A wake-up call.....what one should be doing for a flawless skin ?

Hello to all my readers, followers and PBP users.

Hope you had a beautiful and sparkling time during Deepavali, and may this auspicious festival heralds new beginnings, fruitful opportunities and multitude of success for everyone.

Today I am taking up a topic about which I have been receiving a lot of queries these days.And, rather, I would like to term it as "A WAKE UP CALL" to all those who take so much of stress and are concerned about their skincare products and their effectiveness or ineffectiveness, per say, on their skin. 

It is to make you all aware, a small attempt from my side to help you understand and come out of certain futile notions and expectations we attach to our skincare products.

* Can using only one product will solve all my skin issues ?

And so on and so forth, such and related questions keep coming to me very often.As I have mentioned in my previous blogs also that skin ageing is an irreversible process.The more we accept this fact that changes in skin are bound to happen with ageing, the more easy it will be for us to keep ourselves free from the stress and utter confusion and madness over the transformation of our skin and it's condition, with age.

But, how many of us actually try to follow it ?

The moment signs of ageing start appearing on skin, panick occurs.I have always been saying that it is possible to delay the process of ageing, but it doesn't, at all, completely depend on your skincare products only. There are so many other factors, outer as well as internal, which affects the quality of your skin and hair, either good or bad.

So let's begin :

• Anti-ageing products can only delay and and take care of your fine lines, wrinkles and sagging upto a certain limit, along with your personal lifestyle habits, but it cannot stop the ageing process. It's a natural phenomena, and going against nature has always proved harmful.

We can't always look as young and flawless as we used to be in our early twenties and thirties.

• Skin looses it's elasticity as we age, which leads to other skin conditions of wrinkles, lines and sagging. To manage this, it is very important that one should start taking precautions and care for one's skin with the right kind of products as well as diet and lifestyle.

• There are many external factors, like climate and pollution, that affect our skin condition.

• Likewise, there are innumerable internal factors that also affect the way our skin looks and feels.

First of all, as we age, starting from 30's, there are a lot of hormonal imbalances that happen inside our body. 

Especially, after marriage, and moreso after childbirth, the hormones seems to have a mind of their own. The irregularities, the shift in the body functioning, tend to bring many changes, like mood swings, fatigue, lethargy, weight gain, thus affecting our skin and hair too.

It is important to know that our psychological condition, our thoughts and emotions equally affect our skin and hair, as much as the food and products we use. We often experience a great amount of hairfall, then comes freckles, pigmentation, tanning, dry and flaky skin, leading to melasma, eczema, dermatitis, milia, acne etc. when it goes to extremes.

• It is very important to fix the lifestyle first, eating a healthy balanced diet, maintaining healthy habits, be it skincare, bodycare or caring for your mind and mental health.

• I have always been stressing about the use of sunscreen and how it saves us from premature ageing. 

• Then comes the importance of the most natural and beneficial resource available to us, and that is water. Drinking sufficient amount of water will keep our skin glowing and young, as it removes toxins from our body, our system.

• Reducing such habits that affect our hormones as well as our skin, like excess of caffeine, smoking, alcohol, oily and fattening foods, sugar, white-flour (maida) etc. will show a tremendous change on skin, over the time. 

• Our sleep is the magic potion to have a beautiful skin. Therefore, it is best to avoid late night sleeping patterns on a regular basis.  If one is not following a disciplined lifestyle, no amount of the best quality products are going to give the desired results.

• Fitness plays an important role, the health of a person appears on their skin.

If there are underlying medical conditions, and someone is on medication, then there are certain medicines which affect our skin adversely.

• Then comes environment we are in, the climate also affects the skin and hair.

Be it cold, winter, summer, hot and humid, rainy, the kind of water we use everyday, if it's a tropical or a dry desert area, mountains or plains, all these factors affect our health, skin and hair. 

• Chemicals, in any form plays havoc on our skin.

Use of chemical hair colour on a regular basis gives rise to melasma. Oftentimes one is ignorant about such facts, and keep on spending and trying new products to cure the problem, wherein it is the other factor which is responsible for the skin condition.

• Postpartum skin changes, and the remedy for that is patience, rest and care.

There is a major shift in hormones during and after pregnancy, which affects the whole body and mind of a woman. It's not impossible to regain a healthy skin and hair, but all one need is time and patience to achieve and get back to form.

It is a time consuming process for a woman to get a hold of her body back, as immediately after childbirth, the other new add-ons which affect her body is breast-feeding, which again affects her skin and hair. 

So, eating a healthy diet, giving rest to the body with proper sleep, and most of all accepting the new change in her body and life will gradually bring her back to having a good skin and hair. Therefore, it is so very important to understand all other aspects that affect our skin, body and hair, and not just depend and expect a miracle from using just one product.

Products will work on skin like miracle, if one is also putting in effort to correct the other, various aspects of skincare. Using appropriate product, each for individual issues, and getting out the notion that only anti-ageing cream or serum is going to fix the skin is going to be disappointing. Simply meaning, that a cleanser will do cleansing, a toner will do toning, a moisturizer will do moisturizing, a serum will do it's task, for whatever purpose it's being used, and hence, no single product will fulfill all the requirements of the skin.

One requires certain products for different timings and purposes.

And lastly I would say that embrace your skin, with all the love and acceptance for those marks, wrinkles, fine lines, blemishes, uneven tones etc. as your own, because they are, isn't it ?

Your skin and it's condition is a part of you, it is what makes you, your identity, and if you only is not able to accept it, then who else will ? 

It's a thought to ponder......

Clear your mind, before expecting a clear skin, keep your inner child alive, and it will take care of your ageing skin, eat a clean and nutritive diet, and it will keep you fit and healthy, which is way beyond necessary than having a younger looking skin. 

It is more of an inner job, then outer repairing, because nothing can dim the light that shines from within.

As it is rightly said, "YOU GLOW DIFFERENTLY WHEN YOU ARE HAPPY."

So stay happy in your own skin, because true beauty comes from being yourself.