Solving your skin-care puzzle

Many different factors go into making up your skin profile. Take all of them into account to create a skin-care regimen that’s as unique as you are. Vaseline (www.vaseline.ca) explores the challenges your skin faces year round.

Our bodies are smart. They do what they can to protect us. Darker skin helps shield us from the dangers of the sun’s rays with a natural protection equivalent to wearing SPF 5. And that means less burning, less wrinkling and fewer sunspots. But darker skin can lose moisture more quickly in cold and dry conditions.

Fairer skin lets through more light and more vitamin D. That’s good for our health but it also makes lighter skin more prone to sun damage. While lighter skin holds moisture for longer periods of time than darker skin, helping to protect it from severe weather conditions, when it does become dry and damaged it shows quickly and soon becomes unable to cope with the elements.

All it takes is a quick look out the window to see why this country can be a hard place for a body. Unless we’re lucky enough to live on the damp, temperate west coast (though perhaps not so lucky for our hair), we’re going to need a barrier between us and the elements. The extreme cold of Quebec or the far north, the winds of the prairies or the effects of high altitudes in the mountains can rob skin of moisture. Overexposure to raw spring winds or summer sunshine can do the same.

Then there’s the man-made geography. We’re talking overheated wintertime interiors, the air-conditioned nightmare of summer and the hard water that may flow from our taps, all of which can be just as drying as stepping outside in a January gale.

That Father Time’s a mean old goat. After we hit 25, our skin starts losing collagen and cell replacement slows. The result: duller, less supple skin.

We all know that too much stress is bad for our health. But did you know that high levels of stress can contribute to premature aging? By intensifying the effects of dryness, it can make our skin look as tired as we feel. Stress can also affect skin and other health conditions that each individual is prone to, which in turn affects our appearance.

Long, hot showers, failing to moisturize, forgetting to use sunscreen (in summer) or leaving our gloves at home (in winter), walking around all day in high heels. Oh, the things we do to our bodies – and our skin. Even the supplest, most luminous skin suffers when neglected or mistreated. And the results aren’t pretty: chapped, cracked, rough, tough, bumpy, lumpy, sunburned, spotted skin.

- News Canada

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1. Lotions, Ointments and Masks Oh My! The Basics of Skin Care
2. Tips for Putting Your Best Face Forward this Fall
3. Some Critical Factors about Acne and Anti Aging Skin Care