Summer Skin Care

Summer Skin Ideas from Dr. Kathy Maupin

Healing Your Skin After Sun is as Important as Sunscreen

I think you will find it surprising that what you put on your skin right after sun exposure is just as important as sunscreen! The products you put on post-sun exposure should heal and protect the skin immediately, before the sun’s damage can establish itself.

The truth about sun exposure is that radiation from the sun penetrates the skin and breaks up linking proteins in collagen that give us smooth and young looking skin. We are left with damaged and wrinkled skin, and we look old. If you consider all sun exposure a very mild “burn” it makes sense to treat it after exposure to help it heal without “scarring” or wrinkling. When you come inside after sun exposure heal the sun exposed skin immediately by applying BioBalance Vitamin C Serum with Green Tea to all sun exposed areas. (On sun burned skin wait 24 hours or it will be uncomfortable.) Our Vitamin C Serum will literally heal the skin and re-link those proteins in your dermis to accelerate recovery from sun exposure, and leave you with a suntan.

After allowing the Vitamin C Serum to penetrate for five to ten minutes, apply a healing “poultice” which is found in our Botanical Hydrating Gel. This product uses natural herbs and oils to both hold moisture in, (which heals the skin more quickly), and provide protection from further damage while the skin is healing. The Botanical Hydrating Gel can be used anywhere on the body and face, and can be used on sun burned skin immediately. It’s cooling effect takes the “heat” out of freshly sunned skin with fresh Aloe.

Sun Screen—How to Use it Safely

Sunscreen has been criticized for its chemical content, (including PABA), which changes cells and promotes skin damage, as well as acting as a carcinogen. Women have been advised to stop using sunscreens with PABA while trying to get pregnant and while pregnant and nursing. To find for a sunscreen that is not dangerous, yet protects your skin from harmful rays, look for one that contains natural sunblock with zinc and/or coconut oil. The substance Heliotrope is also safe and effective. It is important to get a little sun exposure without sunscreen every day, because sunscreen of all types blocks the absorption of Vitamin D, and we need D!

Adjust Your Products to a Different Skin Type For Summer

Skin is more moist in the summer and actually changes consistency when the seasons change. In Summer a Dry Skin Type person should change her products to Normal Skin Type products, and Normals will turn into Oily Skin Type during hot weather. It is a good idea to look at your skin care products and your current skin characteristics and, if necessary, change your products. “Summerize” your previous products by tightening the lids and keep in a cool, dry place, ready for fall and winter.

BioBalance has products divided into four skin type groups: Dry Skin (Blue), Normal Skin (Green), Oily and Problem Skin (Lavender), and All Skin Types (Pink). They are designated by color so you can easily choose the products for your skin type.

Those D__n spots! Brown Spots are Sun Damage and Future Skin Cancer.

The outcome of years of sunning is wrinkling and the appearance of brown spots over the areas of intense sun damage. These brown spots indicate a change in the skin’s health, and over time (years) will morph into actinic keratosis (pre-cancerous skin changes), and finally skin cancer. The answer to this progressive and dangerous problem is sunscreen, post-sun exposure application of healing gel (Botanical Hydrating Gel, lightening with 2% Hydroquinone (BioBalance Lightening Cream), and finally, the destruction of these brown spots with an IPL (Intermittent Pulse Laser). I follow a maintenance protocol for myself every year. All of my brown spots are lasered in the Fall after I am constantly in the sun over the Summer months. The IPL Laser, (Intermittent Pulse Laser), is used initially several times, six weeks apart, to destroy all of the damage accumulated over the previous years. Laser Specialists at BioBalance Health painlessly eradicate these spots, which rise to the skin’s surface and peel off over the five days following treatment. It is amazing! Fall and Winter are the best times to have IPL laser of “brown spots” because sun exposure will be less frequent than in summer months.

After initial removal of all visible spots, only one or two treatments per Fall will be needed in the following years to keep skin unblemished. When choosing the IPL treatment for your face, consider treatment of your hands, as these two areas are the obvious signs that reveal our age.

Do you want a needle free treatment that makes you look years younger before a special event?

Our Jet Peel both removes the dead skin from the surface, and injects moisture and collagen or Hyaluronic Acid into the dermis to plump and rejuvenate your skin. The Jet Peel is a new answer to an old problem; for tired lusterless skin, this painless facial plumps and exfoliates your face in one hour. Now that’s efficient!

What laser treatments can you do on tanned skin in the summer?

If you have time off in the summer, and you want a scalpel-less facelift, then the PIXEL Laser Rejuvenation is perfect. Most laser treatments require untanned skin, but the pixel laser is one of the few that does not depend on the pigment of the skin. BioBalance Pixel Laser stimulates collagen and tightens skin without creating a burn. The down time is three to five days, and the results continue to improve over the following three months. The changes are permanent, and though the Pixel requires several treatments to be equivalent to a face lift, it does not require anesthesia or an operating room…we do this in our office! Get a Pixel face lift this summer!

BioBalance Skin Care Products for Summer: