5 Skin Care Tips For Making Your Skin Its Radiant Best
Caring for your skin means following a regular skin care routine and keeping a healthy lifestyle. Your skin is an outward reflection of your body so it makes sense the food and drink going into your body and your lifestyle choices shape the way your skin looks.
To make yourself look your best, nurture your skin with the right balance of nutrition, hydration, exercise, and sleep and nourish it with the right skin care products.
Below are five things you can start doing today to help make your skin look its radiant best.
Watch What You Eat
Choose foods high in anti-oxidants. Antioxidants are well-known for offering your skin protection from free radical damage.
Without going into a long science lecture, free radicals are highly 
reactive molecules with unpaired electrons. They need to combine with another molecule, good or bad, and they will wreak havoc until they find one. They occur naturally in the body through oxidation and also are caused by air pollution, cigarette smoking, pesticides, toxins in food, excessive consumption of spirits, and other environmental stresses.
Although they are unavoidable, it is generally believed that the damage they cause can be lessened or even reversed by consuming foods rich in antioxidants like colorful organic berries, dark green leafy vegetables and raw pecans.
Eat healthy fats. While oil seems like an unhealthy recipe for glowing skin, it really is healthy if you choose the right oils and proper serving sizes.
Some noted nutritionists say to avoid most commercial cooking oils (canola, sunflower, safflower, soybean, corn) and instead use cold pressed organic coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil. The western diet typically lacks foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, nutrients that help keep skin supple and improve its texture and softness.
Experts recommend omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids be consumed in roughly a 2:1 ratio for best results. Foods with a good profile of healthy fats include raw walnuts, ground flax seeds, omega-3 fortified eggs, avocados, and wild-caught salmon.
Make Healthy Lifestyle Choices
Keep your body hydrated. One of the simplest things you can do for your skin is to drink plenty of water every day. Water hydrates the body and skin and helps remove toxins from tissues and organs, 
helping against premature aging. Well hydrated skin appears smooth, fresh, and glowing. Without proper water, the skin becomes dull, dry and damaged. Most experts recommend 8 glasses daily, which can also be comprised of servings of water rich fruits and vegetables.
Drink in moderation. Drinking a glass of red wine a day may be beneficial to your health according to some experts. Red wine contains antioxidants and other compounds that may help counteract some aging processes. Still, there is little debate about the negative impact on health and skin borne from habitual consumption of too much intoxicating beverages.
Follow an exercise routine. Getting the heart going and improving your circulation aids your outward appearance by brightening your skin. More blood to your skin keeps skin cells nourished and healthier. Plus physical activity reflects well on your face since it stimulates various brain chemicals that can leave you feeling happier and more relaxed.
Get a good night's rest. When you miss too much sleep, your body overproduces the stress hormone cortisol. Too much cortisol floating around your body can break down skin collagen, the protein that keeps skin smooth and elastic. The chemical cascade can thin the skin below your eyes, allowing blood vessels to be more visible, resulting in those unwanted dark circles. Cortisol also increases the volume of blood in your body, which can make the visible blood vessels even darker. Puffy dark circles can develop from blood leaking from those blood vessels.
Exfoliate Your Skin
Exfoliation removes dry, dead skin cells from the surface of your skin, making skin look smoother and clearer. This also allows the active ingredients in skin care products to penetrate the skin better.
Exfoliation may sound harsh, but it's a natural body process since your skin turns over every few weeks. While in your twenties, your skin renews about every 25 days on its own. But the process slows down in your thirties. Helping your body slough off those extra cells will help prevent your complexion from becoming dull, uneven and rough and dry to the touch.
However, beware of over doing it since removing too much of the top layer can lead to redness and irritation. Give your skin a chance to properly renew itself. Weekly exfoliation is a safe bet. Over-exfoliation of oily skin may actually stimulate sebaceous glands to produce excess oil.
Cleanse Your Face The Right Way
Cleansing your skin keeps it fresh and clean, allowing your skin to breathe and unclogging pores. Cleansing is an important ritual before putting on moisturizer or anti-aging cream, helping those next products work better.
You probably want to avoid cleansers with potentially unhealthy ingredients like sodium laureth sulfate, sodium lauryl sulfate, triclosan and triclocarban.
Cleansing doesn't mean using bar soap. Typical bar soap is too alkaline. A 2010 study published in the British Journal of Dermatology reported that after eight years, women with an alkaline outer layer developed more fine lines and crow’s feet and were more prone to sun damage than those with more acidic skin.
Too acidic doesn't work out well either, irritating your face. The skin's outer layer works best when it's slightly acidic, at a 5.5 pH level (water is a neutral 7 pH and a higher pH is alkaline).
A good natural pH adjusted cleanser is Anavita Renewing Foaming Facial Cleanser. This cleanser won't irritate your skin or leave it too dry or oily. It's made with natural and organic plant-based ingredients selected to soothe, heal and protect the skin.
A good cleansing routine starts with washing your face in the morning and evening. After cleaning your hands to remove dirt and germs, you apply cleanser to your face and gently massage in small circular motions. Then rinse with lukewarm water and splash your face with cold water to close your pores. Pat your face dry with a clean, soft cloth.
Moisturize Your Skin Regularly
Another essential part of your daily skin care regimen is moisturizing. Applying moisturizer on a regular basis has the immediate effect of relieving dry skin and studies show it also slows signs of aging.
In one 8-year study published in the British Journal of Dermatology, those
who moisturized regularly were found to develop wrinkles at a much slower rate than those who didn't. Well hydrated skin functions at peak performance, allowing skin cells to rapidly repair themselves and create new cells to replace aging older cells.
Like cleansers, it's a good idea to read ingredients and avoid moisturizers with sodium laureth sulfate, sodium lauryl sulfate, triclosan and triclocarban, parabens, or phthalates. These additives have been associated with unnecessary health risks.
Moisturizers fall into four categories or buckets: restoratives, occlusives, emollients, and humectants.
Restoratives replenish the skin with natural components that may have gone missing. This can include restoring with hyaluronic acid, a component of skin that holds over 1,000 times it's weight in water. Or it may include stimulating skin cells to make more collagen, a protein essential for making skin more elastic and plump.
A product that includes both of these restorative benefits is Anavita Moisturizing Anti-Wrinkle Cream. It has an absorbable form of hyaluronic acid and a peptide called Matrixyl shown in studies to increase collagen production in skin. The Anavita cream reduces wrinkles and also moisturizes the skin, making it look healthier and more radiant.
Occlusives form a thin film on the surface of skin, helping to create a barrier against water loss.
Emollients improve the appearance of the skin by softening and smoothing the outer layer of skin, especially helpful for rough and flaky skin. Emollients also help protect the skin from environmental assault and provide occlusive properties in that they create a barrier against water loss.
Humectants draw water into skin cells. The water comes from the environment and also from the deepest layer of the skin (the dermis) where it is drawn to the outer layers of the skin (the epidermis).
Few moisturizers include all four buckets in one bottle yet this is a big convenience because you solve multiple issues by buying just one product. One moisturizer with all four buckets in Anavita Deep Moisturizing Hand and Body Lotion. It's a natural oil-free lotion lending immediate moisturizing effects and longer lasting benefits from the healing properties of aloe vera, chamomile, green tea and olive leaf.
Take-Aways
Watching the food you eat and making healthy lifestyle choices benefits your body and this health radiates from your skin. Following a regular skin care routine and using the right cleanser and skin care products will make your skin look its best and help hold off the appearance of aging.
Take care of yourself, nurture your skin, and you will not only look great, but feel great as well. Learn more about simple, effective products for your skin at anavitaskincare.com.