The 5 essential beauty commandments

What should I do? It's the question my friends, neighbours, school mums, classmates, boyfriends, my friends' girlfriends and a long etc. ask me most. The second question is: Where do I go? (referring to which doctor or clinic) and the third is a statement: "but above all, make sure it looks natural, eh!" In this first beauty post I'm going to focus on what most of you have asked me: where do I start if I want to take care of myself? My answer is always the same: start with good facial care, the skin is the reflection of everything, and it is scientifically proven that the appearance of our skin determines perceived age, that is, the strategy for looking younger is always to take care of the appearance of your skin before undergoing any aesthetic procedure, let alone a surgical one.

Here are the 5 essential commandments that will make your skin radiant from the very first week.

1.- Thou shalt cleanse thy skin above all things

It should be a reflex, just like we brush our teeth after every meal, or you should.... well, with skin it's the same. Morning and night, like clockwork! For cleansing I apply 2 steps: I start with a good massage using a facial gel that deeply removes impurities, morning and night, and I apply it with the Clarisonic® facial brush. Going back to the teeth analogy; the cleansing will be much deeper, but you have to be careful if you have sensitive skin.

The facial gel,all the dermocosmetic brands; Avene, Isdin, Bioderma etc. have facial gels, you can buy them in most pharmacies and the price doesn't exceed €20. If you want to step it up a little, there are medical cosmetic gels, the difference being that they are more concentrated and the galenics (look, texture, feel on the skin) are more pleasant; in this case the price is much higher, usually around €40-50. My favourites: Sebium gel moussant and ZO Skin Health cleaner . The micellar water, besides removing any leftover make-up and impurities, lets me deeply clean the whole eye area, it works perfectly for me to remove mascara and at the same time it tones; the best water by far is Sensibio micellar water.

2.- Thou shalt use concentrated serums

Less is more. It's important to identify which active ingredients work best for your skin. The classification invented by our beloved guru Helena Rubinstein (1870/1965): dry, combination or oily skin, falls short!! You can have combination skin in some areas and dry skin in others, because skin has states, it's a living organ that changes according to our situation; it's not the same to live in Madrid as in Barcelona, it's not the same to be stressed during an intense work period as to be on holiday, it's not the same to have just had a baby as to be on the threshold of menopause. In short, the well-known saying "you have to change your cream because the skin gets used to it" is actually the opposite... you have to adapt the cream because the skin changes! The evolution of cosmetics is heading towards personalisation, so that we don't have to buy 3 different creams if we need some active ingredients that no single cream or serum contains at once, since that would be complicated... and you end up being the one who adapts to the cream, when it should be the other way around! which active ingredients are right for me? well, clearly the best specialist who can tell us which formula best suits our skin is the doctor; the dermatologist and/or aesthetic physician, they are the ones who know our skin best. The personalised cosmetics from the brand Universkin® have developed a questionnaire about your skin that gives us a diagnosis and some suggested active ingredients which the doctor will then confirm. If appropriate, they can make us the personalised formula with the active ingredients that work for you at that moment. Every 3 months (or with each change of season) it is recommended to review the formula.

If your skin is balanced and what you want is to give it a good boost of radiance, I recommend:

• Antioxidants in the morning: vitamin C and ferulic acid are the easiest to find. Besides protecting us from free radicals, they give the skin radiance.
• Alpha hydroxy acids and retinoids at night: salicylic acid, glycolic acid and retinol. They stimulate collagen, reduce fine lines and improve skin texture.

When and how much serum? Ideally morning and night, but as always it depends on your budget... in general you can use the same one morning and night unless the specific formula is depigmenting and you have to be careful with the sun.

Bear in mind: a serum is an elixir! It's super concentrated and the active ingredients are pure; no matter how much product you put on, your skin won't absorb more, so apply the saying: Less is more: with 4 drops you cover everything: one drop per area (forehead, cheeks, chin and neck). The price is around €100-120 with diagnosis included.

3.- Thou shalt moisturise

You have to give the skin something to drink! Just as we hydrate the body and that shows on the skin, you also have to hydrate the skin directly; it will help us look more "juicy", healthier and, in short, we'll have beautiful skin. The cells that form the walls of the skin, the keratinocytes, are bound together by a "cement", and in this cement there are some proteins called "aquaporins" that are responsible for hydration; the better we "feed" the aquaporins, the more beautiful our skin will look. The moisturiser, whether a basic pharmacy one or a medical cosmetic one. Essential: hypoallergenic, and if it's fragrance-free all the better, we save ourselves the risk of allergies. Which one do I choose? In this case you should ask about the richness, a simple rule: the younger you are, the lighter your moisturiser should be, because your sebaceous glands are working at full speed; as we get older it's harder to "retain water" (in the face... unfortunately in other places it's retained very well) and the cream will need to be denser, richer. The older you are, apply richer moisturisers!

4.- Thou shalt not go out without sun protection

A basic.... prevention is the cure, not only for beauty but also for health. There are more and more moisturisers with sun protection; an SPF of 15-20 is more than enough for day to day.My trick: in the mornings I apply a tinted sunscreen, so I don't use moisturiser, only at night. I combine 3 steps in one: I moisturise, I protect and it gives me a touch of colour, my favourite is Heliocare color SPF 50 by IFC.

5.- Thou shalt deeply hydrate once a week

The skin is a living organ, with different layers; the most superficial one, the epidermis, renews itself roughly every 28 days, sounds like the cycle, right? everything is connected... well, the most superficial layer of the skin is the one that sheds the "older" cells to make way for the younger ones.

In this commandment I also apply 2 phases:

1.- Exfoliation: our skin will look more radiant simply by helping to remove that layer we were talking about, called the stratum corneum, and also because we'll remove impurities that daily cleansing doesn't manage to. The exfoliant doesn't need great features; it can be from the pharmacy, mass-market cosmetics, medical, or as I do when I'm caught away from home, "my homemade exfoliant" is cheap and cheerful and works a treat... it consists of:

• facial gel: roughly the amount equivalent to two hazelnuts
• sugar: the amount equivalent to one of those little sachets they give you at cafés. From now on, ask for an extra one and save it for your "beauty moment".

With your fingertips (don't do it with the brush, it's too harsh), I take the gel and mix it with the sugar, I massage the whole face well with the mixture, focusing on the T-zone. You can do it in the shower, it's more comfortable. 2.- Hydration: We have a lot to learn from Korean women, you know their cosmetics lead the way in R&D; for centuries they have found ways to keep their skin radiant and hydrated, they are great consumers of biocellulose masks, soaked in different active ingredients, although they are generally hyaluronic acid and green tea. I recommend you find a quiet moment, just for you, and after exfoliating, with the skin nice and clean, apply the hydrating mask for 10-15 min. Your skin will be more receptive than ever to absorbing the wonderful active ingredients the mask is soaked in. After the 10-15 min., remove the mask and let the product dry in the air; afterwards you can put make-up on top without any problem. In fact it's the trick of many models before they get their make-up done, and also between sessions to soothe the skin. It also works as Halloween dress-up... it's a big hit with the little ones ;). My recommendation, obviously, are the Korean masks by CromaPharma, sold in aesthetic clinics all over Spain and online at specialised pharmacies. Their original use was after professional aesthetic-cosmetic treatments, since they immediately soothe the skin and also leave you with a wonderful veil of collagen, and it looks like your wrinkles have been erased all at once!

And remember...taking care of yourself is a right and a duty, our skin will be with us our whole life, and our life expectancy keeps getting longer. Even if beauty is on the inside, it's far better that we take care of our outer appearance.

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