10 Commandments for beautiful skin

1) Always wear sunscreen: I cannot stress enough the importance of wearing sunscreen in helping skin stay young and beautiful! Harmful UV rays are the most damaging environmental element to your skins integrity. An easy way to achieve this is to use a moisturizer or foundation with an SPF of at least 15 or higher. It should be worn 365 days of the year regardless of whether it’s a hot day or not. Ask any celebrity and they will mention sun protection as pivotal component to their beauty regime. Don’t forget to use sunscreen on your neck, back and front, as well as on your hands.

2) Wear a hat in summer: While it is great to incorporate sunscreen into your regime, let’s not forget the importance of wearing a hat as well. Choose one with a wide brim to protect as much skin as possible.

3) Make sure to get beauty sleep: As we all know, lack of sleep encourages wrinkles in the long term and also under-eye bags and blemishes in the short term. Getting enough sleep is an easy way to keep skin looking plump and refreshed. Best of all, its free!

4) Never sleep with makeup: Many women do not realize the importance or removing makeup before going to bed. Sleeping with makeup causes blemishes including black heads and worst of all, large pores! On top of this your skin uses sleep time to shed and replenish skin cells so to keep your skin looking clear and fresh, always remove makeup before bed.

5) Cleanse and Moisturize: If you are one of those women who believe that all you need is water to clean your face then I invite you to do an experiment. Spend 1 week just using water to cleanse and the second week cleans and moisturize morning and night using your usual products. Keep a record of how your skin looks on a daily basis to see the comparison. I have no doubt that on the days using proper cleaning and moisturizing products your skin will look better, brighter and much more beautiful! Toner should also be used but if you are feeling a little lazy you can skip this step.

For better results, you can use pro-collagen anti-aging creams, see the most popular recommended anti-wrinkle creams here.

6) Avoid picking your face: It’s a nasty habit for some people and it can cause long lasting damage to the skin. When you pick and squeeze pimples and blackheads you cause redness AND scarring. The best way to keep pimples and blackheads at bay is to follow the 9 rules on this list especially the cleansing, TONING, and moisturizing.

7) The importance of exfoliating: Skin does shed itself but often this process takes long and leaves dead skin cells on the surface. To keep your skin from looking dull and lifeless include exfoliating as a mandatory step in your beauty process. The amount of times you should exfoliate really depends on your individual skin type. Oily skin tends to need at least 2 sessions a week while dry/sensitive skin can get away with 1. I love how exfoliating makes the surface of my skin smoother thus making my foundation appear more flawless.

8) Eat right: Lacking certain vitamins and minerals will cause deterioration to your skin, hair and nails. Make sure to have a well balanced diet and increase

your vitamins E, B and E and week and minerals such as zinc, calcium, magnesium and iodine.

9) Stop Smoking: Smoking is one of the most efficient ways of accelerating and causing beauty loss. It causes aging, sullen and dull skin, limp hair that smells terrible, yellow nails and fingers and a host of external health problems including cancer. If you only follow one rule on this list, let it be this one!

10) Drink more water: 8 glasses is the recommended minimum and more if you are very active. Our body is made up of 70% water which needs constant replenishing. Water helps to flush out toxins and keeps skin looking fresh and hydrated. Lack of water leads to sullen sallow skin, blemishes and even weight gain.