual. That could be a little bit more obvious maybe from spring to summer, but for some people it’s from winter to spring. So it just depends on your skin type. Again, keep in mind all the advice that I’m giving in these podcasts, it’s general information. Your skin type is very unique. Your skin conditions are very unique your skin, you know you could have different skin conditions such as rosacea, hyperpigmentation, excema, things like that. So keep in mind these may not apply to you, they may as well so you just have to make sure you check in with your skin professional. So if you’re a client of mine, just send me a message or you already know this information. So like I was saying, most people’s moisture barrier activity the oil activity is going to increase when the warmer weather comes. So one thing that you can do is that you can switch out your cleanser. Switching out your cleanser is such a common thing guys in the wintertime you want to use something that’s more gentle that’s not necessarily going to foam up because you don’t want to dehydrate the skin more right. But in this case because your moisture barrier is going to produce more oils, it’s okay to use something that’s going to be a little bit more on the lathering side or even just a gel cleanser because it will be better at cutting through the oil of your skin because you will produce more. So keep that in mind your skin’s gonna produce a lot more oil as the temperature rises.

Now the thing that you have to keep in mind, a lot of people cut back on exfoliation in the wintertime because they don’t want to address the skin too much because some people will be more sensitive because of the moisture barrier trying to protect itself more from the dry air etc. So that’s okay but something that you can do is to increase your exfoliation like I said in the past as the summer rolls around as the sun exposition is increasing in the in the warmer months so spring summer, we get more daylight exposure, right so your skin’s gonna naturally produce more dead skin cell build up. So it’s normal that in the spring summertime you’re going to increase your exfoliation, totally normal. So coming out of the winter, you may feel your skin rough, that can be from dehydration, but it can also be from lack of exfoliation. So there’s two things you can do. You can book a treatment if you want to have something that’s going to really take off that spring, dead skin cell build up, which you know, I recommend that to everyone. We all know that a spring treatment is such a good idea for the skin. And at the same time it’s a great opportunity to treat the skin at a deeper level than you could at home. So you can do that or you can increase your exfoliation you can add an extra day or two of exfoliation depending on your skin type and what you can handle. I am a big fan of using both techniques. I like chemical but I also like physical. The reason behind that is because chemical is great because it will loosen up those dead skin cell build up. It’ll remove that glue that keeps them all together, right. Kind of like brick and mortar. That’s the common example I use when I talk about dead skin cells, brick and mortar just imagine brick and mortar. So the chemical acid is going to dissolve that mortar that keeps the dead skin cells all packed up together. However, it won’t lift them off of your skin. So that’s why I’m still a big fan of physical exfoliation. I love a good microdermabrasion to lift off those dead and dry skin cell buildups. So keep in mind you can do both and if you want to keep the physical onto your skin pro then you can absolutely do so. There’s a bunch of different techniques, techniques that we can use that can give you that nice deep exfoliation technique on the skin. Microdermabrasion is one of our most popular ones. It’s great people love it. The skin is beautiful after!

Now, because there’s more sun exposure because we’re more outside we have to keep in mind that the environmental damage will be obviously more increased. Depending on your lifestyle depending on you know your day to day jobs, your work outside your work inside. There’s a bunch of things that are gonna vary I know a lot of people like students will get some summer jobs lifeguarding things like that. So one thing that should not have changed between spring up between winter and spring would have been your sun protection obviously you know me protect the sun protection needs to be all year round, but be extra diligent. If in the wintertime you didn’t really think about it. Maybe make a note that because it’s spring and summers coming up. Just put it in your habits to reapply it every two or three hours if you can. One trick that I like to do is to keep that I give people that work in front of a computer. I tell them put your put your sunscreen just beside your screen. That way you’ll see it and then when you get up to lunch or things like that. You’ll see it you’re like Okay, I gotta reapply some. So it’s just, you know, having a good habit of reapplication. When it comes to some protection, so that shouldn’t have changed technically. But I know in the spring and in the summer, people are more aware of the sun protection because we feel the sun warms whereas in the winter, it’s like it’s cold. You know, it’s like a mind thing, right? But try to read don’t change that
if you’re diligent about some protection, just keep applying it if you’re not take this new season as a sign that you should just, you know, ramp it up a little bit with the SPF all year round. You know, I don’t have to repeat myself.

Like I was saying before earlier, because we some of us will spend more time outside environmental damage is more around our skin. So ramping up your antioxidant is a great idea. A lot of products do have antioxidants. In the formulation, but a nice cocktail of antioxidants and either your serum or your moisturizer is a great idea. Some people in the wintertime they’ll use products that are more repairing more calming more, more soothing on the skin when the warmer weather rolls. Around. You can actually use something that’s a little lighter as well. It’s kind of the same idea as the cleanser. Your skin is going to be more oily naturally in the warmer weather so you can switch up your moisturizer to a lighter form. By doing so you’re switching up so might as well use something that has a more powerful cocktail of antioxidants. Basically, just to recap, antioxidants are your number one tool to fight off oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is something that will naturally occur on your skin with either environmental damage. So sunlight, extreme temperatures, pollution, you know all the outside stuff. So by using something that has a lot more antioxidant will kind of backup that damage and it will repair the skin in that sense. Instead of using something that’s more calming and more repairing. You’re still using something that’s repairing, but you’re using antioxidants in there to do the action so you can use a lighter cream and you can use something that’s a little bit more antioxidant oriented.

Now. I’m so excited. I did a little teaser the other day on our social media. We are we have a lot of new changes coming up. We have an event coming in May. And now I’m talking about all these different things you can do with your skin. And I’m so happy because I’m excited to offer you a really cool and better solution for all these different things. I don’t want to say too much because it’s still too early but I’m not gonna say anything, anything more because otherwise I’m just gonna spill but like I said on our Instagram it’s something that revolves around vitamin A, and we’re having some little renovations happening at work so we can do more treatments and things like that. I don’t want to say too much because otherwise I’m just going to spill. So lots of thing coming up. Keep in mind may we’re going to have an event if you’re in the Ottawa area have Mark your calendars May 11th is going to be the day!! I haven’t said that anywhere else. So if you listen to the entire episode, then you’ll know the secret may 11. An event is coming. So super excited. I will release more details as we move along into end of March slash beginning of April. But super excited new things are coming. I’m so stoked. I hope you guys are having a good beginning of spring. I did a I did a good thing I cleaned my skincare closet if I can call it a closet because I have so much stuff. But you should do you should do so as well. Check your bottles, make sure everything is not expired because you know how you use sometimes things in the winter and then you leave it until the next winter. And then you notice that it’s expired well throw that stuff away. You don’t want to use anything that could potentially bring bacteria on your skin. So do a little cleanup do a little skincare cleanup in your things. Make sure everything is clean, clean your brushes, check your bottles, make sure everything is not expired and give away the stuff that you don’t use. We all have things that we do not use in our skincare drawer. It just stays there because someone gave it to you and you never use it because it’s not good for your skin type. If that’s you give it to a woman’s shelter or just give it away to someone that can use it. Okay. When it comes to skin, it’s more efficient to use things that are better for your skin that are made for your skin type. So if you receive some gifts and things at Christmas that you’ll never use, give them away and someone else will use them. All right, so excited to let you know what’s going on. We will do so soon. Hope you have a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day and we will chat very soon on the next episode.