A glowing skin is everyone’s dream today. Men have joined the bandwagon too. Most bathroom cabinets are replete with bottles of skincare creams and lotions and gels. It’s a jungle out there and you are spoilt for choice. You spend thousands every month, or every two months on various OTC and nutraceutical skincare products. There can be some hits and some misses But most often, the success of any skincare ritual lies in its first step – cleansing. Not just cleansing, but deep cleansing!
The first secret to glowing skin is deep cleansing and if it were to be effective, one round of water cleansing is never enough to draw out the deeply embedded impurities and sebum. Not many are aware of this fact and hence pay less attention to it.
Every type of skin, every type of problem skin needs deep cleansing. Treating skin issues begins with deep cleansing.
At Astrea, we have developed a set of cleansers which leave the skin thoroughly cleansed and mildly exfoliated, thereby leaving it radiant.
What Is Deep Cleansing?
Deep cleansing is nothing but double cleansing. It starts out with using an oil cleanser, followed by a foam cleanser. Yes, you need two different formulas to thoroughly cleanse the face.
And at Astrea, we have added an almost magical formulation, the cleansing grains that very gently exfoliate, leaving the skin clearer, brighter and radiant. You can do this regime twice a day, morning in the shower, and just before you go to bed at night.
Oil Cleanser – Step 1
Why oil cleansers?
Even for oily skin. Surprised ?
Because oil dissolves oil! Natural oils pre-exist in our skin, either as sebum or those left behind from topical applications. No matter what type your skin is, cleansing oils mix with these ‘not-so-good’ oils and draw them out. Something that water based cleansers cannot, because oil and water do not mix !
Secondly, oils in the cleansers bind to surface impurities, pulling out the dirt without clogging pores.
Third in point – oil cleansers help retain our skin’s natural pH balance, which again water based cleansers cannot.
Oil cleansing is not a modern concept. It’s an age old practice, which got diluted when pharma and cosmetic companies started misleading us by promoting surfactant laden cleansers to grow their businesses.
For, the damage caused by chemicals allowed them to promote related products that they promised would replace the lost oils, and balance the skin. Here, we are saying ‘don’t lose the oils in the first place’. Go the natural way. Be naturally you !
Foam Cleanser – Step 2
After the oil cleansing, you need to remove the residual oil on the skin and a foaming cleanser does exactly that. It also draws out water-based debris such as sweat and the dislodged dirt from the skin. A word of caution – choose your foam cleanser wisely, one that has as less chemicals as possible. Any product that lathers contains oodles of surfactants which dry up the skin by stripping it of natural oils. Squeaky clean is a myth ; more foam the better is a myth ! We would recommend aiming for healthy clean instead – cleansing, without losing skin’s natural pH balance.
Cleansing Grains – Step 3
The next step after oil and foam cleansing is the exfoliation, which staves away dead skin cells and debris from the skin. We have an amazing formulation of cleansing grains for the exfoliation and that’s the third step of the deep cleansing regime. Here is the why and how.
Glow Cleansing Grains contains Kaolin clay, colloidal oats (powdered oats) and crushed rose petals. Kaolin clay and colloidal oats very gently exfoliate and relieve the skin of any dead skin cells that may be sticking to it despite the above described double cleansing. With every passing year, the quality and texture of our skin changes and loses its capacity to shed dead cells on its own. This is where cleansing grains step in.
Rose petals contain natural oils and sugars that lock moisture into dry skin cells and give them a rejuvenated look. Glow doubles up as a daily face wash and an exfoliator. It can be used even twice a day, every day since it contains zero chemicals. Also the grains are soft and mild.
So, this 3-step deep cleansing should be done morning and night. To remove all the pollutants, makeup, dirt, sweat and sebum of the day, use it just before you go to bed.
Here is why you should do it in the morning too. Moisturising at bedtime lets the skin heal and regenerate. Now, you need to remove all traces of the residual oils of the night.
Some may not feel the need to use cleansing grains in the morning, but using it can leave your face looking brighter and fresher for the rest of the day.
We hope we have taken you through the nuances of deep cleansing and it’s now time to make informed choices. Like we said earlier, there is a plethora of choice out there and we hope to help you zero in on choosing the right natural face cleansers.
Take look at our line of cleansers for your daily skincare routine:
