You might be wondering, “Is it really necessary to change up my skincare routine and treatments for fall and winter?”, and the answer is an enthusiastic YES! Our skin has difference needs depending on the season, especially here in Minnesota. Fall is the perfect time to check in with your esthetician to make sure that you are using the correct products to prepare your skin for corrective treatments and to get ahead of winter dryness. Keeping your skin barrier healthy is a must in order to have effective peel treatments or microneedling sessions and ensure proper healing.
The skin barrier is important to understand because if it is not intact, your products won’t work as effectively and you might even experience stinging or sensitivity to even gentle products, unwanted texture, flakiness, and even breakouts. Think of the skin barrier as the skin’s bodyguard. It is in charge of allowing certain things in and keeping other things out, as well as helping to maintain proper hydration levels. To read more about the skin barrier, visit our blog on restoring balance to a disrupted barrier here.
You don’t have to change your entire routine each season, but making some intentional swaps will make certain you avoid the sensitivity, flakiness, redness, and even breakouts that can come with a stressed skin barrier. Some of my favorite easy swaps are switching up your cleanser from a gel or foam to a low suds or oil cleanser option for oily skin and an oil or creamy cleanser for normal to dry skin types. Gel and high suds cleansers (aka bubbly, soapy cleansers) are designed to remove excess oils and impurities from the skin. That’s why your dish soap isn’t a cream: it needs to be able to effectively remove built up grease and grime. In the fall and winter, temperatures naturally get cooler and humidity falls. Your skin produces less oil the colder it is out, so naturally, we don’t need to remove as much as we would in the summer. In fact, removing too many oils from the skin when it is already producing less and over-exfoliation, is how we run into barrier sensitivities. It is especially important for normal to dry skin types to avoid gel-type cleansers in the winter since this skin type needs oil replenishment to stay soft, supple, and functioning at an optimal level.
Another simple swap we can make it adding in a facial oil to our routine and adjusting the weight of our moisturizers to match our skins need for extra moisture. Facial oils are suitable for all skin types and can make a significant difference in the look and feel of your skin. For oil skin types, I recommend a lightweight oil that has anti-bacterial and/or detoxifying properties to keep the skin balanced. For dryer skin types, incorporating a richer oil will be helpful to lock-in vital moisture and prevent expression lines from showing more dramatically. I also like to look for anti-inflammatory ingredients, which will not only help with sensitivity due to dry skin, but will also be great for use post-treatment.
With all this being said, these intentional swaps will also support your skin while you take advantage of the fall and winter months to focus on revitalizing your skin with advanced treatments. Some of my favorite treatments to start in the fall are no-downtime gel peels, Rezenerate treatments, as well as liquid and traditional microneedling. These treatments combat a variety of skin concerns such as unwanted pigmentation, expression lines and wrinkles, loss of firmness, texture, and scarring. I pride myself on offering the best non to minimally invasive skin treatments that will help us meet your goals without completely disrupting your life and making you feel like you need to hide in your coat closet for days, LOL!
These advanced treatments all work in a similar way, while having unique differences that can be better suited to different skin types and concerns. The general gist of all corrective treatments is administering a type of controlled wounding to the skin, which sounds scary, but I promise, it’s not! Whenever you get a cut or injury, your body jumps into action by signaling a healing response, which is largely, in part, collagen production. These treatments kick your skin into gear to function more optimally, correct damage, and plump the heck up, resulting in more even and firm skin. Treatment protocols will always be designed for your specific needs, lifestyle, budget, and skin type.
This season, I encourage you to take advantage of our packages which include buy 3 get 1 free on microneedling and liquid microneedling and $100 off a 6-peel series which includes 3 no-downtime gel peels and 3 deeper ethanol-based peels for optimal results. It’s like going to the gym for your face! If you are thinking about one of these packages, I also recommend taking advantage of the 20% off on lightening products to prepare your skin for these treatments. When our skin jumps into healing mode, some people have the tendency to produce pigment resulting in a pink or purple toned acne scar or normal pigmentation after a scrape or wound. I recommend incorporating this one product if not anything else: Intelligent Elixirs Brightening Serum. This gel serum will act as a calming signal and disrupt the pigment producing processes in the skin while strengthening the skin barrier, ensuring your skin has the tools it needs to heal properly and evenly.
Other products that are on promotion to support your skin journey starting in October are as follows: Circadia Licorice & Bearberry Brightening Mist, Circadia Radiant Veil Moisturizer, Circadia Cyto-Comm Serum, and Circadia Vitamin C Reversal Serum.
Luckily, at Spruced, you don’t have to sacrifice results for relaxation, which is why, whenever possible, we choose to continue to offer massage in our advanced treatments, as well as a cozy, heated treatment table, weighted blanket, and aromatherapy hot towels. To find out which package or products might be right for you, please reach out directly!
