Summer skincare

Just like you wouldn’t wear winter clothes in summer, you might want to tweak your skincare products throughout the seasons. While in winter your skin may benefit from slightly richer skincare, in summer, it’s all about making it as light as possible. Rich skincare including facial oils will clog up your pores even more than they would in winter, so should be avoided.

The two active ingredients that are particularly important in summer are of course sun protection and an anti-oxidant product. My recommendation is to use an SPF30-50 every single morning, not just on holiday, in order to protect your skin and keep it beautiful long-term. The good news is that there are lovely, light-weight sun protection creams with SPF30-50 available these days that not not greasy and sticky like they used to. Have a look at EudeloBoutique.com for specific products.

Also make sure to apply a high grade anti-oxidant serum underneath your SPF each morning. I recommend a light-weight serum containing 10-20% vitamin C, plus added anti-oxidants. Again, you can find my favourites on EudeloBoutique.com.

If you suffer with irregular pigmentation, adding an anti-pigment serum is a good idea, as irregular pigmentation tends to get worse in summer, no matter how good you are with sun protection. That’s because it’s not only ultraviolet irradiation that darkens pigmentation, but also infrared light (i.e. the sun’s heat irradiation) and even visible light.

There is a lot of controversy about whether or not to stop vitamin A derivatives (retinoids) in the summer. Personally, I recommend using retinoids all year around, not just in autumn and winter, as they have multiple benefits important for the skin in summer (and also, you would waste an entire half a year of benefits for your skin each year, if you were to restrict such an important ingredient to autumn and winter only!).

Yes, retinoids can make the skin a little more sensitive to sunlight, but I recommend wearing an SPD30-50 every day all year around anyway, plus not overexposing the skin to the sun. So, I recommend to all of my patients (and do this myself, too) to use their retinoids all year around. The only exception being a sunny beach holiday, where it may be more difficult to avoid the sun (that’s no excuse for sun bathing though!).

Retinoids such as retinol and retinaldehyde are great collagen inducers, they exfoliate the skin and also help repair sun damage and even irregular pigmentation. Anybody from the age of 30 onwards will benefit from using them, as around that time our skin’s collagen production slowly starts to deplete. If, however, your skin is prematurely aged or sun damaged (or if you suffer with breakouts for that matter…), then it makes sense to start even earlier. It all depends on the biological skin age and skin conditions rather than the chronological age. I am a big believer in P&E, i.e. prevention and early intervention and retinoids are a perfect product for this. Nobody should be without them in their life and the good news is that there are very gentle retinoid containing skincare products on the market these days that can be tolerated even the most sensitive skin, even they are tapered in slowly.

My favourite retinoids are tretinoin (prescription, very strong), retinol and retinaldehyde (not so much retintylpalmitate and co, as less effective). Start with a lower concentration and frequency of application, e.g. twice per week (e.g. Monday and Thursday), then very gradually increase frequency of use, as tolerated. Even if you don’t tolerate it every day, it’s still worth doing! My preference is to apply retinoids in the evening.

There are are certain in-clinic treatments are a great option for summer including mesotherapy. As the skin is inevitably exposed to more sun light during the summer months, I always recommend my patients to nourish their skin from the inside to help repair any incurred damage, using a high-grade mix of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and peptides in the form of mesotherapy.

Enjoy your summer!