Beauty wish granted: Based on the skin care prowess of Annet King, Director of Training and Development for The International Dermal Institute, and our annoyingly flawless friends who weighed in on the 7 habits of perfect-skinned women story, reducing stress via workouts like yoga, or hiking, running, or power walking outdoors is a major piece in the blemish-free skin care puzzle.
Why's that? King says stress causes our adrenal glands to increase the production of androgen hormones, which amplifies the creation of oil, yielding acne. So, all the benzoyl peroxide in the world won't clear your skin unless you get to the root of the problem --keeping your stress hormones on mute. And of course eating healthy, staying hydrated, getting enough sleep, not smoking, yada yada yada all contribute to better skin.
And King explains that skin care is like working out -- eventually you reach a plateau if you don't switch it up from time to time. Here are some of her suggestions for your skin care regimen, namely for those with acne-prone skin:
Step 1: Use a cleanser with salicylic acid morning and night. Look for one with tea tree, which will help fight inflammation. Try Dermalogica mediBac Clearing Skin Wash, $33.
Step 2: Use a liquid or cream exfoliating mask with hydroxy acids or enzymes, or even salicylic acid, two to three times a week. Try Zia Pumpkin Exfoliating Mask, $19.02.
Second, for the rest of your face, use a moisturizer that's right for your skin type. For example, you may need an oil-based moisturizer if your skin is dry.
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Your beauty wish: "NO UNWANTED HAIR!!!!"
Beauty wish granted: While we don't exactly have the power to make it so you'll "never have to shave my legs/armpits/nether-regions again" (as one woman put it), we can make the process much less painful. First off, take this quiz to find out the best de-fuzzing method for you. Then, check out our comprehensive hair removal 101 guide that includes hairless tricks from industry experts. Want the CliffsNotes? Here are tips for shaving your legs into silky perfection:
Step 1: To get an extra close shave, exfoliate the day before you pick up that razor. It will remove dead cells that prevent your razor from gliding smoothly over skin. Try Kiehl's Gently Exfoliating Body Scrub, $25.
Step 2: Shave at the end of your shower/bath to allow skin to soak in the moisture from the water and hair to soften.
Step 4: Use long strokes and gentle pressure with a sharp razor (replace after five shaves). When you reach your knees, stretch the skin as you shave it to make sure you get every single hair.
Step 5: After you shave, apply lotion chock full of chamomile and calendula to soothe and shea butter for deep moisture such as FC5 by Arbonne Conditioning Body Moisture, $23.
Recently we posed this question in a blog post: What Three Wishes Would You Ask Your Natural Beauty Genie For? (Well, If One Actually Existed.) We got an overwhelming amount of responses from you. There were surprisingly lots of feet-related wishes (go figure), but unsurprisingly a ton of perfect-skin requests. As we scrolled through the comments, we were nodding and agreeing right along with you. Some actually even made us tear up (OK, we may have been PMSing, but nonetheless), like this one:
"I would just want to be skinny. Everything else, I'm good with. Someone else can have my other two wishes."
While others made us LOL:
1. Unwanted hair
2. Unwanted hair
3. Unwanted hair
The bottom line is that no body is perfect and we all have things (definitely more than three) that we wish we could change. One woman sums it up here by saying:
"Reading this article and the comments makes me feel good because, well, everyone has something they're not happy about. There [are] things I would change and wish for and knowing everyone else feels the same just makes me feel better."
Unfortunately, some of your wishes cannot be fixed short of surgery like "a different nose" or " fuller, bigger, perkier boobs (about a C cup)." But believe it or not, the rest of your wishes you can actually grant yourself -- just by following these expert tips and picking up a few hard-working products.