My skin care routine

I don't know if some one of you already knew this, but I've been fighting against dry skin all my life. I get these dry, red and itchy spots on my chin, around my lips, neck and shoulders and also my eye lids are very dry. I have an atopic skin which is very common actually. It's inheritable, though my sisters actually "suffer" from greasy skin and my problem is quite opposite.

I decided to write about my skin care routine. I don't say it's the best one, but it works quite well for me. The first thing I do, when my skin starts to itch is that i take an allergy pill. The second step is to take a cold shower. Sometimes dust, sweat and all those little bacteria we have on us irritates my skin so that it's good to wash all the dirt off. This is also a good time to let the allergy pill start to work. I never take hot showers, even if my skin is not itchy, because if I do then at latest it will get irritated.

Well you can't always take a shower. Sometimes you just don't have the time. This is when I just take a bag of frozen beans and hold it against the irritated skin. I wrap it in a towel of course because if it's too cold, it will only get worse. After cooling the skin down it is important to moisturize it. For different body areas (body, cleavage, neck and face, eyelids, lips) it is good to have different moisturizers. I use four different moisturizers almost every day and few products only now and then.

1. Lumene birch & honey body lotion: This one I use for my body, legs, stomach and my back. It smells like a birch mostly. I love that scent because it's very calming and refreshing. It's also very good after-sun cream because of the honey. It dries very fast and  it's easy to spread around. This is the only product that you can get from a normal store that works for me. The other products that I've tried don't moisturize as deeply as this one.

2. Bepanthen: This is something that I'm not sure you can find outside Scandinavia. Basically I use this on my lips. Some people use it for their kids diaper rash ...:D But it can also be used for burns, wounds (this makes paper cuts disappear in a night!), dry lips, and all kinds of skin breaks. I'm so addicted to this product that I can't leave my home without it. Other people have also noticed that I always curry bepanthen where ever I go...:D.

3. Ceralan Plus: This one I use for my face, neck and cleavage. It contains ceramids that skin needs for maintaining its moisturized texture. It's unparfumed and that I prefer in my face lotions. You can get this from a pharmacy. I actually prefer the normal Ceralan more than this Ceralan Plus, because I think this one is too watery, even though Ceralan Plus is supposed to moisturize even more deeply than the normal one, but it doesn't feel like it.

4. Bellavita: This one I also use for my face, but not for my neck or cleavage. This one absorbs faster than the ceralan so I use this under my make up. It contains A-vitamin and it really leaves your skin feeling like a silk. The only thing I hate about it, is that the A-vitamin smells very strongly in it, but I've already got used to it. You can also by this one from a pharmacy.

5. Lumene senstive touch, 5 min SOS cream: As you can see I either use pharmacy or Lumene's products.I don't really know why Lumene works for me. It just does. This one I use if my skin gets really red and itchy. First I cool my skin down as I told earlier, and then I use this cream. It really does work in five minutes! I don't understand how it's possible but it just is. I use this on my face and neck whenever needed.

I didn't take a picture of my cortisone creams. Sometimes I do have to depend on them. Especially on those dry spots, that just don't want to calm down. One that I use on my neck and shoulders is medium strong steroid and the one I use on my face is hydro cortisone. I only use them when my skin gets really bad, though I think I've sometimes used them more often than recommended. I know it's not good and it will only damage my skin in a long-run, but sometimes I just can't get the itchiness to disappear no matter what I do, so I think it's better to put some cortisone cream rather than scratch the skin in my sleep.

No matter how much I moisturize, my skin is not always perfect. Even now I have red dry spots on my neck and chin. So I need to have good products to cover them up. I don't cover my neck with make up. I just use a scarf, but I have to cover up my chin and dry eyelids with make up.

So what I do basically is I try to keep the products as minimum as possible. The more make up I put, the drier my skin will look. I only cover the red spots. If the skin is not red in the morning I rarely put any make up on my skin. I don't know why I took the picture of my foundation, because I only use it when my skin is not dry at all. So that would be when I was a teenager and because I'm not getting any younger it leaves only the summer.

I bought this Lumene illuminating and smoothing primer just a few days ago so I'm not sure yet if it really works or not, but it's supposed to be for normal and dry skin. It's important to use a primer because otherwise the foundation will get caked up in to every dry spot you have. And the other "secret" I have I actually heard from my doctor. If your skin is dry you should spread the foundation and concealer with your fingers, not with a sponge or a brush. The fingers will warm up the foundation and your skin so that any greasiness you might have in some areas will get spread out evenly and this will help to hide dry areas.

Now other thing I've heard from some people is that because my skin is dry, I shouldn't be using powder because it will just get even more dry. Well, I don't know if that's true or not, but I still use powder. If I don't, all the concealer I've put will meld down in a very short time. The other problem I get is that all the moisturizing I do before putting my make up will make my face shine as if it's greasy. Powder will hide that. And I always remember to keep it in its minimum.

To hide my dry eyelids I use shining, light eye shadows. If my eyes are red I put some color on them to hide it. I also took a picture of my blush. This is because I use it on my lips now and then. I can't use lipsticks because my lips swell immediately. So I just take a very bright and shining blush and put it on my lips with my fingers. The good part in this is that you can never put too much of it so you don't really need a mirror and it won't spread around!

So those were my secrets! Let me know if some one of you found them useful or even tried some of those products. And I'm sorry for the amount of text I wrote:D.

Have a nice  Wednesday everyone!