The best skin plans and routines are taking our skin somewhere. The whole point of skin care is to improve and extend our skin health…not to mention to prevent skin issues altogether along the way.
What Is Maintenance Skin Care?
This is the bare minimum so as to not slide backwards. What is a plan so simple that you can be consistent day in and day out and still get maximum results? Ideally, you should be able to do this in under two minutes. With so little time the ingredients must count.
Maintenance skin care should check these boxes:
- Dermal Nutrients
- Hydration
- Barrier Restoration
- UV Protection
- Dermal Antioxidants
This is essentially water, food, antioxidants, barrier protection, and sun protection. There are no substitutions for these things and there are many things that advertisements will falsely parade into the category of Dermal Nutrients.
What Is Corrective Skin Care?
Corrective skin care is simply reversing and improving acne, scars, hyperpigmentation, barrier restoration, hyper-sensitivity, or premature aging. Resolving these issues as soon as they are noticed is a big advantage rather than waiting until they are chronic and longstanding. Our skin was born to have perfect texture, even coloring, resilient to the sun, and slow to age. Corrective care reclaims these birthrights.
What Is Preventative Skin Care?
Preventative care is a plan to get ahead of likely skin problems that come with hormonal surges, and aging which includes wrinkles. Our skin can be in such a state that it does not fall out of balance with hyperpigmentation, acne, or hypersensitivity, and wrinkles.It can be so resilient that it doesn’t burn and heals with no or minimal scarring from accidents.
Yes, even wrinkles can be prevented and delayed tremendously much more than people realize with effective preventive care. Most importantly possible actinic precursor lesions can be reversed and prevented. Yes, there is a functional medicine-modeled way of resolving this that will prevent dozens of trips to your dermatologist.
Maintenance vs Corrective Skin Care
Maintenance care comes after correcting skin issues and is the most simple.
Corrective care is reversing and improving acne, scars, etc. Preventative care is the plan that prevents having to correct anything in the first place.
When Do You Need Corrective Skin Care Instead of Maintenance?
When your skin has issues it’s time to bring in more of the potent holistic actives that increase skin cell turnover without exfoliation or trauma. Maintenance provides that basic foundation of skin health and corrective care is blended into that plan…expanding it..making it a bit more intricate than the 2-minute or less maintenance routine.
Building a Skin Care Plan: When to Correct, When to Maintain & When to Prevent
The best skin plan is universal in the way that even in its most skeletal form it is meaningful to our skin and when there is more time and resources available it expands easily to become corrective or preventive care.
Top Products For Maintenance Skin Care
- A true hydration mist (no pore size “correctors” or astringents).
- Dermal Nutrients for skin cell turnover without trauma or exfoliation. Dermal Nutrients increase cell turnover without inflammation or sun sensitivity. Sun sensitivity is the biggest age accelerator that exists and tragic convention skin care is packed with these ingredients.
- Barrier restoration butter as it is dense enough to trap water underneath and support barrier function.
- Mineral SPF 50 reapplied every 2 hours for UV protection.
Best Corrective Skin Care Ingredients
Since corrective care is an expansion of maintenance this includes everything above with an increase of the Dermal Nutrient dose in the evenings. Vitamin C and Niacinamide are useful. Sometimes an old-fashioned acne scrub is needed in conjunction with a hydrating enzyme pack. Potent biopeptides are invaluable. The use of an invisible UV-blocking serum in the mornings can make a tremendous difference for skin that has already suffered too much from the sun.
Finding Balance: The Right Skin Care Approach for Long-Term Skin Health
Accurate skin analysis is paramount to arriving at long-term lifetime skin health. This is the single biggest mistake made by most skin health providers.
Lets face it, sometimes LIFE happens, we go through a breakup, a family crisis, a wedding, a funeral, a new love, or a new baby…all of these things interrupt our self-care so it is imperative we have a plan that breathes with us. A routine that can be abbreviated or expanded upon to meet our lives. Chaos reigns when people have no understanding of what their skin needs let alone a clear map that will deliver them to beaming lifetime skin health in all of life’s phases and events.
Above all, locate a skin health provider that has a clear map and plan so as to change the state of your skin so that it hums happily along in aging delay.
About the author
I took many wrong turns when I started learning about skin at 19. The more I spent on skincare, equipment, and training, the further I felt from actually helping skin. I was frustrated with only being able to offer temporary and superficial solutions at best. What emerged from the disappointment and turmoil, I now call, The Regenerative Skin Process. Skin Harmonics is a dedicated medical fusion holistic skincare clinic that provides a root cause approach delivering lifetime skin health through medical grade skin care products, new learning, and Deep Pore Cleansing Facials.
