Reboot Your Routine for 2020

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anti ageing, broad spectrum, cleanse, compleion, complimentary, daily, dirt, double cleanse, excess, grime, lightweight, make-up, oil, production, products, protection, reboot, routine, sebum, skin, skin kit, SPF, sun

Photo by Kim Carpenter on Unsplash

When it comes to a beauty routine, it’s really easy to get stuck in a rut. You’ve invested in products and you want to make the most of them so you stick with them steadfastly, even if they’re not the best thing for your skin. Rebooting your beauty routine means taking a look at what your skin needs in the here and now, rather than what it needed when you bought the product that you’re currently using, and gives you a chance to assess what would be best for your complexion. Here are five ways in which you can can you reboot your routine and give your skin a much-needed boost.

Keep it Simple

Something we see quite often is people building a beauty routine and adding in more products as they go along, so that by the time they decide to reboot they’re using far more products than they really need to. Stripping back your routine and looking at the basics of what your skin really needs will help you to form a baseline which you can add to if you really need to to or just stick to a cleanse, tone and moisturise routine if that’s what’s working for you.

Think About the Here and Now

As we said in our introduction, rebooting your routine is very much about what your skin needs right now. Skincare needs change throughout the year; you may have invested in your current routine at a time where your skin was super dry whereas now you’re dealing with excess sebum production or a time when breakout to a problem when now anti-ageing properties are more of a concern. Keeping your skin care air current is one of the most important things that you can do for your skin.

SPF is Non-Negotiable

If you asked us what the single most important product in a daily skin routine is, you may be surprised to hear the answer always will be SPF. Even with our relatively weak English sun, protecting your skin from its harmful rays is the most important thing you can do on a daily basis, even above and beyond the cleanse, tone and moisturise routine. Invest in a sun cream which is both lightweight and broad spectrum, and make sure you use it every single day even when it’s grey and rainy outside.

Use Complimentary Products

While we would never suggest that skincare only works if you use every product from the same range, you do often find that products from the same range are formulated to work well together. If you find the product which works well for your skin and there are other product which compliment it, there’s a good chance that these will work well for your skin too. Pure Beauty offers several different skin kits which contain miniatures of full-sized products, which allow you to try a range of of beauty treatments before you invest in the larger version.

Ditch the Wipes

We know how simple it is to reach for a packet of face wipes, at the end of a long day, especially when the last thing you want to do is take your makeup off instead of sinking into bed a couple of minutes earlier. However, aside from the fact that face wipes are doing horrendous amounts of damage to the planet, they’re also not that great for your skin either. Using a face wipe basically allows you to transfer the makeup and grime around your face, and doesn’t really cleanse your complexion very well at all. Instead we would suggest opting for the double cleanse, using an oil or balm to melt away makeup and grime, followed by a gel mousse or cream for a deep cleanse. This is especially important if you wear heavy makeup up and a daily SPF as it will help to lessen the risk of breakouts.

How to Handle Combination Skin

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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

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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.

Distract Yourself During Dry January!

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adult college, ageing, bath, body, Christmas, conditioning, cookery, December, dry January, excess, excesses, face mask, January, language, languages, learn, learning, mind, nail, nails, process, relaxing, rest, skill, sleep, treatment

Photo by Yuri Efremov on Unsplash

January is here and after the excesses of last month, many of us are opting for a dry January (i.e. no alcohol!) to try to give our bodies as chance to recover and start the new year off right. However, for some of us, a glass of wine in the evenings is our main way to wind down after a long day, so what do we do to relax and distract ourselves during dry January? We’ve got five ideas:

Get a Hobby

January is a great time to start a new hobby; it’s miserable outside anyway, so unless your hobby is gardening, it’s a great excuse to stay indoors! It’s a known fact that mental stimulation helps to keep your brain active and slows down the ageing process, even helping to halt the onset of Alzheimer’s, so a hobby will benefit both your mind and your body.

Get Some Extra Sleep!

So many of us stroll through life feeling totally fatigued, yet when it comes to it, we stay up to watch just one more episode of whatever show we’re into at the time instead of getting some sleep. Allowing yourself to get regular early nights will not only have massively positive effects on your body and its ability to heal itself, it’s great for your mental health too, especially when you wake up feeling rested.

Learn a Skill

Is there something you’ve always wanted to learn? A new language? A new style of cooking? January is a great time to take the bull by the horns and learn a new skill, so why not take a look at what your local adult college has to offer?

Pamper Yourself

Cold nights, long evenings spent at home – has there ever been a better time to pamper yourself a little? Instead of reaching for a glass of wine, have a relaxing bath, use a face mask, and treat yourself to a conditioning nail treatment. Indulge yourself at least once a week and your stress levels, as well as your body, will thank you for it!

Do Some Reading

So many of us have fallen into the pattern of work, home for dinner, kids bedtime routine, collapse on the sofa to watch the telly or stare at your phone screen and we then say “I never have time to read a book”. Often, finding time is just about having a re-shuffle, and if you really want to fine the time, you’ll put down the smartphone or switch off the TV!

Improve Your Skin in just Five Minutes

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Arnica, artificial colours, Bentonite, bright, clay. Relief, cool, cucumber, decleor, Decleor Energy Concentrate Youth Mask, Decleor Hydra Floral White Petal Skin Perfecting Hydrating Sleeping Mask, decongest, dermalogica, Dermalogica Skin Refining Masque, dewy, dull, Elemis, Elemis Dynamic Resurfacing Gel Mask, Elemis Herbal Lavender Repair Mask, excess, glow, glowing, hyperpigmentation, inflammation, Ivy, kaolin, lemon, luminous, lychee, Mallow, mask, men, mineral oils, oily skin, parabens, peony, recharged, refined texture, refining, rhodiola, sebum, shine, shine-free, skin, SLES, soothing, Watercress

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Having a daily skin routine is important, but sometimes we need an extra little boost to get our skin back to its best. Rather than going for expensive (and potentially painful!) non-invasive procedures, there are things you can use which can improve your skin dramatically in just five minutes – masks! We’ve trawled through our products to single out the best masks, and we thought we’d share our favourites with you:

Decleor Energy Concentrate Youth Mask

This mask is perfect for ageing skin which needs a boost and contains highly concentrated extracts of peony, lychee and rhodiola to re-energise the skin. It helps the skin to look firmer, plumper and younger and will imbue the skin with a luminous glow. It should be applied to the face once or twice a week after cleansing for best results.

Elemis Dynamic Resurfacing Gel Mask

This powerful gel mask from Elemis helps to completely resurface the skin, giving it a refined texture and ridding your complexion of excess sebum. The skin appears instantly smoother, shine free and more youthful and it’s formulated in line with the ELEMIS Promise, which means no parabens, no SLES, mineral oil or artificial colours.

Dermalogica Skin Refining Masque

This mask from Dermalogica is based on bentonite clay and contains kaolin and zinc oxide, which that remove impurities and refine the skin’s surface, helping to reduce oily-skin breakouts. It also contains mallow, arnica and cucumber which help reduce to inflammation, as well as purifying watercress, lemon and ivy which revive dull skin.

Decleor Hydra Floral White Petal Skin Perfecting Hydrating Sleeping Mask

Okay, so this one may take more than five minutes to work, but TECHNICALLY you only need five minutes to apply it before you go to sleep, so we think it still counts! It’s a refining mask which reduces the appearance of dark spots and hyperpigmentation and allows you to wake up with skin which is recharged, bright, glowing and fresh like dew.

Elemis Herbal Lavender Repair Mask

Skin which is over-sensitised and blemish-prone can really benefit from mask treatments and this one for Elemis is designed to soothe and repair such complexions. It contains rosemary, thyme and lavender, all in a kaolin clay base which is designed to give relief to skin, and cools and decongests oil rich skin. It’s non-setting and non-drying and also ideal for men who’s skin is irritated by shaving.

Get your clothes clean, whatever you throw at them

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Whether you are 4 months, 14 or 40, it is inevitable that your clothes will get stained and the worry will be it won’t come out in the wash.

Yes, you can go for bleach or products loaded with chemicals, but we are here to save the day when it comes to looking after your laundry the kinder way.

Blood – don’t freak out! Once you have dealt with the patient, soak the stained clothing in cold water before gently rubbing with mild hand soap before rinsing with cold water.

Chocolate – run the stain under cold water then rub with washing up liquid. Soak in cold water for 15 minutes then wash as normal and you will never know it had been there.

Coffee – rather than rubbing this stain, blot with a kitchen paper, then dab the area with distilled white vinegar before washing as normal.

Deodorant marks can be a nightmare but rub the stain with a pair of nude tights and the texture of the material will work wonders and leave nothing behind.

Grass – create a paste from your usual washing powder and a little water and dab onto the stain. Let it texture of the material for 15 minutes then put through a normal wash.

Ink – blotting the ink to remove any excess liquid is the first task here, then cover the stain with hairspray and then immediately put through the washing machine as normal.

Foundation can be a real pain when you see if on a white shirt, but rub a little washing-up liquid into the stain then wash on a hot cycle and you will never know any make-up had been worn.

Ketchup – dab the bright red stain with a clean cloth then cover with washing-up liquid followed by distilled white vinegar. Soak the item in cold water for half an hour, then dry, ideally in the sunshine, and wash as normal.

Lipstick- your friend for this stain is hairspray. Spray generously onto the stain and leave for 15 minutes. Go back and blot the area with a clean cloth soaked in warm water, then put in the wash as normal….and be more careful next time!

Mud needs to dry before you can brush it off. Soak the piece of clothing in cool water with half a teaspoon of washing-up liquid and a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar.

Oil is best dealt with by keeping calm and rubbing with a mix of washing-up liquid and water. Then simply rinse in cool water and machine washing as normal.

Red wine – no need to throw that shirt away, simply cover the stain in salt and brush away after ten minutes and pink. Then pour boiling water onto the stain, carefully of course, and allow to sit until the stain lifts.

Sweat – add four large tablespoons of salt into a litre of cold water and soak the sweaty garments for 30 minutes. Rinse and leave to dry before then putting through cool machine wash.

The best way to deal with wax is to freeze the clothing to harden the wax, then scrape it away with a teaspoon. You can then cover the affected area with tissue paper and iron it to melt the remaining wax on to the tissue and wash on a cool setting.

Got any great ideas, let us know, we are all ears.

Team Pure Beauty