My tips for Skin and Self Care this season

There are so many things about Autumn I love. Nature showcases its incredible beauty with its cascade of changing colours, sunsets painting strokes of pink and red across the sky, the morning mist and dew that bring such a clarity when I step outside! I love matching snuggly jumpers with leather mini-skirts, the warmth and flavours of Autumnal cooking, spices and chai always find their way back into hot drinks around now.

This change of season brings lots of wonderful things, but it also brings shorter, darker days which can have a major effect on mood and wellbeing, central heating; hello dry skin! the uncomfortable ‘too hot/too cold’ dilemmas multiple times throughout the day, a decline in Vitamin D and the feel good factor Summer can bring for a lot of us.

These are my tips for taking care of your skin and self this Autumn…

Super important at this time is to replenish your skins barrier!

Your skins barrier is like a raincoat; it’s there to keep things from getting through and into your body. When this is impaired, we experience things like dryness, irritation, a greyish lacklustre look and sensitivity (anyone’s early experience of Retinols knows this one!). Temperature changes, central heating and pollution can play havoc with our skin, so using a product that will keep your natural barrier healthy is important.

I personally like Dermalogica’s Phyto Replenish Oil, it’s suitable for my sensitive combination skin type and doesn’t cause breakouts. Their Multivitamin Recovery mask is also a staple in my bathroom cabinet, I find it great when my skin is stressed whatever the season!

Hydrate it!

Exposure to heating, wet weather and bracing winds equally can lead to skin that really isn’t happy. So, we need to keep it hydrated! Hyaluronic acid is a key player, restoring essential water to the skin. The ordinary do a great Hyaluronic Serum that works brilliantly under moisturiser.

Moisturise!

Add a slightly richer moisturiser into your skin care. We don’t want anything too heavy; the temperature might have dropped but the humidity hasn’t! So loading on thick moisturisers can leave us with some rather blocked pores and sticky feeling faces. 

We need this all year round, not just in summer! Since I turned 30 (I’m now 32), I’ve really recognised the importance of keeping my skin protected. Little scatterings of hyperpigmentation thanks to sunbathing without have appeared and never left, so SPF is my skins best friend every day of the year.

 A couple of my favourite go to SPF’s that I always have stocked up are:

Dermalogicas Dynamic Skin Recovery – a high SPF50, this is also nourishing and moisturising and gives the skin a gorgeous glow. I discovered it 2 years ago and have never looked back!

La Roche Posay Anthelios (Tinted) SPF 50. I love La Roche Posay products. They are high quality, inexpensive and effective skin care, especially for skin that’s feeling a bit sensitive. This SPF is tinted- you only need a little bit then blend! And it gives surprisingly good coverage. I often use this when I don’t feel like wearing makeup but don’t quite fancy being totally bare faced.

Focusing on our inner wellbeing is even more important, these are a few of the things I do more of to help with the season change…

• Get outside! I know its not always as appealing when it’s looking a bit grey, but I really feel that time outdoors, especially in nature or by water is serious soul food. I make a point of spending between 30-60 minutes a day walking, this helps to clear my head and I find this especially important as the days get shorter. The reduction in Vitamin D can affect our mental health as well as our body so time outside is important!

• Eat seasonally (where possible!). Root veggies and Autumnal coloured foods (think turnips, carrots, squashes, peppers etc) are packed with Allicin, Vitamins and antioxidants. Adding turmeric, ginger and citrus fruits to drinks is also a fab way of boosting the immune system naturally. 

• Go to bed a little earlier. Even 20 minutes earlier can make a difference! We tend to sleep for longer as it gets darker, so this little change of habit can help with making the most of your morning.

• Exercise. The release of serotonin and endorphins we get from working out are an amazing natural mood booster, so enjoy it. There are no rules about how much or how long you should train for, it’s your body so do what works for you.

Daisy x

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