Black Skin Care Tip # 1 — Clean Your Face At Least Twice  A Day

It’s essential to wash your face at night, in order to remove makeup, dirt and pollution that your skin has picked up during the day.  Some people wonder if they need to cleanse their face after they get up in the mornings, the argument is since they’ve been asleep in the dark on clean sheets their skin hasn’t been subject to loads of grime.  As you sleep your skin is going through an internal repair process reproducing skin cells. But what about those dust mites, these little suckers can attach themselves to your skin while sleeping, so I think this warrants the argument of washing your face at least twice a day.

Black Skin Care Tip #2-– Don’t Subject Yourself to Extremes,  Such as Fluctuating Water Temperatures.

Some of you feel that unless your water is burning hot you’re not clean. Now this statement would be true if you were sterilizing surgical instruments but your skin is not a scalpel and it doesn’t need to be sterilized. Excessive heat to your skin can cause injury. If the water is too hot you can actually burn your skin, which will then blister and create a whole new set of problems. So find balance in your water temperature and if you feel that you must have the excessive heat, treat yourself to the sauna for about 3 to 5 minutes this way you’re enjoying the steam from the heat and the water’s not actually burning  your skin.

Black Skin Care Tip #3 — Treat the Skin on Your Body As Well as You Do Your Face

Some of you are totally focused on caring for your faces. You do everything right: you wear your SPF,  your wide brim hats, use your moisturizers and cleanse twice a day. But what about the rest of your body? Having healthy beautiful black skin means looking after all of you from your hairline to your heel.

Black Skin Care Tip #4 –– Learn to Exfoliate Your Skin

Removing dead skin cells makes your newly exposed tissues look fuller and more brilliant. Your body sheds  the top layer naturally every 28 days but this process slows as you  age. You’ll get an even greater glow to your skin if you remove the excess cells once a week.  A word of caution don’t be overzealous with do-it-yourself chemical peels. They can do a wonderful job of freshening your skin but improperly formulated they can cause burns and scars.

Black Skin Care Tip #5 – Eat a Healthy Balanced Diet and Drink Lots of Water

In general, what’s good for your  heart is good for your skin. Following the guidelines for heart healthy eating — green leafy vegetables, fresh fruit and lean meats — benefits your external appearance as well. This type of nutritional plan ensures that you get enough nutrients for your general well-being, as well as for beautiful black skin.

Water is the key component to beautiful black skin. Listen, don’t  get it twisted, you’re not going to erase dry, flaky patches on your cheeks by downing gallons of water. You’re going to need a topical moisturizer to fix surface problems. But when you drink plenty of water,  it acts as internal hydration, aids your cells and organ function and flushes waste products from your body which is an important factor for healthy skin.

Black Skin Care Tip #6— Use a Good Antioxidant Face Cream

Free radicals, those molecules that assault and breakdown your skins supporting framework.  Well … antioxidants such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E  and green tea, effectively neutralize the damage — inducing molecules known as free radicals.

Other antioxidants used to nourish and fight off the onslaught of free radicals to beautiful black skin are Co-enzyme Q-10, grape seed extract, milk thistle, rosemary and white tea.

Black Skin Care Tip #7 — Don’t Be Afraid to Use Pigment — Reducing Creams

Science and technology has given us great products for reducing dark spots, age spots and uneven skin tones. Hydroquinone used to be the mainstay. We know now that hydrocodone is also an ingredient in photo developer and can be irritating. Today there are a lot more options, it’s been found that thyme has anti-pigment capabilities. Licorice and Mulberry are also shown to be effective but despite the fact that some of these are foods taken in large quantities,  could be toxic when ingested. So when found in creams you’re getting the amount that you need to disburse existing patches of pigment build up.

Some of the key ingredients used in skin lightening and brightening creams are Arbutin, Kojic Acid, Licorice, Mulberry, Thyme and Azelaic Acid.

Black Skin Care Tip #8 — Make Moisturizers and Creams Your New Best Friends

Black don’t crack, guess again!   As you mature  your skin begins to lose a lot of its  natural oil. So using a good moisturizer is going to be one of  the keys to having soft, supple, luxurious skin.

Anti-aging serum’s will also assist you in nurturing the collagen and elastin fibers  that hold up the tissues and keep your skin tight.

Black Skin Care Tip #9— Don’t Smoke

With all of the problems that smoking causes to your health in general — lung cancer, emphysema, should I continue? Smoking causes vasoconstriction to the tiny vessels that feed your skin, so your  tissue isn’t able to mend itself properly. Carbon monoxide and pollutants from smoking  enters your pores and seep into the micro-circulation,  impeding your skin’s ability to send oxygen to its lower level, known as the dermis and this is where your new cells grow.

Black Skin Care Tip #10 —  Wear A Sunscreen

There’s no excuse for not rubbing and SPF rich lotion onto your exposed skin daily. What is an SPF? Sun protection factor or SPF is a measure of how long a person can stay in the sun before burning. An SPF 30 means 30 times longer than if you went out with nothing to protect your skin. It’s also important to keep in mind that all skins are different. A woman with an Irish heritage and an extremely pale complexion might last only a minute or two before her bare skin turns pink.   So her SPF 30 would give her 30 minutes before she needed to reapply, and that’s assuming that she wasn’t going to jump into the pool or sweating. Whereas her African-American friend could perhaps go two hours or more before her  unguarded skin became tender. The same SPF 30 lotion would extend her time even more.

These are just the basics when it comes to having beautiful black skin. Achieving true supple, luxurious skin will not only entail lifestyle changes but a good skin care regimen in conjunction with these changes is a great place to start for beautiful black skin.

Dedicated To Your Beauty,

Juliette Samuel,

Esthetician/Publisher

NYRAJU Skin Care – Providers of Natural Skin Care Products for People of Color

http://www.nyrajuskincare.com