Lately people have been asking me a lot about my skincare routine. And I'm a little taken aback by it because I feel like my skin is no different from most other people. I still get pimples (and I have the dark spots to prove it! lol.) But if you remember one of my earlier posts I explain my
skin type and what I do
generally on a week to week basis with my skin (
I wish I did this every day, but I don't). But when I think about it, the one thing that has contributed to the clarity of my complexion...
sunblock. I wear it daily: rain, sunshine, snow, summer, winter, spring -- every single day. I mix two pumps moisturizer and one healthy squeeze of my favorite sunblock every day.
Sunblock is great for blocking harmful sunrays but it also helps to minimize the dark spots that women of color often get after a pimple has flaired up.
My non-scientific explanation for why it helps: After a pimple, the affected skin is very sensitive to the sun's rays and gets "tanned" more than the rest of the skin leaving a dark spot. The more pimples you get the more dark spots you'll end up with. The sunblock blocks those rays and minimizes their impact. [Below is my skin with no make up.]
Other benefits to clearer skin -- Because my dark spots are a lot more subtle it minimize how much make up I have to put on and allows me to use lighter coverage foundation. I still wear my Mac Fix Fluid foundation (which is medium to full coverage) but since my skin has evened out, I can dilute it with my moisturizer and still get good results. I mix one pump of foundation and 1-2 pumps of moisturizer to create a home made tinted moisturizer. I started doing this last summer when I noticed my skin had cleared up and I've been doing it ever since.
