As we all get older we seem to lose that youthful glow that we once had. There are many factors fighting against us to keep our youthful looking skin including, sun, wind, the foods we eat, or the lack of hydration our skin so desperately needs.

Quite a few skin care products can help us keep our skin looking better than ever, however, without proper skin care treatment, all the skin care products in the world will not help. To look your best and provide your skin with anti-aging skin care you should turn to natural skin care and all-natural products.

Let’s begin by first looking at your overall daily routine.

You need eight hours of sleep, stay out of the sun as much as possible, use a good all-natural moisturizer and above all else drink plenty of water. It is recommended in order to have youthful healthy-looking skin the best anti-aging skin care starts with eight glasses of water per day.

Exposure to the sun makes our skin dry and weather beaten. If you must be out in the sun, use sunscreen and moisturizers for natural skin care. Read the label, though, you do not want any product that has any type of alcohol in it; alcohol will dry the skin causing it to age as well.

One of the best skin care treatments you can add to your anti-aging skin care routine is the use of moisturizers. Our skin loses water constantly and if you are like most people you do not enjoy drinking gallons of water in order to keep your skin hydrated. This is the reason you should use moisturizers every day. You should apply an all-natural moisturizer to your face before you apply any type of make-up.

When you are searching for the best anti-aging skin care, you will of course look for anti-aging products. The best products for skin care treatment that aid in anti-aging are ones that include antioxidants. Antioxidants aid our skin by protecting the collagen and the elastin that we need to keep our skin feeling firm and supple.

The overall thing to remember with all skin care treatment including anti-aging skin care is that what you put into your body will show on the outside. You should eat a proper diet and healthy foods. Eating well-balanced meals and nutritional foods will give your skin a healthy glow especially when you remember to drink plenty of water.

Anti-Aging Skin Care Products

If you’ve ever tried to find a skin care product to deal with the skin care concerns of aging skin, you’re probably as confused as the average person. There are so many products and ingredients that tout increase in this, decrease in that, revitalized this and revitalized that and on and on and on.

Many empty promises or over-hyped formulations.

In order to understand what anti-aging skin care products are intended to do, you have to first understand about what the aging process is for skin. Aging skin has the condition where the structural proteins that bind and support the skin, collagen and elastin, lose their resiliency and cohesion, causing the skin to wrinkle and/or sag.

The body's ability to produce new collagen and elastin also diminishes with age while the cells in the various layers of our skin decline and thin, losing the ability to adequately maintain moisture. Without proper hydration, the healing mechanisms of the skin cease to function, adversely affecting the skin's ability to receive nutrients and repair itself. The result is rough, lose, wrinkled skin.

Of course, we all want to have the best skin possible at any age and are searching for solutions to maintain our skin’s youthfulness. In our quest and with the constant marketing and advancements in skin care, it can sometimes be difficult to find an affordable and effective solution for great skin care.

However, what you need to know is that it doesn’t have to be that complex (as many of the product name suggest!). What you should consider is that what any skin care program should be is simple. That’s it, just simple. The results that we all want are simple: soft, smooth, clear, radiant, younger-looking skin.

Too much of the time now days, skin care marketers are trying to convenience consumers that they need formulations that no average consumer can understand, or day and night products, or formulations that highly successful, well-known personalities would use. If you think about it, how many products do you currently have in your storage that were purchased because of these marketing strategies?

With these types of advertising, there are so many re-touches and questionable representation of the product effectiveness because the personality also receives so many other types of services and procedures that impact the condition of skin that you really cannot know the true results that the highly marketed products will bring.

The positive side of the situation is that there are constant and ever evolving advances in skin care and we all have the option for our skin condition improving with age.

Simple Skin Care Routine

If you are looking for a skin care routine, there are some guidelines you may want to consider when making your skin care choices:

- Protect your skin while you are in the sun and extreme weather. Use proper protection.

- Drink lots of water. It’s so important for proper skin hydration and keeping your body clean from toxins and other chemicals that could cause adverse reactions in your skin.

You should know what you are using on your skin. If you can’t pronounce the majority of the ingredients or there are more than 5 or 6 ingredients, then it may be too complex for what your skin actually needs.

Skin care that uses these types of formulations are full of fillers, coloring, preservatives, and chemicals that are not beneficial for your skin and come with a high price where the consumer is paying for the filler more so than the active ingredients. These types of ingredients are only needed to fill up the bottle and make it appealing to smell or touch. Sometimes products will contain multiple active ingredients but in order to formulate these ingredients, it requires that other ingredients be added. You end up paying for something your skin cannot use.

The cheaper ingredients are filling up the bottle. Try a similar approach to how you would choose your food (skin is alive, cells and needs nourishment). Watch the labels and choose products with skin healthy formulations where the active ingredients are 80% of the ingredients.

You should use a good and effective cleanser. This is the most important step in your skin care process. Many cleansing products do not leave your skin feeling smooth and deeply cleansed.

Find a product that goes deep into the pores, provides light exfoliation and conditioning, and does not leave any residue. Applying moisturizers and treatments on top of skin that is not completely clean will just make the problem worse by clogging pores and showing a rough, uneven skin texture.

You should be able to adjust your program to meet your skin’s daily needs. If you can’t adjust the use of the products to match what your skin needs on a particular day, are you really getting what you need?

Your skin care routine should be able to hydrate, heal, and renew your skin. You should see this gradual improvement every day and not have to wait 30 to 60 days for results. It’s like watering a plant. A plant that needs water as a critical nutrient will respond immediately to the water being absorbed through its roots and perk up within a few hours.

Watch your skin for a week or so and you’ll know how effective the routine can ultimately be for your skin care needs.

You should be able to quickly go through your regime. It should not take more than 5 minutes. A skin care routine should include the steps to cleanse, exfoliate, treat and/or moisturize. You should be able to pick and choose what you need based on your skin’s current condition for that day.

You should not be able to feel the product on your skin. In order for skin care to really be effective, it must penetrate the skin cells. Product sitting on top of your skin is product that is not penetrating the skin layers. Products with fillers and other unnecessary, complex formulations will may not get deep or directly enough to provide the treatment and results you are looking for. You should not know that you are wearing your skin care.

You should feel comfortable with makeup optional skin. If your skin care is really working, your skin will improve and you will not want to put makeup on it if you don’t have to. Most skin problems are correctable to a large degree. You should be able to go out feeling confident that your skin is at its best (with minimal makeup) no matter what your age is. Also, by using makeup less, you are giving your skin more time to repair and restore itself without the interruption of other product chemicals on your skin.

Simple Facial Care in 4 Steps

Facial skin care is more a matter of discipline than anything else. A facial skin care routine is what you need (and you need to follow the facial skin care routine with complete seriousness). So let’s check what comprises an effective facial skin care routine. Well, very simply, a facial skin care routine can follow the following 4 steps:

- Cleansing

- Toning

- Exfoliating

- Moisturizing

Cleansing

Cleansing is the first thing in facial skin care routine. Cleansing helps in removing dust, pollutants, grease and extra oil from your skin, thereby preventing damage to your skin. Just spot your face and neck with a good cleansing lotion or cream and gently massage it into your skin using upward strokes. Use a soft face tissue or cotton wool to wipe your face in a gentle patting fashion (do not rub).

Cleansing should be done at least twice a day i.e. morning (as part of complete facial skin care routine) and evening (on a standalone basis). Water soluble cleansers are the best for inclusion in your facial skin care routine.

Toning

Toning is the next in a facial skin care routine. However, this is the optional part of the facial skin care routine. Mostly, proper cleansing can compensate for toning. Toning helps remove all traces of dirt, grease and excess cleanser. Instead of making it part of your daily facial skin care routine, you can use an alcohol-free toner occasionally when you have been exposed to particularly harsh environment or pollution.

Exfoliating

Exfoliation is again, kind of, optional step in everyday routine for facial skin care. However, exfoliation is necessary at least once a week (or twice, depending on the skin type and the environmental conditions). Exfoliation finds its place in facial skin care routine because of the natural tendency of skin to replenish the skin cells every 3 or 4 weeks.

As a facial skin care technique, exfoliation helps in removing the dead skin cells that block the pores, thus assisting the skin in the natural process. However, excessive or harsh exfoliation can cause damage to your skin so you need to have a balance.

Moisturizing

The next thing in facial skin care is moisturizing. In fact, moisturizing is the most important part of facial skin care routine. Moisturizers prevent your skin from getting dry. Dry skin is really undesirable since it can cause the upper layer skin to break, leading to dead skin cells.

Again, use light upward strokes to make the moisturizer more effective. Moisturizers work the best when applied on warm and damp skin. Do not try to remove all the moisture in the previous steps of facial skin care routine.

Besides the normal facial skin care routine, you should also exercise the following for facial skin care:

- Use proper make-up remover instead of just washing it away

- Pay heed to your skin type and the environment, when choosing facial skin care products.

- Before you start using a new facial skin care product, test it by applying it on a short patch of skin e.g. ear lobes.

- Never rub your skin too hard.

- Use sunscreen lotions for protection against sun.

By following these simple skin care routines, your skin will become young and radiant again even through aging and the harsh environment. It doesn’t take much to do follow these routines but the effects will be compounds over the years that you start to treat your skin with love. Let’s keep your skin healthy and glowing well into the future!