Beauty Maintenance Schedule

Knowing that you should moisturize, exfoliate, and use facial masks to keep your skin looking its best is important, but do you know how often you should be doing these things, and why? Here we’ll give an easy beauty maintenance schedule to follow, and reasons why this schedule is important.

Written by Andrea Lewis, Green Health Research Contributor

Daily: Cleanse, Moisturize, Brush, Floss, and Use Eye Treatments

Cleansing and moisturizing your skin twice a day is the first step to ensuring that you look your best. Overnight and through the course of the day dead skin cells and oil accumulate on the upper layers of your skin, and if they are not removed through gentle cleansing they can become trapped in pores and lead to blemishes.

Moisturizing your skin with a product that contains an SPF of at least 15 helps to maintain a healthy moisture balance so your skin doesn’t produce excess oil and protects it from the damaging effects of the sun.

You should also use an under-eye treatment one to two times a day to help moisturize the delicate eye area and prevent the appearance of ‘crow’s feet’, dark circles, and other under-eye problems. Look for eye treatments with marshmallow and tea extracts, as these both naturally de-puff bags under the eye and combat signs of aging.

Brushing and flossing your teeth everyday helps to combat not only plaque but can help reduce your risk of heart disease. Recent studies show that bacteria that can accumulate around teeth can travel through the blood stream and trigger heart problems, but that this risk is greatly reduced by regular brushing and flossing.

Weekly: Exfoliate and Use a Facial Mask

One or two times a week you should use a gentle product to exfoliate your skin. Exfoliators promote healthy skin by removing excess dead skin cells and oil, allowing the skin to breath and keeping pores clear of debris. Avoid products with large, uneven or very roughly textured particles, as these can cause microscopic tears in the skin where dirt can buildup and bacteria can breed, leading to inflammation.

Instead look for products which exfoliate through the use of oatmeal, finely-milled sugar, or natural extracts of papaya and pineapple. Papaya and pineapple contain natural fruit acids which gently and effectively promote skin cell turnover, so that dead cells are sloughed off the skin.

Many face masks also contain papaya and pineapple for that same reason. Facial masks are important because they can reach deeper into pores than normal products we use to cleanse skin on a daily basis. Masks help to make sure that your skin stays healthy so that the products you apply to it are as effective as possible.

If you have dry skin, use a moisturizing mask with avocado, honey, or chamomile to add moisture and sooth the skin.

If you have oily skin use a clay-based mask to help control excess oil, and also look for products which contain witch hazel and cucumber which naturally tone the skin.