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 us on so many levels.

“Human touch facilitates the release of the bonding hormone oxytocin, brings about the feeling of reward through dopamine, soothing pain with serotonin as well as euphoria with opiates”

What You Can Do Right Now

We can address the touch deficit by learning to soothe our skin – and self – with ‘the right type of touch’. Clean hands are a must – but not paying attention to the face transfers through to the body.

• Learn to recognise and appreciate your skin feel and facial rhythms, slow down your skincare routine to enjoy the moment, use tailored layering of products.
• Look to see your dewy and radiant facial complexion, but more so use ‘the secondary senses’ to appreciate the experience – skin feel and smell.

In my US column on Evoking Emotion, I write about ‘feeling your way through skincare’ and building a habit. Our body does not like drama. To feel good in your skin requires discipline and a gentle approach, bringing in the cycle and the seasons, and playing with the ‘hydrate, calm and brighten’ concepts to achieve facial definition and the best condition of your skin. Your facial complexion will become a real canvas, reflecting light, radiance and inner beauty.

Try to forget about life connectivity for now and discover pleasure in new scientific findings about health and senses. As we all have time on our hands, enhance the radiance of your facial complexion by using my anti-ageing serum with specific massage techniques or book an online tailored anti-ageing programme consultation. If you’re still reading around the subject, I have written two new columns on Evoking Emotion – read there first here – and a chapter in a book about scars due to be published shortly.

You can find my tuition chart of how to apply my serum with facial masage techniques on the “How 4 Works” tab on this page.