Why Antioxidants And Your Skin Are The Ultimate BFFs

Good news: there are tons of ways to make your skin feel smoother and healthier.

Thankfully, you don’t remember the skin you were born with. If you did, you would seriously long for its plump, bouncy, softer-than-clouds feel. Because that’s how skin generally is at birth, before it’s touched by pollution, battered by the sun and generally subjected to the slings and arrows of modern life. Everyday wear and tear, however, is inevitable so it’s no use trying to resurrect your 6-month old skin. It’s simply never going to happen.

All is not lost, however, because what you can do is make the most of the skin you’re in right now by looking after it to the best of your abilities. The motto is, treat it right and it will repay you in kind. Granted, it will never feel as soft and smooth as it did way back when, but give yourself a break, EVERYONE has textured skin to some degree and, heck, you can only do so much, right?

On that note, here are some of the most effective ways to get your smoothest skin ever. And more good news: they’re easier than you might think.

Pay Attention To Your Pores

More often than not, rough texture is down to blocked pores. Oil-producing pores are tiny openings found at the top of your hair follicles and sebaceous glands where they release sebum to help moisturize and soften the skin at a surface level. They’re extremely important for keeping your skin healthy but, like all things are life, they’re not perfect. Some people have sebaceous glands that produce too much sebum, others have those that don’t produce anywhere near enough, causing everything from extreme dryness to super-oily skin that’s prone to acne breakouts.

Whatever your pore persuasion, it’s crucial to keep them cleansed, and clear of debris like makeup, dirt and skincare products. This reduces their likelihood of becoming clogged, thus expanding and creating tiny bumps at the surface of your skin. Common sense, right? Instead of stripping your skin with chemical-rich, harsh products, however, it’s important to cleanse right with gentle formulations and warm, never hot water. Our Soothing Cleansing Milk is fantastic for the job - especially if you have dry or sensitive skin – or you could also try Charcoal Clarifying Cleanser which is fantastic for detoxifying your pores and balancing oilier skin types. Cleanse twice daily, no arguments, and again after working out.

It’s Great To Exfoliate

As skin ages, cell turnover slows down and dead skin cells have a tendency to outstay their welcome. It’s kind of inevitable, so to help keep this process from causing rough texture at the surface (and the dullness that inevitably comes as part of the deal!), it’s wise to exfoliate regularly.

Exfoliation encourages dead cells to slough away quicker, so that all the fresh, younger ones have a chance to reveal themselves to the world. And you can do it in a number of ways. Scrubs are the obvious choice, but be wary of harsh formulations that use over-sized particles that feel too sharp on your skin. Chances are, if they feel scratchy, that’s exactly what they’re doing, creating micro-tears on your skin which can cause irritation and long-term sensitivities. Instead, choose a kind-to-skin scrub like our Vitamin C Gentle Face Scrub which uses ultra-fine Bora Bora white sand to leave you with super soft skin, every time.

Not a scrub fan? Then try a leave-on solution that harnesses exfoliating acids like salicylic or glycolic to break down the glue between dead skin cells, giving them a firm nudge to leave town. Try our awesome 6% AHA, BHA + PHA Liquid Exfoliant after cleansing and before applying serum and moisturizer. It’s the simplest way to even out your skin and smooth up its texture, plus it’s gentle enough for almost all skin types.

Layer With Moisture

Whatever your skin type, moisturizer is essential after every cleanse to support and fortify your skin’s barrier function and allow it to do its job properly – which is to keep good things like moisture in and bad things like irritants out. But, we get it, for some of you moisturizer might not be enough. Dehydration, for example, is a killer on the texture of your skin and that requires more attention than some moisturizers are able to offer.

To really get your smoothness going, we recommend doubling down with a hydrating serum as well as a kick-ass moisturizer like Renewing Longevity Moisturizing Cream. Serums that contain hyaluronic acid in particular, are incredible for helping to keep your skin plump, smooth and dewy because they draw moisture to the surface of your skin. Apply a couple of drops of Hyaluronic Acid Facial Serum after cleansing and before moisturizing every day for a deeper moisturization and, over time, your skin will soon feel way more hydrated and much smoother as a result.

Give Irritants The Cold Shoulder

Word is, something in your skincare routine might actually be the cause of textural changes in your skin like dryness and roughness. Synthetic fragrance, for example, is one of the biggest offenders, and denatured alcohol as well as harsh sulfates like SLS and SLES can all be extremely irritating for certain skin types.

Try to avoid the most common irritants and, while you’re at it, look at your skincare routine as a whole and tame things down if it’s too heavy on active ingredients. Active ingredients like retinol, AHAs, BHAs and vitamin C are fantastic, don’t get us wrong, but too much of a good thing can have disastrous results. Rough, dry, flaky skin being just one of them.

Remember: Sunscreen Is King

UV radiation (which is present all year long) produces skin-damaging free radicals which work hard to break down your collagen and elastin and ruin your skin’s soft, smooth bouncebackability. Not only that, but it’s a killer on your skin’s natural levels of hyaluronic acid, leading to dehydration and, well, you know where we’re going here…

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that daily SPF is non-negotiable. Most experts – us included – recommend a broad-spectrum formulation that contains mineral sunscreens like zinc oxide and offers protection of at least SPF 30. Try our SPF 30 Mineral Sunscreen with Vitamin C which is like the lovechild of your favorite moisturizer and sunscreen, with the added benefits of glow-getting vitamin C and age-defying vegan marine collagen.

Do you feel like your already-supersized-pores are growing by the minute? They're not. But it might feel like they are...

Pores are the foundation of healthy skin. Of course, collagen makes your skin strong, supple and plump. And yes, elastin gives it that all-important bouncebackability. But without pores, your skin would be a dry, shrivelled up shadow of its former self. Not to mention the fact that your entire body would lose its ability to regulate its own body temperature.

As a quick reminder, pores are tiny, microscopic openings found at the surface of your skin right at the top of your hair follicles and sweat glands. They exist to allow important liquids (as well as other particles and gases) to pass through the surface of your skin. The human body has two types of pores: sweat pores which help regulate body temperature; and oil-producing pores that are found at the top of your hair follicles where they release sebum to moisturize and lubricate the surface of the skin. The good thing about sweat pores is that they’re so small you can’t see them making them of very little concern in the grand scheme of things.

Oil-producing pores, on the other hand, are just so annoyingly visible. So why?

What Determines The Size Of Your Pores?

Like your height, skin tone and color of your hair, the size of your pores is largely shaped by genetics. This means that yes, you can blame your parents, and yes, the size of your pores is pretty much fixed.

Of course, this is great news if you have almost invisible pores. Not so much if yours feel like they take over your entire face. But let’s get one thing straight: no matter how enlarged you believe your pores are when you study them in the mirror, they’re rarely as bad as you think. Because the truth is, nobody else scrutinizes your skin on the same level as do you.

Do Pores Get Bigger Over Time?

Yes and no. The size of your pores never really changes on a physiological level. So yes, all those half-truths about being able to ‘shrink’ your pores with alcohol-heavy toners or freezing cold water is a bit of a con. But there’s a little bit of truth in there because while the actual size of your pores doesn’t alter, their walls can stretch and expand, making them appear more pronounced.

Penny drops.

What Causes Pores To Stretch With Age?

Many things happen to your skin throughout your life that can cause the walls of your pores to become damaged and loose. Of course, regular aging plays the most obvious role as your collagen levels naturally decrease over time. Sadly, there’s not a huge amount you can do about your biological clock (there’s those genes doing their worst again!) but there are many other factors of which you can control that contribute to the rate at which your pores become slack. 

Sun Damage

Gosh, the sun gets blamed for a lot of skin issues. But we don’t apologize for that because it really is one of the worst things for the condition of your skin. UV radiation breaks down important proteins like collagen and elastin thanks to a build-up of free radicals. This weakens the collagen fibers that give your skin its structure, thus allowing the walls of your pores to become slack, weak and kind of baggy-looking. AKA more visible!

Picking Your Skin

If you have a tendency to pick or squeeze your skin, this not only irritates your skin as a whole, but it can seriously mess with the collagen and elastin fibers that keep your skin firm and supple. Scarring is the most obvious possibility from picking your skin, but you pores will also suffer as a consequence.

Excess Sebum

After puberty sebum production usually levels out to a somewhat more ‘normal’ rate. However, things can get messy again during significant hormonal changes in your life. Menstruation, pregnancy, the menopause, all of these periods in your life cause your hormones to become unbalanced and your sebum levels to fluctuate. And when sebum production increases it fills up your pores causing them to expand, stretch and appear bigger.

Slow Cell Turnover

When you’re in your 20s each skin cell has a life cycle of around 28 days in which time it is formed at the lower levels, moves up to the surface and then sheds. As with most biological functions, however, cell turnover slows down as you mature, causing dead cells to hang around longer than necessary at the surface of your skin. Like excess sebum, these dead cells have nowhere else to go but to clog up your pores. And clogged pores = saggy, enlarged-looking pores.

Bad Makeup Choices

Certain foundations and face cosmetics that contain heavy oils and thick butters can also block your pores, causing them to expand and become more noticeable. Make sure you scan the labels of your favorite makeup formulations to ensure they’re non-comedogenic. Non-comedogenic means they’re way less likely to block your pores (comedone is the fancy term for pore, if you didn’t know).

The Best Ways To Keep Your Pores Tight

After reading the above you can probably guess what you need to do to avoid your pores becoming damaged and saggy. But we’ll lay it out for you anyway, just to drive the point home!

1. First up, wear sunscreen. This is the best thing you can do to conserve the collagen you’ve already got while ensuring you’re still making quality fresh stuff. Apply SPF 30 Mineral Sunscreen with Vitamin C every morning as par for the course, and do your skin even more of a solid by doubling up your protection with an antioxidant serum underneath sunscreen. Niacinamide is a very good ingredient for smoother, more resilient skin so try our Niacinamide (B3) Facial Serum.

2. Don’t pick your skin. Pimples or no pimples. Nothing good can come of this.

3. Balance sebum by gently cleansing and lightly moisturizing your skin come what may. It’s super important to keep your skin clean morning and night so that oils don’t build up at the surface. We love Tea Tree Super Cleanser+ which harnesses the power of tea tree oil to clarify the skin without leaving it feeling parched. Just remember, it’s equally as vital to follow with moisturizer so your skin doesn’t think it’s dry and overcompensate with more oil than you started with!

4. Exfoliate to boost cellular turnover. But don’t overdo it. Listen to your skin and exfoliate just once or twice a week if that’s all it needs. Our Vitamin C Gentle Face Scrub (which just won an industry award may we add!) is a fantastic way to keep your skin bright, clean and dead skin cell-free. Plus, it’s kind to your skin. Which is super important, at any age.

5. Finally, don't underestimate the powers of retinol. Retinol is an incredible way to boost collagen AND encourage healthy cellular turnover. That's great news for your pores. And for controlling acne. And for reducing the appearance of wrinkles. And... well, you get the picture. Try our classic Retinol Facial Serum once or twice a week to begin with, building up to nightly as your skin acclimates.

Do you feel like your already-supersized-pores are growing by the minute? They're not. But it might feel like they are...

Pores are the foundation of healthy skin. Of course, collagen makes your skin strong, supple and plump. And yes, elastin gives it that all-important bouncebackability. But without pores, your skin would be a dry, shrivelled up shadow of its former self. Not to mention the fact that your entire body would lose its ability to regulate its own body temperature.

As a quick reminder, pores are tiny, microscopic openings found at the surface of your skin right at the top of your hair follicles and sweat glands. They exist to allow important liquids (as well as other particles and gases) to pass through the surface of your skin. The human body has two types of pores: sweat pores which help regulate body temperature; and oil-producing pores that are found at the top of your hair follicles where they release sebum to moisturize and lubricate the surface of the skin. The good thing about sweat pores is that they’re so small you can’t see them making them of very little concern in the grand scheme of things.

Oil-producing pores, on the other hand, are just so annoyingly visible. So why?

What Determines The Size Of Your Pores?

Like your height, skin tone and color of your hair, the size of your pores is largely shaped by genetics. This means that yes, you can blame your parents, and yes, the size of your pores is pretty much fixed.

Of course, this is great news if you have almost invisible pores. Not so much if yours feel like they take over your entire face. But let’s get one thing straight: no matter how enlarged you believe your pores are when you study them in the mirror, they’re rarely as bad as you think. Because the truth is, nobody else scrutinizes your skin on the same level as do you.

Do Pores Get Bigger Over Time?

Yes and no. The size of your pores never really changes on a physiological level. So yes, all those half-truths about being able to ‘shrink’ your pores with alcohol-heavy toners or freezing cold water is a bit of a con. But there’s a little bit of truth in there because while the actual size of your pores doesn’t alter, their walls can stretch and expand, making them appear more pronounced.

Penny drops.

What Causes Pores To Stretch With Age?

Many things happen to your skin throughout your life that can cause the walls of your pores to become damaged and loose. Of course, regular aging plays the most obvious role as your collagen levels naturally decrease over time. Sadly, there’s not a huge amount you can do about your biological clock (there’s those genes doing their worst again!) but there are many other factors of which you can control that contribute to the rate at which your pores become slack. 

Sun Damage

Gosh, the sun gets blamed for a lot of skin issues. But we don’t apologize for that because it really is one of the worst things for the condition of your skin. UV radiation breaks down important proteins like collagen and elastin thanks to a build-up of free radicals. This weakens the collagen fibers that give your skin its structure, thus allowing the walls of your pores to become slack, weak and kind of baggy-looking. AKA more visible!

Picking Your Skin

If you have a tendency to pick or squeeze your skin, this not only irritates your skin as a whole, but it can seriously mess with the collagen and elastin fibers that keep your skin firm and supple. Scarring is the most obvious possibility from picking your skin, but you pores will also suffer as a consequence.

Excess Sebum

After puberty sebum production usually levels out to a somewhat more ‘normal’ rate. However, things can get messy again during significant hormonal changes in your life. Menstruation, pregnancy, the menopause, all of these periods in your life cause your hormones to become unbalanced and your sebum levels to fluctuate. And when sebum production increases it fills up your pores causing them to expand, stretch and appear bigger.

Slow Cell Turnover

When you’re in your 20s each skin cell has a life cycle of around 28 days in which time it is formed at the lower levels, moves up to the surface and then sheds. As with most biological functions, however, cell turnover slows down as you mature, causing dead cells to hang around longer than necessary at the surface of your skin. Like excess sebum, these dead cells have nowhere else to go but to clog up your pores. And clogged pores = saggy, enlarged-looking pores.

Bad Makeup Choices

Certain foundations and face cosmetics that contain heavy oils and thick butters can also block your pores, causing them to expand and become more noticeable. Make sure you scan the labels of your favorite makeup formulations to ensure they’re non-comedogenic. Non-comedogenic means they’re way less likely to block your pores (comedone is the fancy term for pore, if you didn’t know).

The Best Ways To Keep Your Pores Tight

After reading the above you can probably guess what you need to do to avoid your pores becoming damaged and saggy. But we’ll lay it out for you anyway, just to drive the point home!

1. First up, wear sunscreen. This is the best thing you can do to conserve the collagen you’ve already got while ensuring you’re still making quality fresh stuff. Apply SPF 30 Mineral Sunscreen with Vitamin C every morning as par for the course, and do your skin even more of a solid by doubling up your protection with an antioxidant serum underneath sunscreen. Niacinamide is a very good ingredient for smoother, more resilient skin so try our Niacinamide (B3) Facial Serum.

2. Don’t pick your skin. Pimples or no pimples. Nothing good can come of this.

3. Balance sebum by gently cleansing and lightly moisturizing your skin come what may. It’s super important to keep your skin clean morning and night so that oils don’t build up at the surface. We love Tea Tree Super Cleanser+ which harnesses the power of tea tree oil to clarify the skin without leaving it feeling parched. Just remember, it’s equally as vital to follow with moisturizer so your skin doesn’t think it’s dry and overcompensate with more oil than you started with!

4. Exfoliate to boost cellular turnover. But don’t overdo it. Listen to your skin and exfoliate just once or twice a week if that’s all it needs. Our Vitamin C Gentle Face Scrub (which just won an industry award may we add!) is a fantastic way to keep your skin bright, clean and dead skin cell-free. Plus, it’s kind to your skin. Which is super important, at any age.

5. Finally, don't underestimate the powers of retinol. Retinol is an incredible way to boost collagen AND encourage healthy cellular turnover. That's great news for your pores. And for controlling acne. And for reducing the appearance of wrinkles. And... well, you get the picture. Try our classic Retinol Facial Serum once or twice a week to begin with, building up to nightly as your skin acclimates.

Salicylic acid is right up there with glycolic acid for exfoliating your skin. But it also has an extra string in its bow. Listen up, oily skin folks, this one’s for you…

Salicylic acid is one of those ingredients that truly delivers. Forget your snail mucus and 24k gold flakes because they simply don’t live up to the hype. Along with skincare greats like retinol and vitamin C, however, salicylic acid does exactly what it sets out to do. And frankly, that’s all you can ask from a skincare ingredient, is it not?

If you’re not sure what salicylic acid is all about, not a problem, that’s what we’re here for. 

So, read on for everything we know about salicylic acid: glycolic acid’s equally as effective, but really quite different cousin…

What Is Salicylic Acid, Exactly?

You’ve heard of AHAs and BHAs, right? Well, salicylic acid sits in the BHA camp. In fact, it’s really the only BHA you need to know about being the single most common BHA used in skincare and cosmetics.

BHAs, or beta-hydroxy acids are fat-soluble chemical exfoliants that break down the bonds between your skin cells to encourage them to slough away more efficiently. Physical scrubs have the same effect, but they use physical pressure alongside grains or textured surfaces to exfoliate your skin. Chemical exfoliants just harness the powers of acids like salicylic to do the same job, improving cellular turnover as a major part of the deal.

Salicylic acid, in particular, is extracted from the bark of willow trees and has amazing exfoliating benefits. But there’s more. It also has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial qualities (take that, pimples!) and, because it’s fat-soluble, it has an uncanny knack of penetrating into your pores and getting to work on your sebaceous glands. And that’s a big plus if you have super oily skin you find hard to control…

The Benefits Of Salicylic Acid In Skincare

Exfoliants are a crucial part of a healthy skincare routine. Not only do they boost cell turnover to help give you a smoother, softer and brighter complexion, but they also work hard to improve collagen synthesis. And as you mature, that’s really important since collagen degradation becomes a huge deal as you hit your 30s and beyond.

As we mentioned, however, salicylic acid differs to other water-soluble chemical exfoliants like glycolic, citric and lactic acids. And that’s because it’s fat-soluble which allows it to go deeper below the skin’s surface, penetrating through the lipid layers to really get into the pores. We mean no disrespect to the AHAs of the world, of course, because they’re incredible at what they do – which is to exfoliate at a more surface level. But, if you have oily skin or have trouble with breakouts, blackheads or blocked pores, salicylic acid can offer so much more.

Salicylic acid is almost unbeatable at preventing your pores from becoming clogged with dead skin cells and excess sebum, AND it gently exfoliates your skin by loosening the bonds that hold together those tough, outer layers of dead skin cells. This not only improves the tone and texture of your complexion almost immediately, but it stimulates collagen production helping to stave off premature lines and wrinkles as time goes by.

To summarize, the key benefits of salicylic acid are…

5 Ways To Make Salicylic Acid Work For You

Like most active ingredients, salicylic acid must be given the respect it deserves. Here’s how to use it wisely and effectively...

1. Always Patch Test Salicylic Acid First

Most salicylic acid treatments are well-tolerated by all skin types and safe for daily use. However, there’s always a chance your skin could freak out by this potent, active ingredient, so patch test any new product before applying it regularly. And yes, we know patch testing sounds like a bit of a headache, but it’s really easy and will only delay your product use by a day or so... but it can save your skin a whole lotta pain.

To patch test your product, apply a small amount to a discreet area of your skin (we like to do it behind an ear). Then leave it for 24-48 hours to check for any negative reactions. Most likely, your skin will be fine other than mild redness or tingling which is to be expected with any active product. However, if you experience anything like burning, discomfort, swelling or itching, stop use immediately – this product is not a good fit for you. 

2. Listen To Your Skin To Get Your Routine Right

Once you know you’re safe to use your salicylic acid formulation without any negative reactions, introduce it slowly into your routine. Your skin might be strong enough to take it every day… then again, it might not. Start with once a week and then build on that after a couple of weeks as your skin acclimates. And remember to always read the labels of your products as not all serums are built to be used daily, anyway!

Our Vitamin C Super Serum+, for example, is packed with potent ingredients and combines salicylic acid with other skin superheroes like retinol and vitamin C. Because of this we recommend you apply it just two or three times a week for the best results.

3. Get The Most From Salicylic Acid By Using A Leave-On Treatment

Salicylic acid can be used in pretty much any skincare formulation, from cleansers and toners, through to exfoliants, serums and moisturizers. To really maximize its benefits, however, we believe that leave-on products offer far superior results to anything you’re going to wash down the plughole. It’s common sense, right?

On that note, try our 6% AHA, BHA + PHA Liquid Exfoliant which is everything for brighter, clearer, smoother-looking skin. Apply it to clean skin, before your serum and moisturizer.

4. Combine It With Tea Tree Oil

Our Tea Tree Super Serum+ blends salicylic acid with tea tree oil to really hit breakouts from all angles.

Tea tree oil is extracted from the leaves of the Australian tea tree and it has awesome anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial benefits making it a shoo-in for helping to calm facial redness at a surface level. Meanwhile, salicylic acid goes deeper to improve cell turnover and help remove excess oil and dirt that can block your pores in the first place. Together they’re truly dynamite. What’s more, our serum has been crafted to be as gentle as possible while still providing all the benefits you could ever want.

As we said, dynamite.

5. Use Sunscreen Every Morning

All experts agree (us, dermatologists, the FDA, need we go on?) that salicylic acid must be used in conjunction with a broad-spectrum sunscreen in order to help protect the skin and avoid sensitivities to UV radiation. It’s basically non-negotiable, so make sure sunscreen is as much a part of your morning routine as cleaning your teeth and brushing your hair.

We like to keep our SPF30 Mineral Sunscreen with Vitamin C right there on the shelf next to our serums and eye cream. That way, we never forget.