What Winter Means For Your Skin

Winter is Coming!

According to the clothes I’ve been wearing and the amount of blankets I’ve been using at night, it seems Winter is Coming. It’s bad enough that it’s getting dark early, but really? Our skin has to suffer now, too? With winter coming, it’s time to prepare your skin to deal with the elements, just like you winterize your home, your wardrobe and your life.

The Mean Ole Environment and Dry Skin

Normal vs dry skin illustration

When the environment changes — cold temperatures, low humidity, wind — skin can dry out, and even become more sensitive than usual. In the winter we turn up the thermostats in our offices and homes — but that heating removes humidity from the air and dehydrates our skin. Symptoms of dry skin are severe roughness, cracking, scaling and flakiness. This is usually seen on knees, shins, elbows, and if you’re like me, hands! But your face can feel it as well. Even worse than looking older, wrinkled, and leathery is it can FEEL uncomfortable, too.

Not so fun fact? Severe dryness can also weaken the moisture barrier, so skin isn’t protected and moisture actually leaks out. Yes, leaks. Then our defenses can become compromised, allowing irritants and allergens to get past the barrier and irritate skin. You know I’ve got to plug one of my winter go-to’s here. I’ve said it before, I don’t really have sensitive skin, but I always have components of the SOOTHE Regimen with me. Especially in the winter. The step 2 Sensitive Skin Treatment protects the skin against weather conditions like wind and low humidity. Also remember that when the moisture barrier is compromised, dry skin can lead to premature skin aging and we all know what that looks like. :O

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse — there’s something called lichenification — yup, like dry, thick elephant skin. So, make sure not to scratch dry skin. Another condition is flakiness, when the uppermost layers of skin are having difficulty with their normal cycle of shedding.

So What Can You Do About It?

OK, so I just gave you the doom and gloom truth about skin in the winter. So now what to do about it? Well, first step is exfoliate. Micro-Dermabrasion Paste offers maximum exfoliation, so the flakes don’t build up. It also nourishes and moisturizes skin, and can be used on the face and body, leaving skin looking more even and healthier after just one use. It’s recently been repackaged and slightly reformulated to be even better than before. I just opened a new jar and it looks the same, smells the same, and even feels the same. But better. Is that even possible?!

Then hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! You want to replace all the lost moisture the environment is stealing from you–I hate thieves, but I sure like this replacement! Active Hydration Serum for the face and Active Hydration Body Replenish both contain our proprietary 3D3P Molecular Matrix with Glycerin and Hyaluronic Acid that attracts moisture from the air, replenishing the moisture reserves on our skin. Then it locks in moisture, so you’re not “leaking” in the winter! If you’ve ever heard me talk about our products you’ll know I say there is no one miracle product, but if there were… it would be this Active Hydration Serum. Y’all. Young, old, acne, clear—you need this in your life. I promise.

Oh! And don’t forget your lips. The skin on your lips is even more fragile and more susceptible to drying out, not to mention exposed to the elements. Ever since I did a couple rounds of Accutane in my early and mid 20’s, my lips have been one big dry hot mess–chapped, dry, cracked. If it was pitiful and lacked hydration, those were my lips. I even refrained from using lipstick for YEARS because it never looked right on my poor lips. UNTIL I started using the REDEFINE Lip Renewing Serum. Seriously. This stuff has changed the composition of my lips (bring on the lip pencils and matte lipstick!!). It comes in capsules rich in antioxidants to help lips retain their natural moisture. And here’s my frugal tip–I use each capsule about 3 times. It’s the last thing I do before I go to sleep and I use just a tiny bit on my lips. I leave the capsule on my medicine cabinet shelf until the next night. So the jar of 60 capsules lasts me forever (or you know, about 5-6 months).

Extra Tips for Dry Skin

woman applying moisturizer after shower

And remember, when washing your face and body, keep the water temperature warm, not super hot. Exfoliate mid shower (I turn the water off or pointed away while I do this so it’s not washing off right away and I have time to scrub-a-dub). And slather on your hydrators and moisturizers right after your bath or shower when skin is still DAMP. It helps lock in that moisture and hydration.

That inbox sure has a lot of insight

12,365. That’s how many emails are currently sitting in my main email box. Don’t worry, they’re all “read.” I’m not one of those people that lets the inbox number stay much above 3. But it still seemed like a rather large number when I saw it this morning and I decided to do something about it.

My usual routine is plug an email address of something I receive often into the search bar, and then delete all of those emails. You know, like the Nextdoor emails. Or the promo emails I haven’t used Unroll with yet. Don’t know what Unroll is? Side note… it’s one of those sites/services that basically identifies email addresses as things I might want to gather up in one place as to not clog up my inbox. Basically anything that offers a sale gets thrown in there. It’s the alternative to using a junk email address for coupons. And I’m sure it’s gathering ALL the data on me, but hey, #convenience and #tidyness wins here. Anyway, I digress…

So after a few mass deletings of certain emails, I decided to take a look at my email starting from the oldest to the newest. I forgot I had already done this once. I had gone all the way back to the start of the email (probably somewhere in the 2005 time frame) and just flushed it all. So this time, the emails started at 2013. Six years ago.

If you want to see how much you’ve grown over a period of time, do a sweep of your email. It could be cringe-worthy, but I swear it’s an interesting experience. One that lends itself to being a learning experience if you let it. I think that’s what ultimately prompted me to do a mass deletion of so many emails from my past a while ago. Too many sappy me emails, overzealous me emails, young and really inexperienced me emails. I’m so not that girl anymore. Now Me really doesn’t like how Then Me let people treat her.

As I looked through some emails this morning, I was reminded that a lot can happen in six years. If you’re feeling stuck or like you haven’t been growing, I challenge you to do a quick look at those really old emails. If you don’t see much change in how you might respond to something, maybe it’s time to do some work. But chances are you’ll see you really have been changing and growing all along.

Marissa Signature

Freckles, Love ’em or Hate ’em

Marissa Social Media Profile Pic with Freckles

The other day I posted a new profile pic on Facebook. The photo was taken right before we left Florida last month and although I liked it (I mean, who puts a photo out there–purposefully–they don’t like?!), part of me was nervous about putting it out there.

Even with sunscreen ALL day EVERY day, I have freckles, aka sun damage. How could I, someone who is a skincare evangelist, use a pic of myself with sun damage?! Heck, how can I, as a skincare evangelist continue to share these awesome products when my skin looks like this? I should also note I don’t use filters when I’m posting pictures of myself like this. I know people do, but I simply don’t.

Well, here’s the thing… ever since I can remember I’ve had freckles. Face, chest, arms, legs. Every part where the sun shines, there are freckles. When we got back from this trip, I was greeted by a friend saying, “omg you’re so sunny!” To which I replied, “ahh, the freckles are just blending together.” Some people love their freckles, some hate them. I tend to go back and forth between not noticing them and being super self-conscious about them. As a kid and teenager I just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get a “pretty” tan like my friends. You know, where the skin is all one color.

As I was thinking about changing my profile pic, my only options for recent photos were ones from Florida. A month and a half again on the water in the hot Florida sun has brought a lot more freckles to the party. I turned to google to find out a bit more and found this Marie Claire article. Some fun facts? They’re genetic (definitely in my case). They can be an indicator of your sensitivity to the sun (yep, check that box, too). Oh, and in Medieval times, they were considered witches’ marks. Yeah, said to be “indicative of a women’s allegiance to the devil.” Um, ok.

But here’s the thing, even if you love them, they ARE sun damage. If you don’t, they CAN be erased with diligent and consistent use of our Reverse Lightening regimen–so shouldn’t mine be gone already? Will anyone want to buy skincare from me if I’m covered in freckles? I mean, I’m not exactly the poster child for the Reverse line. Ultimately, I decided that this is where I’m at for now. I love the other line I use for texture and wrinkles and I’m way more self-conscious about those wrinkles than I am sun damage. I’ll deal with taking care of them when fall is upon us and I know I won’t be in the sun so much.

If you’re anything like me and would like those babies faded away a little quicker than mother nature can do on her own, I’ve got ya covered. And please, for the love, stop using those filter apps. I promise I can get your skin to a place where you don’t need them.

Here goes nothing!

I have to admit something about myself. It’s not pretty and I’m not proud of it, but I know I’m not the only one and quite frankly I’m hoping for some sort of “release and find” to happen.  At times (ok, most of the time) I become completely and utterly paralyzed in the action stage of making something happen for myself. Ok, let me just admit another something real quick… At first draft, I ended that last sentence after the word “happen”. I did a super quick read of it, and went, “Umm, Marissa, be real.”   I’m great at making decisions and following through with the action stage for others. For myself though? Yeah, I’m working on it.

Case in point? This website. I’ve been contemplating this website for about a year now. A YEAR. It’s not like I’ve been contemplating some very resource-expensive decision.  I think (this time) my paralysis was centered around questioning myself about the first post because I have so many ideas swimming around in my head. Will it be funny? Serious? Informative? How about this… let’s simplify and just say it will be honest. And that’s what I decided today, because if I’m sharing  my life and how I attempt to impart a little love and passion into the world, simplicity and honesty is where it has to start!  I’ll be posting once a week on everything from loving your home to loving your skin and everything in between.  I would love to post more, but noticed I said honestly it would be once a week.

I can’t wait to start sharing all the things that help ME bring love and passion into the world and maybe help YOU do a little of it, too! I mean, can’t we all use a little more love??

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