Winter Skin Care Tips from Dr. Snehal

Dr. Snehal Sriram, Head, Medical Services, Kaya Skin Clinic has certain essential tips that will help keep your skin glowing even in the chill.

For one, she says, eat a balanced diet, which includes vegetables, fruits, and fresh fish every day.
Try to avoid alcohol and coffee. Both dehydrate the skin and cause more drying and itching.
Use a humidifier inside the house to keep the skin moist.
Exercise helps produce sweat and increases blood flow to the skin, which improves the skin’s hydration.
Colloidal oat meal baths, in addition to preventing water loss, also soothe the skin.
While taking a shower in winter, alternate moderately hot water with cold water for a few seconds. This provides an internal massaging effect with improved circulation and better hydration of the skin.
Don’t worry too much about the havoc played on the skin by the changing weather. Just lead your life normally and welcome the arrival of winter.

Do:

Apply lots of moisturiser around the eyes as the skin is very delicate.

Drink at least 7-8 glasses of water a day.

Protect lips with lip balm/gel

Always wear gloves, scarves, etc while you go out.

Use soap-free moisturizing cleansers

Add emollient/mineral oil to bath water (1-2 drops per bucket)

Apply moisturizer immediately after your bath

Use sunscreen regularly

Use a night cream on face and body before sleeping. Remove excess cream with moist cotton wool, which does not soak up moisture from the skin.

Always remove make-up before bedtime. Cosmetics can dry out the skin.

For hair, use mild moisturizing shampoo and conditioner after shampoo

Trim split ends

Don’t

Use soaps, scrubs and loofahs
Use toners and astringent
Use scrubs and grainy packs.
Sit for long hours under the sun or in AC
Try treatments like straightening, perming, blow drying
Shampoo frequently

Home care
Dr. Snehal Sriram’s home care tips

Mix honey and milk and apply. Mix half-a-cup honey to bath water for soft and smooth skin.
Aloe Vera helps remove dead skin cells and is soothing, healing, and moisturising.
A facemask of egg white and honey removes tan from face.
For oily skin, soak multani mitti and mint powder in yoghurt for 30 minutes. Mix well and apply on face. Leave till dry. Wash off with lukewarm water and rinse with cold water.

The ache of acne (pimples)

Acne is often the bane of a pretty face. It is painful more emotionally than physically, for the scar that it leaves behind can last for a lifetime, adding to one’s miserable look & feeling. No doubt many expensive skin care clinics have mushroomed in ever nook & corner, offering to clear all the scars & blemishes on the face, but they are very expensive & charge exorbitant price for each sitting; not everyone can afford them. So why not try out this simple skin care regimen to minimize the damage caused by acne & as far as possible prevent its eruption.

Natural remedies for dark circles around your eyes

Dark circles around your eyes. How unsightly they look and even your best dress and layers of make-up sometimes does not quite succeed in concealing them! Blame it on your genes or your lifestyle, but, you cannot deny the fact that these are a blot on your beauty . And they become more prominent as you age. Let’s just debunk some of the myths as well as unearth some of the facts about the causes of these ‘ panda eyes ’. Dark circles under eyes usually are temporary and not a medical concern. You may be surprised to learn that fatigue usually isn't the cause of dark circles. Instead, the most common cause is nasal congestion. When your nose is congested, veins that usually drain from your eyes into your nose become widened (dilated) and darker.

Home remedies for common cold

Common cold is a very common malady which affects people during monsoons. (Also see the post Beauty and body care in monsoon for a monsoon beauty regimen.) It can be caused by any one of more than 200 viruses. Normally it is confined to the nose and throat although the virus can infect the larynx and lungs. It is said that there is no particular cure for colds, they are naturally relieved within a week. Treatment is just an attempt to relieve its symptoms such as headache, stuffy nose, sore-throat and congestion. Paracetamol tablets are generally taken to get relief from these symptoms.

Beating stress – some tips

It is very difficult to come across a happy, contented face in a crowd these days. Stress has become a way of life with people these days. Sure, we all need to be a little tense once in a blue moon. After all it acts as a positive force and helps us get things done. But when tension becomes a habit with us and we are unable to cope up with it, we say we are undergoing stress. Some people are simply born more tense than others. Children of over-anxious parents generally grow up to be more anxious than the others.

Home remedies for sore throat

Sore throat is a common malady that each one of us faces sometime or the other in our lifetime. That scratchy, dry and abrasively painful feeling at the back of the throat that you experience is so very discomforting! There are many ways to relieve that scratchy and painful, infected throat. Sore throat home remedies are many and varied and range from the folk ones to the medically tested and proven ones. With this common recurring condition many sufferers have their own favourite sore throat treatments that seem to work for them. Sore throat is one of the ailments which responds very well to home based remedies, so there is no reason why one should hesitate to try out these invaluable tips which have been handed over to us by generations of yore. After all these remedies have negligible side-effects and so there is no harm in trying them. And you can always rush to a doctor if they don’t work for you.