2020 Tears Messing with Your Skincare Routine?
I was struck this week by a question from a friend; “If I cry after I do my skincare routine, do I need to redo it?”
Wow. This resonated hard. It’s an apt question given the world today. How do you best practice self care in the midst of this challenging new world we find ourselves in? I think it is a wonderful thing to be thinking about. I would say the answer is "not completely”. Let’s get down to brass tacks.
Hypothetically, let’s say you start your day with a skincare routine that looks something like this:
1. Wash with gentle cleanser
2. Pat skin dry
3. Apply vitamin C serum
4. Apply face moisturizer
5. Apply eye cream
6. Apply BB cream with sunscreen in it
7. Apply a little makeup
You make your morning coffee, or, in my case, tea. And you make sure the little or not so
little ones get dressed, breakfast, and logged in to their online learning. %#^%$#*^! Then, something else frustrating or really sad comes up. It’s 2020, it’s going to happen some days. So, you have a mini breakdown of some sort. A few tears happen. Maybe a lot of tears happen. You are not alone. Give yourself permission to feel however you are feeling and to be wherever you are at. Let those tears out, scream into a pillow. Do what you need to do to get it out.
Good news though! There is nothing in your tears themselves that will damage your skin, but the salt in them can cause increased water retention (aka puffiness) in the area around our eyes. Tears are made up of basically water, salt, fatty oils, and proteins. We actually make “15-30 gallons of tears a year” and our nose runs when we cry because tears that don’t come out our eyes are actually draining down the connected nasal passage and mixing with our mucus. When we cry blood flow is increased to our eyes and face which can cause redness and the potential for broken capillaries. You can learn more about the anatomy of our tears in this article.
But back to what to do about them, take some deep breaths and do everything in your power not to rub your eyes and nose too much. Rubbing will only make redness worse. Be as gentle as you can. Do your best to pat and gently wipe instead of rub. So, gently pat dry your tears and blow your nose and don’t rub too much. Then, go get something cool like a chilled spoon or simply a cold drink. Hold this chilled item on your under eyes to prevent swelling. Next, you can use a drop or two of Visine or another red reducing eye drop. Alternatively, you can skip this step and just let the redness reduce naturally. Then, you always have the option to rewash your face, but keep in mind that over washing can sensitize your skin. If you do rewash your face, I would suggest not reapplying any acidic actives like vitamin C, but go straight to the moisturizers. If you aren’t wearing any makeup, a nice splash of cold water followed by reapplying your facial moisturizers is all you need.
If you have makeup on, you can skip washing your face and put a little eye cream on a Qtip to clean up your eye area. Use as many Qtips with eye cream on them as you need and remember, be gentle. You can dab some more eye cream on your skin with a pinky finger or ring finger after makeup smudges are cleared. I recommend BeLIFTED Botanicals B LUMEN Renewing CBD Eye Cream with green tea because the caffeine in the green tea will help reduce the appearance of puffiness. Then, put some of your face cream on a Qtip or cotton ball to clean off any makeup smeared on the rest of your face. Apply more cream with clean fingers after that for moisture if needed. CBD is incredibly soothing, so I recommend our B SANA Rejuvenating CBD Face Cream for calming the appearance of redness. Once you’ve moisturized, touch up your makeup as needed and you’re good to go. No one will know you’ve been crying unless you tell them. And, hopefully, if nothing else gets better, you’ll at least feel a little better for taking a little time to pay attention to and take care of your skin… there may be no quick fixes out in the world right now, but for this, there sort of is.
Sending love, health, and healing to you all.
April Billingsley
Owner and CEO of BeLIFTED Botanicals
Wow. This resonated hard. It’s an apt question given the world today. How do you best practice self care in the midst of this challenging new world we find ourselves in? I think it is a wonderful thing to be thinking about. I would say the answer is "not completely”. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Hypothetically, let’s say you start your day with a skincare routine that looks something like this:
1. Wash with gentle cleanser
2. Pat skin dry
3. Apply vitamin C serum
4. Apply face moisturizer
5. Apply eye cream
6. Apply BB cream with sunscreen in it
7. Apply a little makeup
You make your morning coffee, or, in my case, tea. And you make sure the little or not so
little ones get dressed, breakfast, and logged in to their online learning. %#^%$#*^! Then, something else frustrating or really sad comes up. It’s 2020, it’s going to happen some days. So, you have a mini breakdown of some sort. A few tears happen. Maybe a lot of tears happen. You are not alone. Give yourself permission to feel however you are feeling and to be wherever you are at. Let those tears out, scream into a pillow. Do what you need to do to get it out.Good news though! There is nothing in your tears themselves that will damage your skin, but the salt in them can cause increased water retention (aka puffiness) in the area around our eyes. Tears are made up of basically water, salt, fatty oils, and proteins. We actually make “15-30 gallons of tears a year” and our nose runs when we cry because tears that don’t come out our eyes are actually draining down the connected nasal passage and mixing with our mucus. When we cry blood flow is increased to our eyes and face which can cause redness and the potential for broken capillaries. You can learn more about the anatomy of our tears in this article.
But back to what to do about them, take some deep breaths and do everything in your power not to rub your eyes and nose too much. Rubbing will only make redness worse. Be as gentle as you can. Do your best to pat and gently wipe instead of rub. So, gently pat dry your tears and blow your nose and don’t rub too much. Then, go get something cool like a chilled spoon or simply a cold drink. Hold this chilled item on your under eyes to prevent swelling. Next, you can use a drop or two of Visine or another red reducing eye drop. Alternatively, you can skip this step and just let the redness reduce naturally. Then, you always have the option to rewash your face, but keep in mind that over washing can sensitize your skin. If you do rewash your face, I would suggest not reapplying any acidic actives like vitamin C, but go straight to the moisturizers. If you aren’t wearing any makeup, a nice splash of cold water followed by reapplying your facial moisturizers is all you need.
If you have makeup on, you can skip washing your face and put a little eye cream on a Qtip to clean up your eye area. Use as many Qtips with eye cream on them as you need and remember, be gentle. You can dab some more eye cream on your skin with a pinky finger or ring finger after makeup smudges are cleared. I recommend BeLIFTED Botanicals B LUMEN Renewing CBD Eye Cream with green tea because the caffeine in the green tea will help reduce the appearance of puffiness. Then, put some of your face cream on a Qtip or cotton ball to clean off any makeup smeared on the rest of your face. Apply more cream with clean fingers after that for moisture if needed. CBD is incredibly soothing, so I recommend our B SANA Rejuvenating CBD Face Cream for calming the appearance of redness. Once you’ve moisturized, touch up your makeup as needed and you’re good to go. No one will know you’ve been crying unless you tell them. And, hopefully, if nothing else gets better, you’ll at least feel a little better for taking a little time to pay attention to and take care of your skin… there may be no quick fixes out in the world right now, but for this, there sort of is.
Sending love, health, and healing to you all.
April Billingsley
Owner and CEO of BeLIFTED Botanicals