Skin 101...what you need to know to keep your skin healthy

This post is about skin. Before even going in to makeup, it is vital to have basic knowledge about the skin and it's function(s). Understanding this, it will help you tend to it, thus resulting in healthier skin and more self confidence for you! ( We all worry and scrutinize ourselves in front of the mirror, so don't even try to deny it! :))

First rule, your skin is one of your largest organs! It is there for purposes of protection,keeping temperatures, sensation and circulatory. Not to mention all the pores found on us do in fact breathe.

It protects us from organisms/micro-orgainsms in the outside world.

If you think about it, any physiological occurrences always show up on our skin. If you are ill you can become warm, sweaty, pale, red, irritable...etc.

If you cut yourself or get burned you feel it because of the receptors in the skin...if they weren't there..we probably wouldn't feel the hot stove, and only notice boils on our skin when we would catch a glance at it.

Not to mention it contains the circulatory system of blood, lymph and fluid balance.

Here is a quick illustration :

I am not going to go in to depth, but it just goes to show actually how intricate and complex the skin is.

In our lifetime, we experience different skin types. This is NORMAL!

As we become older, the functions of our skin slow down, just as any other organ... it's sad, but it is true. With that said, the same way you care for your internal well being, it is vital to do this for our external organ(s) as well...

The easiest ways to achieve this is 100% percent common sense! Healthy lifestyle! Drinking water, eating a well balanced diet, spending time in fresh air, working out so our glands can produce and get rid of toxins ( sauna ), restful sleeping patterns, monitoring smoke and alcohol consumption... (just try not to at least...), monitoring medication consumption and probably one of the MOST important steps...watching and evaluating what nourishments and care you need to apply externally!

Some of you may wonder why is it so important to have a balanced diet...why does that effect the skin? It's quite simple... a lot of it has to do with our liver. Our livers act as filters... the more healthy we eat the more vitamins and healthy stuff there will be left in the liver , for our body's then to absorb...the more "non-food"/processed/chemically and/or hormone treated CRAP stays in the liver , for our body's to then absorb ... generally it's not great for you, but the first place the signs of some internal unhealthy problems show up, WILL BE ON THE SKIN...face and/or body.

I myself do LOVE junk food and time to time indulge, BUT over the past year have been living the most healthiest life style yet...and THAT combined with the right skin care regiment has made a HUGE difference! ( FYI I have always had problems with breakouts...)

So to wrap things up for this post, use your common sense and treat your skin as you would treat your most precious possession. Care for it and be gentle. If you do this you CAN NOT GO WRONG!