People often look at their face and quickly think of the tissue that makes up the skin but hardly ever think about how our skin is also defined by approximately an average of 20,000 pores(at least this is the average amount of pores in the female face). This is how important our pores are when it comes to defining how visibly healthy our skin looks when we look in the mirror. It also determines how firm, smooth, soft and radiant our face looks both before and after makeup application.
Much of your pore size and visibility is determined by genetics, but maintaining the health and minimizing as much increased visibility of the pores as you age is not genetics. It is determined by how well you take care of your pores.
Excess oils, dirt and buildup in your pores promote increased sagging, stretching and enlarging of the pores. So the important basic to healthy pore care is to maintain clean pores. Routinely using products that help tighten stretched out pores as well as absorbed dirt and impurities from deep within the pores are extremely beneficial for healthy pore maintenance. And many natural clay ingredients have amazing dirt&impurity absorbing properties that could pull out and capture the unhealthy debris lodged deep within your pores.
As much as clean and clear pores are important, make sure to not over-clean your pores with ingredients that are extremely harsh and tend to over-strip all the naturally occurring oils and nutrients in your skin. Over-cleansing could also trigger your skin to think it has to produce more oil and sebum, causing over-production of pore-clogging and congesting oil and sebum.
Unless you are an extreme athlete or in an occupation that is labor intensive and requires contact with a lot of dirt and the constant need to wear bacteria collecting safety headgears, there is no need to practice thorough face cleansing more than 2 times a day. And many skincare experts and dermatologist also agree that a good cleanse in the AM and one in the PM is the ideal frequency for cleansing your face as long as you cleanse properly.
"Limit washing to twice a day and after sweating. Wash your face once in the morning and once at night, as well as after sweating heavily. Perspiration, especially when wearing a hat or helmet, irritates the skin. Wash your skin as soon as possible after sweating."
-The American Academy of Dermatology Organization
(full article available at: https://www.aad.org/public/skin-hair-nails/skin-care/face-
washing-101#sthash.1rh4g2Ad.dpuf)
But I think it is great to add a couple skin-clean refreshers to your routine in between the 2 cleansing routines you do in the AM and PM to maintain around the clock skin-clean refreshment to your skin. Neogen Dermalogy Real Flower Cleansing Waters are perfect for those who want additional cleansing skin-refreshments throughout the day which also pack the capability to fix those makeup smudges that occur throughout the day.
And for those who are not huge makeup wearers that want something purely to help regain their skin's oil-moisture balance while giving a refreshingly clean touch-up to their skin, the RE:P Nutrinature All-in-one Multitem or Organic Cotton Treatment Toning Pads are perfect throughout the day skin cleansing refreshers!
It is also crucial to routinely practice exfoliation so that accumulated dead skin and debris on your skin don't pile up and clog your pores. Failure to routinely remove and slough off those dead skin cells will block your pores and cause buildup and clogging of all kinds of impurities, bacteria, sebum and oil in your pores that could trigger breakouts and congested, unhealthy pore conditions. And it also gets in the way of ensuring pore refreshing hydration to replenish moisture to your pores when there are obstacles of dead skin cells preventing hydration to your pores.
Another crucial key to healthy pore care is to avoid prolonged exposure to heat and hot temperatures! Try to not take long hot baths and showers which tend to stretch out and expand your pores. Heat also accelerates your skin's aging process as well as triggers production of oil. Occasional application of heat to opening the pores for decongesting is okay but you must avoid being exposed to this heat for more than a duration of 20-30 mins and quickly contract those stretch pores with a quick cold shower so that the stretched pores shrink back to their normal size.
Quick skin cooling mists and sprays for your face are ideal to carry around especially during the warmer, sweatier, summer months. Our skin is constantly being heated and inflamed from the hot temperature and direct sunlight which causes our pore to naturally expand and produce more pore congesting oils and sebum. So making a habit of always keeping your skin cool as possible throughout the day with easy skincare mists featuring additional pore soothing, refreshing, anti-aging ingredients like centella asiatica and green tea or even anti-bacterial/inflammatory ingredients like witch hazel, and tea tree oil can go a long way in keeping your pores healthier on the long term. Neogen Dermalogy H2 Dermadeca Serum Spray and Code9 Sebum Clear Pore Mists are ideal mists that you could carry in your bag and spritz throughout the hot summer days and no-gas type sprays that you can throw in your checked baggage for any flight!
