How to Handle Combination Skin

Tags

acids, acne scarring, balance, bioenergy complex, cleanse, combination, control, copper, decleor, dehydrate, dehydrated, dry, dryness, Elemis, encapsulated, excess, fine lines, fresh, harness, hydrate, hydrated, irritation, Jan Marini, large pores, lime blossom, natural moisturising factor, oil, oiliness, oily, patent-pending, rebalance, redness, rosacea, sebum, skin, soothe, surface oils, uneven texture, vitamin A, wrinkles, zinc

Royalty-free Image

We all know how difficult it can be to deal with skin issues such as dry skin, oily skin or aging skin. However, dealing with combination skin often means that you’re dealing with two or more of these problems at once, which can make skin care all the more difficult. Combination skin requires targeted products and sometimes more than one product in different areas of your face so that you can adequately deal with all of the issues at once. With that in mind, we’ve curated a list of products which are perfect for combination skin and should help you to bring all your issues into line.

Elemis Balancing Lime Blossom Cleanser

Cleansing combination skin can be particularly difficult because you have areas of dryness where flaky skin is an issue, as well as oily areas which need something a bit more potent to help control sebum overproduction. This cleanser from Elemis balances the skin by deep cleansing it, removing the build up of daily pollutants and getting rid of makeup. It contains extracts of lime blossom and vitamin A which will soothe your skin and helps to rid you of excess surface oil.

Decleor Ylang Ylang Purifying Night Balm

Often combination skin mains that your skin has an all over dryness problem, but will over-produce sebum in some areas to overcompensate, while other areas remain dry. This night balm from decleor is made from 100% natural ingredients and has a melt-in texture which will care for combination and oily skin. It’s a balancing product which will reduce inflammation, cure underlying dryness and prevent the skin from producing too much oil. You’ll wake-up with cleaner healthier and more radiant skin.

Elemis Hydra Balance Day Cream – Normal/Combination

Combination skin usually benefits from all-day moisturisation, which is why you need a product like this cream from Elemis. It’s an ultralight cream which provides hydration all day long and works with the skin’s natural moisturising factor to help maintain a balanced moisture level. It improves the texture of the skin, balances dryness, oiliness and soothes irritation.

Jan Marini Bioglycolic Bioclear Cream

This cream from Jan Marini combines glycolic acid, salicylic acid and azelaic acid to provide a dramatically smoother, clearer, more luminous complexion. It’s perfect for combination and dry skin and will help to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, while also dealing with redness, acne scarring, large pores and uneven texture. It’s also great for skin which suffers from acne, hyperpigmentation and rosacea and gives the skin a deep wash of moisture, which will balance dryness and redness.

Elemis Biotec Skin Energising Day Cream – Combination

This highly-scientific formula from Elemis harnesses patent-pending Bioenergy Complex, which is made up of encapsulated zinc and copper. It contains a trio of acids which help support combination skin for optimum skin function. It contains ingredients such as cold pressed desert date oil, which will balance the skin, control excess sebum while smoothing and hydrating the complexion, leaving it fresh and shine free. It can be used every morning and should be applied to cleansed skin.

Stress isn’t just for National Stress Awareness Day

Tags

24/7, a sense of dread, angry customer, Be mindful, busy, buzz word, chocolate, coffee, control, coping, cross, cry, cutting down takeaways, diary, drinking and binge-eating, drinking lots of water, eating a nutritious diet, emails, energy, exercise, family, feelings and sensations, friends, fruit, Giving up cigarettes, GP, gym, healthy mental wellbeing, heart rate, help, here and now, Ill, impacting your life, impatient, irritable, jump up, Kick the bad stuff, kids, knots in your stomach, laptop, Let it go, lid, lifestyle, loss of libido, manage stress, mindfulness, National Stress Awareness Day, nervous. depressed, out of control, Panic attacks, pattern emerges, phone, physical, Pick your battles, pretty stressful place, pub, react, reflect, resolve, run, settle down, shout out loud, skin, sleepless nights, smoking, social media, Stamp your feet, stress, stressful, swap, swim, Switch off, tackle it, thoughts, thrive, toddler tantrums, toxic habits, triggers, unfair boss, veg, work, work late, world, yell

While the first Wednesday in November each year is National Stress Awareness Day, the world is a pretty stressful place a lot of the time and it is different for us all.

You might feel irritable and impatient, nervous or depressed. There can be knots in your stomach, a sense of dread and the inability to see the good in life. Panic attacks, sleepless nights, loss of libido and feeling sick, dizzy or fainting are all ways stress can be experienced.

If we are to thrive, we need to find our own ways of coping with whatever our busy lives throw at us, so we have some ideas we hope might help.

Know your triggers
A buzz word, maybe, but it’s really good to try to access your triggers, where possible. Stress can come from many things, be that work, kids, family, friends or other people on social media! If you can identify what causes your stress, this will help you to tackle it and get things under control. Start to keep a diary of when you feel stressed, look at who or what sets it off and if a pattern emerges look at the changes you can make so things settle down.

Look at your lifestyle
Exercise is often on the bottom of our to do list, but it is a great way to manage stress. Increasing your heart rate, eating a nutritious diet, drinking lots of water and getting plenty of sleep are really important if you want to keep stress levels down. Just as you track your stress, look at how good you feel after a run or a swim, and how your skin improves when you swap chocolate and coffee for fruit and veg.

Pick your battles
There can be many things in life that are stressful – from a big bill, unfair boss to an angry customer, but if you react to them all you are going to be ill. Choose which things you are going to actually direct energy at and try to resolve, but the rest can be put behind you because they aren’t worth it.

Let it go
Stamp your feet, shout out loud, cry or jump up and down or do some boxing! No, we aren’t talking about toddler tantrums, but letting out your stress and steam in a more physical way. If you are feeling cross and out of control, it might just help to yell about it and get that stress out of your system.

Switch off
Turning off your phone, not checking your emails and powering down your laptop can all help put a lid on stress. You don’t need to be ‘on it’ 24/7, and no one expects you to work late every night, and if they do, maybe you need to look at how much work is impacting your life and stress levels.

Be mindful
This is talked about a lot, but mindfulness is where you have an awareness of the present moment and you pay attention to thoughts, feelings and sensations in the here and now. Mindfulness is really good for healthy mental wellbeing, so if you feel stressed, take a moment and reflect. If your mind gets busy, mindfulness can help to slow it down.

Kick the bad stuff
Smoking, drinking and binge-eating are ways many people cope with stress, but none of those toxic habits will do you any favours. Giving up cigarettes, cutting down takeaways and going to the gym rather than the pub will help you to feel better in the long run.

If things are getting out of hand, chat to your GP – you won’t be the only one.

Team Pure Beauty

Easy ways to create a clutter free home

Tags

30 minutes, bedroom floor, bit sized, bite size, BOGOF, bowl, broken toys, bulk buy, buy less, cans, card, Cardboard boxes, clean, cleaning, clearing out, cloths, clutter, clutter free, cluttering, comics, constant mess, control, couple of hours, cupboard, cupboards, declutter, designated space, dirty dishes, dirty shoes, dishwasher tablets, donation bags, drawer, dust, dusters, environment, essentials, front door, game changer, garden, home, hooks, hoses, junk, keys, kitchen, kitchen table, lawn mowers, lost, mess, messy, need, old clothes, outside spaces, pairs of jeans, phone, pile of clothes, plastic slides, purse, recycle, recycling, Relax, right reason, room, rubbish, shelf, shot, simple, sit back, slu, slung, stored, stuff, tidying up, toilet rolls, tripping, true, unused phones, washing powder, wooden benches

Whether it’s a pile of clothes on your bedroom floor, or a stack of dirty dishes in your sink, keeping top of cleaning at home can be hard and clutter can soon take over.

If you feel you’re living in a state of constant mess, we have some ideas to help you take back control and get a home that is clean, clear and clutter-free which means you can sit back and relax.

A place for everything
If you get home and put your phone, keys and purse straight on the kitchen table, this needs to stop. Have a designated space or bowl for essential items and this clutter free game-changer will keep things tidy and save you constantly looking for lost belongings.

Have hooks by the front door
Having a simple set of hooks by the front door means you’ll always know where they are – simple but true. Get in the door, shut the door, put the keys on a hook and you’ll never look back.

Keep shoes out of the house
Leaving dirty shoes at the front door won’t only keep dirt out but it will save them being left all over the house, making a mess, tripping you over and generally cluttering things up.

Have a clear out
We aren’t saying you need to declutter your house in a day because you’ll be exhausted, instead clear the clutter in bite-size chunks of time – think 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Go room by room, drawer by drawer, cupboard by cupboard or shelf by shelf – whatever works for you. Ensure you have rubbish, recycling and donation bags as well as a duster and cloths so you can clean as you go.

Buy less
We know that those BOGOF offers are tempting, but if you bulk buy toilet rolls, washing powder and dishwasher tablets or having too many pairs of jeans, where are you going to put them? Each time you are about to buy something, ask yourself, do I really need it, is there somewhere for it to go in my home and am I buying it for the right reason? If you answer no to even one of these, put your card away and keep clutter at bay.

Check out the garden
It’s not just our houses that can get full of clutter, but outside spaces too. From lawn mowers and plastic slides, to old wooden benches and hoses, it is amazing how much ‘stuff’ gets slung in the garden which leaves it looking cluttered and messy. Set aside an afternoon and get to work clearing out, tidying up and straightening out your outside spaces so they are places you want to spend time, rather than somewhere all the junk is stored.

Recycle
Not only does recycling help keep the environment safe, it keeps clutter out of your house too. Cardboard boxes, cans, old clothes, broken toys, unused phones, comics and books are often found in corners, cupboards and under tables where they gather dust and clutter things up, so sort them out, recycle them and free up your space.

Keep it up
Once you have made steps to sort out the clutter, do your best to keep it that way. Not only will having less clutter mean you won’t have to tidy up as much, but you’ll also be able to find things because they won’t be under a pile of dusty papers, they’ll be where you left them.

Team Pure Beauty

Love the life you are in

Tags

21st century, a problem shared is a problem halved, activity, aggressive, alcohol, angry, attention, blood, body and soul, boost, bottle, brain, brighter, concerns, confidence, control, depressed, down, energy levels, enjoy, family, feel happier, focus, future, glass of wine, Instagram, journal, journaling, Keep a journal, lighter, lives, long run, meditation, mind, mindfulness, move, old school, overwhelming, oxygen, paper, past, peace, perfect, present, pressure, rule, scary, self-esteem, selfish, shiny, Sit quietly, sleep, sunny side, support system, thoughts, time well spent, world, worries, write

Life can be overwhelming in the 21st century and living in a world of perfect, filtered Instagram images it can be easy to compare ourselves to others even though this knocks our self-esteem and dents our confidence.

We have had a look at how to feel happier with your lot, however shiny everyone else’s lives might look.

Keep a journal
Yes, it might seem a little old school to write things down on paper but keeping a journal helps you get a better perspective on things and can make life look a little less scary. Buy a pretty notebook and make time at the end of each day to just write. There are no rules when it comes to journalling so just write and let the pages soak up your stress and you will see the sunny side of life again.

Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the buzzword of the moment and is quite simply a form of meditation that bring things into the present, and can be beneficial to your mind, body and soul. Sit quietly for ten minutes a day and move the focus of your attention away from the world, away from the past, away from the future and just focus on now. Doing this will help you relax and be at peace with your thoughts and while it can take time to really get into meditation, it is time well spent as it will be worth it in the long run.

Be number one
This might sound selfish, especially if you have a family, but putting yourself first is key to being happy and feeling more in control of your life. It can be hard to say no sometimes, but saying it will give you the time you need to look after number one and in the long run it will boost your energy levels and self-esteem.

Keep alcohol down
When times are hard and the pressure is on, it is really tempting to have a drink, or two. While it might take away some of those feelings of overwhelm in the short-term, it can make you feel angry and aggressive and leave you feeling down, depressed and hungover. Keep a check on how much you drink each week and if you feel like the odd glass of wine is becoming a more regular occurrence, look at what is going on and what you could do instead of heading for the bottle.

Move
As well as keeping you healthy and getting blood and oxygen pumping around your body, moderate exercise will release the feel good chemicals in your brain that make you happy. Find an activity you really enjoy, so it is fun not a chore, and you will find that you will start to feel brighter and lighter and as well as having more energy in the day, you will sleep better at night.

Talk about it
The old saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved, and that is so true. Holding onto worries and concerns can really get you down, so chat things over with your partner or a friend and feel the weight lift off your shoulders.

Of course, if things do feel too much, speak to your GP and see if they can help put a support system in place to make life easier once again.

Team Pure-Beauty

There’s an app for that

Tags

1Password, 24 hours, access, adore, agility, app, balance, bed, calm, camera, carpets, class, clean, control, cook, easy to use, exercise, flexibility, focus, food discovery app, free, friends, Handpick, hangout, hangover, healthy habits, Houseparty, inspiring, inspiring recipes, jot, journaling, live, love, meditation and mindfulness, mess, mobility, mood, Moodnotes, online banking, own pace, password, physical and mental, question, recipes, relaxation, safe, schedule, screens, secrets, secure, self-aware, shop, Smartphone, snow, socialise, sofa, stickers, strength, tasty meals, teaches, technology, tidy, trending, trending dishes, tube, video app, video messaging app, web, well being, work, work surfaces, world, yoga, Yoga 15

Ever noticed how often you ask someone a question and they tell you ‘there’s an app for that’?

Increasingly people are turning to technology in all parts of their lives and while having some downtime away from screens is a good thing, apps can actually really help with the way you live, work, exercise and socialise.

We’ve had a look at some of our favourite apps that we think you might like too.

If you love journaling, you will adore Moodnotes. This cool app lets you jot down your mood and thoughts in an online journal that is easy to use and look cute. As well as tracking how you are feeling, with this on your phone you can learn healthy habits when it comes to thinking patterns and overtime, you can use it to help feel upbeat, more self-aware and it can be a way of taking control of your well-being.

Ever tried to get into your online banking or order your weekly shop and forgotten your password? Well, there’s an app for that. 1Password is free, easy to use and remembers all your passwords and keeps them safe and secure. All you need to remember is that one password and you’ll never be left scratching your head again.

If you struggle to come up with tasty meals, you need the Handpick app. By putting this ‘food discovery app’ on your phone, you will have access to a tonne of trending dishes and inspiring recipes that have been sourced from around the world, and web, that will change the way you cook forever.

Love yoga but never quite make it to your class, then you need Yoga 15 in your life. As well as a great website, the brilliant app teaches agility, balance, flexibility, focus, mobility, strength and relaxation. The easy to follow videos let you take things at your own pace and each one enhances your physical and mental well-being and means you can check out of your schedule for just a little while.

If you like your carpets to be clean and your work surfaces tidy but still want to hangout with your friends, you need Houseparty in your life and one your phone. This handy app opens in your smartphone’s camera and allows up to seven friends to join you, hang out and party on your own terms but without the mess or hangover.

Want to be down with the kids? Well then you need to download SNOW. This is a creative video messaging app that’s already been snapped up by over 100 million users around the world. You can use this app to send stickers and funny vid’s with live face effects to your friends during calls. You can send notes while chatting and invite friends to a group chat so you can catch up and share your secrets, well for 24 hours at least.

Nothing new about this one but we love the Calm app. Thousands of people around the world are benefitting from meditation and mindfulness thanks to this easy to use app. Listen in bed, on the sofa, even on the tube and learn how to bring your breath into the moment and how to keep a handle on your stressful thoughts.

Got an app you love? Let us know what it is.

Team Pure-Beauty