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If there’s one single thing in the realm of beauty that everyone agrees upon, it’s that gorgeous skin with a healthy glow simply never goes out of style. Everyone wants fab skin that looks youthful and luminous. The truth is that it’s a huge confidence boost when you feel great in your own skin.
The good news is that with the right tools, healthy lifestyle choices, and a commitment to a daily skincare routine that’s tailored to your skin’s needs,––brighter, more radiant skin is yours for the taking.
Granted, everyone has their own unique skin challenges, but we say no challenge is insurmountable! It’s just a matter of finding the right solution. We encourage you to be consistent and don’t give up. With the help of brightening skin care products, success is on the horizon, and you can get the radiant, glowing skin you desire.
Why is Your Skin Dull?
There are several reasons you may notice your skin looks dull and somewhat drab. Some of these factors may be harder for you to control than others, so it’s important to focus on what you know you absolutely can control. The rest tends to sort itself out along the way.
Skipping Regular Moisturizer
One of the biggest causes of dull skin is a lack of moisture. When you cleanse your skin, especially with oil-control or acne-specific products, it can really dry things out.
Worse, environmental stressors can contribute to creating cracks in the surface of your skin, making it appear more like the Sahara desert and––you guessed it––less than glowing. By applying a vitamin C moisturizer on a regular basis, you can help compensate for this moisture drain and prevent parched, dull-looking skin from occurring in the first place.
Skipping Regular Exfoliation
Your skin is an amazing organ. It’s constantly growing new cells, all day, every day. Granted, though this process slows down with age, cell turnover is still enough to create a layer of dead skin cells on the surface of your skin.
These dead cells can make your skin look dull and haggard. After all, the cells are dead, and there’s no blood pumping into them. This makes for an obvious lack of natural glow! Regular exfoliating––aiming for at least once or twice a week––can help slough off these dead skin cells and allow all those new, healthy, lively cells to shine through in all their cellular glory.
Sleep Deprivation
There’s a reason ‘beauty sleep’ is a much-used phrase. Staying up late keeps your skin from feeling and looking its best. When you sleep, your body goes into restorative mode.
During this time, your skin cells repair themselves, and regeneration is at its peak. If you miss your body’s natural time of sleeping and your sleep cycle is off, or if it's shortened, your skin cells won’t reach that peak of regeneration. Unfortunately, this can result in dull skin and may have you reaching for caffeine for eyes in the morning.
Dehydration
The biggest and most common cause behind dull and dry skin is dehydration. Sure, you can moisturize your skin, but if your entire body is dehydrated, your skin will naturally be dehydrated as well.
Dehydration decreases the volume of blood flow to your skin. Since skin cells get oxygen and other nutrients through your blood, the reduced blood flow results in reduced nutrition. This leads to pale, dull skin.
Not to mention, continuously failing to provide your body with it’s healthy hydration requirements can not only be dangerous to your well-being, but it can also result in long-term problems for your skin, including fine lines, deep wrinkles, and sagging.
Stress
Stress can have numerous effects on your body, including your skin. Stress creates an increase in your levels of the hormone cortisol. This increase can affect the flow of blood to your skin and have detrimental effects on your skin’s ability to repair itself.
Additionally, seeing dull skin, breakouts, and other skin issues can cause stress in and of itself, which in turn causes more skin issues, and so the cycle goes.
Hormonal Changes
Hormones keep your whole body in check and help maintain a delicate balance. Changing your levels of even a single hormone can disrupt many functions and potentially cause skin issues. These disruptions can produce acne, fine lines, wrinkles, dryness, dull skin, and even rosacea.
Environmental Effects
Nowadays, our environment is filled with pollutants and chemicals. These toxins are virtually inescapable and have made lasting impacts on the environment. That’s one of the reasons it's so important to look for beauty products that use clean, safe, eco-friendly ingredients.
Obviously, things like humidity, high UV exposure, harsh winds, and pollutants in the air can all negatively impact your skin. They can cause collagen production to decrease and make your skin look dry and lifeless, with an increased prevalence of dark spots, lines, wrinkles, and breakouts.
Unhealthy Diet
Ever heard the old saying ‘you are what you eat’? Your body––your skin included––needs essential nutrients to stay healthy and work optimally. Your skin needs essential nutrients to remain youthful-looking and radiant.
When your diet is lacking in natural vitamins, minerals, fats, oils, and other nutrients, it will show up in your skin. It will look dull and lackluster, like it’s––literally––starving for nutrition. Additionally, consuming harmful and unhealthy foods, smoking cigarettes, drinking excess alcohol, and other poor habits may also damage the quality of your skin.
How to Get Brighter Skin in 5 Simple Steps
Bright and radiant skin requires some work, but once you get into a regular rhythm, it begins to feel more like self-care. We really can’t stress enough how essential it is to maintain a proper skincare routine and do it consistently.
Step 1: Cleanse
Cleansing is one of the most important factors in maintaining a bright and glowing complexion. It clears off the dirt and debris that gathers on your skin throughout the day while also removing any layers of makeup.
Cleansing also helps all the other products in your beauty routine to absorb into the skin barrier and do their job properly. However, it’s important to mention that there is such a thing as over-cleansing.
Make sure the products you use are gentle and appropriate for your skin type. Start by using a face cleanser once a day, preferably at night.
Step 2: Exfoliate
Remember that your skin cells regenerate and turnover rapidly. All those dead skin cells just sit there on the surface of your skin until you clean and scrub them away. Exfoliators are designed to help you do that by gently scraping off the dead skin cell layers while at the same time removing other dirt and debris.
Pro tip: look for a gentle exfoliator and avoid anything that could tear your sensitive skin like the Honest® Gentle Konjac Sponge.
Step 3: Tone
Cleansing your skin too much can strip it of its natural oils and disturb its natural pH. Natural pH levels fall between 5 and 6, which is slightly acidic, whereas cleansers and exfoliators may make the skin slightly more alkaline.
Toners are designed to help balance out the pH of e skin and provide other benefits like hydration. We may be biased, but we happen to love the toner from our Honest® skincare line.
Step 4: Moisturize
Let’s be real. In skincare, daily moisturizer should be your best friend! We’ve discussed how the lack of moisture results in dull and dry skin, but did you know it can also lead to extremely oily skin?
This is because the lack of moisture triggers your sebum-producing glands, resulting in excess sebum and oil on your skin. Thankfully moisturizers come in many forms––heavy, light, gel, and cream. Look for one that suits your skin type and commit to making it a regular part of your day. And remember that moisturizer isn’t just important for your skin. If you’re wondering how to plump lips naturally, hydration is key!
Step 5: Treat with Active Ingredients
Acne, hyperpigmentation, fine lines, and brown or dark spots can all stand between you and your goals of achieving a glowing complexion. To help resolve these issues, try using facial serums that contain active ingredients, such as retinol and vitamin C, specifically designed to target such challenges. You may have initially been hesitant to add these ingredients into your routine or had questions such as, “Is vitamin C good for skin?” Try our serums and witness the benefits for yourself. It may take some trial and error, but don’t give up! Beautiful, healthy skin is just on the other side.
At the end of the day, your skin is a large and complex organ. Just practicing a regular skincare routine may not be enough. A healthy diet is also paramount for the health and magnificence of your skin. Food is hands down the best way to consume your daily requirement of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Combine healthy eating habits with healthy self-care and lifestyle habits, and you’ll soon be on your way to uncovering the radiant, glowing skin you’ve always dreamed of.
https://skinkraft.com/blogs/articles/how-to-get-glowing-skin
We aim to provide you with the most honest and credible information possible. This article was reviewed for accuracy by The Honest Team and its internal technical experts.
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