Your skin is your first layer of defense, so your body has cleverly ensured it is protected with a very important barrier, the acid mantle, which keeps it supple, smooth and intact. This protective film is also quite acidic hence the name, Acid Mantle, meaning an acidic cloak or cover. The acidity of the skin ensures that only friendly, helpful bacteria are encouraged to live on our skin, whereas harmful, disease-producing bacteria prefer a more alkaline environment. Unfortunately, in a misguided attem[...]
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Many of the ageing signs we see on our skin are caused through the loss of good quality collagen fibres. One of the most damaging things that can occur to the fibres is the process of ‘glycation’, which is basically when sugar (glucose) combines with the proteins on our collagen fibres making them ‘sticky’. This essentially makes our collagen fibres stick to each other rather than flowing smoothly over one another. Glycation can be caused by two things: when there is too much sugar circulating in[...]
I can’t say it enough. Water is simply and purely one of the most important nutrients needed for beautiful skin. Because water promotes enzyme activity, it’s essential for many processes in the skin to keep it looking beautiful and resist premature ageing. This is especially true in the upper layers of the skin, which until fairly recently were considered to be simply dead and of little use. Now we know there is a huge metabolic activity between the layers of dead cells, activity which is reliant on[...]
As women, one of the biggest challenges our skin faces is our over-zealous habit of over-cleansing. The modern world seems to be obsessed with cleanliness and most skin care regimes encourage you to cleanse morning and night. Yet what you may not realize is that your skin is at its most vulnerable following cleansing. It can remove the precious protective film (acid mantle) from your skin and leave you without any protection. In some cases, the cleansing product can actually unbalance the natural acidic p[...]