While summer doesn’t officially arrive until June, it’s Memorial Day Weekend and you know what that means! A lot of you are beach bound. Now, while this article is being written during this weekend, the rules and content of the article apply any time of the year. And yes, there’s always a beach, somewhere in the world, that has warm water and beautiful sand waiting for you to come and enjoy it.

Is your body ready for the beach? Here are a 2 tips and techniques to make sure you have the best experience while there.

• Begin with a regimen for your body. This means you’ll want to exfoliate all the dead skin cells from this past winter off you body, a full body scrub. That’s right, you’ll want to remove all the dead skin cells from your entire body, from head to toe. Massage your skin with really good body exfoliant. Preferably one made with Shea butter. After an exfoliation treatment, your skin will welcome the comfort of a rich body butter.

• Body butters, especially those made with Shea Butter, help to lock the moisture into your skin. The best time to apply a body butter to your skin is after a bath or shower. Your skin is in a state of softness and the water temperature should have helped your pores to absorb any topical product that you might put on it.

What Happens To Your Beautiful Black
Skin While You’re At The Beach?

The idea of going to the beach should set off a series of thought waves about caring for your skin. As a melanated person, the first thing you might want to consider is how you will care for your skin.

Your melanin can be a gift and a challenge all rolled up into one. But a beach visit can complicate things at times. You’ve got the sun and the salt water. Did I say the sun? Your time spent in the sun should be limited.

You know how you see black people that have been in the sun so long that they look gray? That’s too much exposure and the time spent might only have been 30 minutes. 30 minutes of sun at its highest peak is too much exposure.

Sunrise to Mid-morning and late afternoon to early evening are the best times for sun exposure. A sunscreen should always be one of the items that you bring with you to the beach.  Another should be your wide brimmed hat to shield your face from the sun.

Did you know that too much sun can cause hyperpigmentation of your skin? Dark spots, uneven skin tone and freckles are just a few of the signs of too much sun.

Because of your melanin, you could be experiencing trauma and not know it. So limit your time on the beach in the sun and remember to keep your skin moisturized and exfoliated. This will enable you to keep the dead skin cells away and have skin smooth as a baby’s bottom.

With all the water surrounding you whether it’s at the beach or by the pool, don’t forget to drink half your body weight in water to stay internally hydrated.

That’s it for this week.  As always …

Dedicated To Your Beauty!

Juliette Samuel

Esthetician/Author/Publisher

Nyraju Skin Care