How to get beautiful skin the natural way

Don’t believe the beauty industry hype. The secret to healthy and beautiful skin isn’t found in a science lab – it comes from nature.

Legendary beauty entrepreneur and founder of the eponymous brand Helena Rubenstein once said that when it comes to beauty, women won’t believe in any product that’s ‘too cheap’. Indeed, over the years it seems that being ‘reassuringly expensive’ has been a pretty good way to sell a beauty product, regardless of its ingredients. Helena’s brand was founded after the outbreak of World War I. In the years that followed, brands began replacing trusted natural ingredients with synthetic options. These new blends, typically a formulation of oil in water emulsion, stabilised and sterilised with artificial ingredients, were cheap to produce, stable at a wide range of temperatures and often ‘reassuringly expensive’ but, it later transpired, some were actually quite toxic. Today, the market has shifted considerably, with consumers more aware than ever before of the impact these artificial methods of production can have – both on their skin and the environment. The natural beauty revolution has arrived, and not a moment too soon.

How to hydrate your skin

When you start to understand how your skin works, it’s clear that what we’ve all been doing up until now in efforts to hydrate our skin can often have the opposite effect.

The real key to skin hydration is not to add water to your skin in the form of a water-based moisturiser, but rather to repair your skin’s natural barrier function so that it can hold the moisture it already has inside more effectively.

The best way to do this is with pure unrefined plant oils, which act as an emollient (i.e. softens and soothes the skin).

Soothing dry or oily skin and tackling breakouts

Giving your skin an effective barrier not only means that you hold its natural moisture in – it also keeps nasty pathogens out. Pathogens cause spots, infections and allergic reactions.

Oil-based cleansing rebalances oily skin and helps prevent breakouts. So, instead of using water/alcohol based wipes and cleansers to remove make-up and dirt from your skin, which can actually dry out your skin and cause inflammation, try shifting your routine to a hot cloth cleanse. This will clean and exfoliate your skin without stripping away its natural oils.

Calendula e can soothe existing breakouts and reduce redness. 

Of course, anyone has dabbled with balms will know that they can be greasy and take an age to absorb, look out for ones that are easy to absorb and undiluted so that a little goes a long way.

Reassuringly effective

When you use products made with pure plant oils, you’re applying 100% active ingredients – nourishing goodness that your skin will greedily absorb and use to renew, repair and restore itself. Once you try water-free products and experience them gently disappearing into your skin, you’ll never want to go back to a moisturiser made from water.

Helena Rubinstein was right that when investing in beauty and skincare products, we all want to feel reassured. At Lyonsleaf, however, we believe that reassurance should come not from an exorbitant price tag, but from what goes into it. After all, beauty is only skin deep – it’s what’s inside that counts.