Feeling Your Way Through Skincare
I have been quiet of late – with social media overwhelmed with the virus emergency and beauty experts offering elaborate skincare facial tutorials and workouts as self-care, these can feel like an additional chore – I feel I have a different contribution to make to help you look after your facial complexion. In 10 years of my scientific writing, some things never change: that is the daily routines ‘evoking the right emotion’. The French have skincare rituals to feel alluring, dignified and alive; these are also physiologically right for the fragile self-renewing top layer of our body. In the current difficult times when emotions such as fear, grief, loneliness, lack of joy and a great deal of uncertainty are running high, we often guard ourselves ‘against people’ and retreat in defence. These stressful internal battles show up as aggravated skin conditions; my clients have reported flares in eczema and acne, making them aware of and obsessing over the visibility of blemishes. As we are instructed not to touch our faces and to repetitively over-wash our hands, we have also learnt to obsessively monitor our environment to avoid viral infection. No caring contact, we are keeping our distance – just the opposite to what we, as humans, physiologically crave (need) and what sustains
