Natural Beauty & Your Skin

Tips For Keeping Your Skin Healthy

Think for a moment about what's involved in a beautiful smile. The eyes light up the face. The lips, like curtains on a stage, part revealing naturally white straight teeth. But it is the skin that instantly draws you into the scene because, in evolutionarily terms, a clear, glowing complexion is our most attractive physical feature. It speaks volumes about your health, age, and even fertility; the quality of one's complexion can directly impact self-esteem and ability to relate to others. Your face, in fact, is “a window to your health.”

Your Skin Is Your Best Marketing Tool For Natural Beauty

We've all heard the saying “put your best face forward.” Whether you are 18 or 81 a natural-looking luminous, even toned, unblemished complexion is universally recognized as an invaluable asset. Achieving and maintaining great skin begins with healthy habits and addressing dermatologic issues from the pediatric through the geriatric years. While skin problems may commence with acne and end with wrinkles, the goal of looking radiant is everlasting. Fortunately, effective solutions are readily available today, allowing us to do just that.

Just like brushing and flossing, your daily habits over the course of your lifetime can have a profound effect on your skin.

Write Your Skin A Prescription For Change

It's easy to understand why most people never see a dermatologist given that there are fewer than 10,000 dermatologists for a US population of over 300 million. But armed with the right information, the simple choices you make for your skin, hair and nails will affect the way you look and feel, today and well into the future. Just like brushing and flossing your teeth, habits like daily application of sunscreen or learning to sleep on your back can make a big difference to your complexion over the course of a lifetime.

In keeping with our goals of education and making the right choices along with your healthcare professionals, this article and the series that will follow will empower you with facts you need to know to keep your skin healthy, in addition to treating and preventing common skin conditions. Much of the information used for this article comes from our national best seller, “Write Your Skin A Prescription For Change.”

The good news is that you have control over 80% of how your skin ages. You can blame the other 20% on genetics.

Taking Control Of Your Skin's Destiny

Forget about reading palms, it's the skin on the back of your hands that reveals healthy or unhealthy lifestyle choices. If you have protected your skin from the environment, it will look youthful well beyond its years. Likewise, even moderate, unprotected sun exposure can accelerate the aging process tremendously and produce a sallow (sickly, yellowish color), mottled, ruddy and wrinkled complexion. In future Facial Health, Beauty and Aging articles, we will discuss everything from the physiology and aging of skin to the impact of hormones and the sun/ultra-violet rays. The good news is that you have control over 80% of how your skin ages. Genetics is only to blame for a mere 20%. The key is learning to control and combat common skin problems and aging culprits.