Is your skin ready for summer? Do you know everything you need to for
- Preventing summer sun damage
- Getting your skin in great shape to show it off in summer’s fashions
There are simple tricks for the best seasonal skin care and summer’s no exception!
I’ve helped my patients seasonally tweak their skin care for years to keep their skin consistently healthy and looking great. We start by knowing our goals relative to the season. In summer, most people need to minimize sun damage while they spend more time outdoors in intense summer sun. They also don’t want to be embarrassed by their skin when they wear skimpier summer clothing.
The Summer Sun and Your Skin
First and foremost, you need the best smart sun protection strategy with back up reinforcement from today’s best antioxidant skin care products.
The Best Sunscreens
Use only the best sunscreens! Your sunscreen has to have an SPF 30 or higher and COMPLETE UVA protection too. That’s why I recommend mineral zinc oxide as an active ingredient because it blocks the entire UVA spectrum of waves. It provides stable and trustworthy protection you can count on.
The best sunscreen all around is Solbar Zinc Sunscreen. It’s very water resistant so it protects you when you’re swimming or sweaty. For a more matte finish on the face the best everyday sunscreen (which I’ve depended on for years when I’m not swimming or sweating) is Citrix Sunscreen. For facial protection if you have sensitive skin or want 100% pure mineral zinc oxide protection I recommend Glycolix Elite Sunscreen. they’re all highly rated and sunscreens you can trust. Click here for:
Know how to correctly apply your sunscreen and have the confidence that you’re getting the protection you think you are.
Click here for my post:
How To Apply Sunscreen and Have Healthy, Fabulous Skin Forever
The Best Antioxidant Skin Care For Summer
Back up your facial sun protection with today’s best and most powerful antioxidant skin care products. It’s now well accepted that antioxidant skin care products really do help protect your skin from damage. New scientific studies demonstrate this and scientists are starting to better understand just how these antioxidants work to keep your skin healthy.
Antioxidant skin care products are the perfect partner to your sunscreen and good sun protection practices; no matter how good you are with sun protection, it’s inevitable that some UV rays will make it to your skin. You want a generous amount of antioxidants waiting in your skin to neutralize any free radicals that form from those UV rays. Eating an antioxidant rich diet is important, but today we can also load the skin with even more antioxidants. Professional cosmecutical products containing high concentrations of stable antioxidants are your best choice. The skin care antioxidant products that I think are the best are:
Replenix CF Cream and Replenix Power of Three Cream. These are the best products with green tea polyphenols that I’ve ever seen. The Power of Three also has Resveratrol, the antioxidant from grapes. Readers will know that I’m a big fan of these 2 products. I’ve used one of these Replenix Green Tea Creams every day for years and have seen them benefit thousands of patients too.
C/R/S Cell Rejuvenation Serum with 15% of the stable L-ascorbic acid form of Vitamin C. I believe that vitamin C products only work when they have 10% or more of the L-ascorbic acid form and are in a container that’s airtight and blocks light. Again readers will know that I’m a big fan of C/R/S Serum for my Vitamin C skin care. Vitamin C works even better in the presence of vitamin E which is why it combines so well with some of my other favorite facial products like Glycolix Face Cream moisturizers and Citrix Sunscreen which contain vitamin E. C/R/S Serum also contains the powerful growth factor TGF-beta to help fight wrinkles.
Be Smart About The Sun!
The best sunscreen and anti oxidant skin care can only do so much if you don’t also practice smart, skin-saving sun safe behavior. We dermatologist’s always want you to:
- Wear clothing that provides sun protection. It doesn’t have to be unfashionably utilitarian. This is a real ‘shopping opportunity’ and a chance to be creative! Scarves, wraps, long sleeved open shirts over tank tops, long skirts, there are tons of tricks. You can also turn your existing wardrobe into sun protective clothing by washing in Sun Guard. Click here to read more about how clothing can be used for sun protection.
- Wear a 3 to 5 inch full brim sun hat. Nowadays there are so many great hats available. I have some easy wearing and well-priced sun hats on my web site and in my office. I also have a post outlining what makes a sun hat great, click here to read more about sun hats.
- Seek the shade when you’re outside. Shade does not entirely protect you but it helps.
Photo: Thanks and Gratitude to Shandi-lee
At what age would you recommend starting the use of antioxidant skin care products? In other words, how young is too young?
Hello Nadine,
This is an interesting question. Two of the products are perfect for children on up, and two are designed for a more adult skin barrier. Skin definitely changes from childhood to adolescence; the sebaceous glands mature and the skin thickens. This is the point at which the entire kit is perfect. You can see these changes on a kids skin about the time they become more prone to acne. Often the T-zone starts maturing first and then the cheeks follow. I have put teens on the antioxidant kit to supplement their acne care. In fact, the Replenix is an excellent, oil-free light moisturizer that also helps sooth the redness and irritation of acne. The hyaluronic acid binds water without adding a heavy product feel. The Citrix sunscreen and the Replenix CF cream are the two products that do not require a mature skin barrier and can be used by and benefit even younger more sensitive skin. We commonly have kids using the Citrix sunscreen on a daily basis. It’s also perfect for acne prone skin and is what I use for my acne teens.
The physical exfoliation of the Replenix Scrub and the acid ph of a vitamin C product are designed for a mature skin barrier so teens up can use these once their skin matures.
Hello Dr. Bailey,
Is it OK to use a sunscreen on a baby under 6 months of age if it has only zinc oxide and titanium oxide?
Unfortunately we recommend that people don’t. We recommend sun protective clothing, hats and keeping them out completely in the shade and out of the sun. Their skin barrier is not mature and no one is going to test percutaneous absorption of the ingredients on them!