Wake Up Beautiful: Our Favorite Nighttime Skin Tips

Your skin loves nighttime. When you’re sleeping your delicate skin is protected from the sun, wind and other environmental stressors. Plus, most of the biological activities that repair and restore the body & the skin take place while you’re sleeping. Here are six easy and effective nighttime skin tips that will give you beautiful glowing skin when you wake up in the morning.

Cleanse your skin thoroughly at night – Whether you’re conscious of it or not, most of us touch our face all day long, making it one of the dirtiest places on our bodies. So, it’s critical that you clean your face before bed to avoid the spread of bacteria that can cause acne. In addition, your skin repairs itself at night, so removing makeup gives your skin a clean palette for applying your night time performance products for maximum absorption. Here’s how to properly wash your face:

• Wash your hands and apply a quarter size dollop of facial cleanser to your palm (we recommend our Olive Oil Cleanser for anti-aging or our Foaming Cleanser for acne prone/oily skin). Work the cleanser into your skin in gentle circular motions and then lean over the sink and splash lukewarm water on your face 8-10 times to completely cleanse the skin. Then pat the skin dry with a washcloth. DO NOT wash your face by applying face wash to a towel and rubbing it on your face. Not only does this irritate your skin, it does not fully clean it and can actually make matters worse.

Always use a moisturizer – Some people avoid using night cream to let their skin “breathe.” But, this is a myth. Avoiding night cream offers no positive skin benefit. In fact, when your skin is bare, the moisture evaporates right out of your skin resulting in dry skin cell build up making the skin look dull and tired. It’s really important to use a moisturizer because at night when your skin is at rest, the skin’s permeability is at its highest therefore allowing the action ingredients of a moisturizer to absorb deeper within the skin. We recommend our ultra rich and soothing Night Cream.

Watch what you eat before bed– Do you wake up bloated and puffy in the morning? If so, it’s usually due to what you ate the night before. If this happens to you, cut out salt, dairy, and alcohol before bed and try sleeping propped up with a few pillows to elevate your face and keep swelling down.

Use products with performance ingredients – During the day your skin requires environmental-protecting ingredients but at night when your skin is regenerating, look for repair, exfoliating and anti-inflammatory ingredients such as glycolic acid (in our Reveal 10), Peptides (in our Copper Peptide Serum), and Idebenone (in our Idebenone Cream) to encourage collagen activity while you sleep.

Change your pillowcase frequently or sleep on a Beauty Pillow – Bacteria and oil can get reintroduced into the skin from your dirty pillowcase while you’re sleeping, so it’s always suggested for acne-prone skin to have a fresh, clean pillowcase to sleep on (we recommend using gentle, organic detergents). Or, sleep on our Beauty Pillow and your face doesn’t touch the pillow (this will also prevent you from getting sleep wrinkles!)

Get your beauty sleep – Getting enough sleep at night offers countless skin benefits. Sleep can reduce dark circles because a lack of sleep compromises your body’s circulatory system and you get stagnant blood in the vessels under the eyes because it hasn’t properly drained. Lack of sleep also causes the skin to look pale and tired because the circulation has been impaired. In addition, it’s important to get a good night’s sleep because sleep deprivation also causes stress, which can aggravate all skin conditions, including acne, eczema and psoriasis. Bottom line: when you’re tired, you look it! Do whatever you can to get the recommended 6-8 hours a night.