Treat Yourself Right

Eye gels and creams, serums, complexes and masques are all treatment products. They contain active ingredients that further enrich or nourish your skin beyond just keeping it clean. These products can brighten skin pigments, even out tones, promote collagen and elastin production, decrease line and wrinkle depth and so much more.

Again, applying a treatment product to moist skin will ensure a deeper penetration. Massaging your face lightly with tapotement/percussion of your fingers to stimulate the skin will also allow for deeper penetration. Treatment products should never be smeared or rubbed into the skin, but pressed or tapped into the desired areas.

In some instances, a professional will use a form of direct current (and there are some at-home versions) to carry active ingredients on a current of electricity into the lower layers of the epidermis, and into the dermis itself. While home-care versions are hand-held, professional electrotherapy machines often consist of a grounding rod which is held by the "patient" and an active electrode that is rolled or smoothed across the skin. As the current travels from the active electrode to the grounding rod, it carried the positively charged active ingredients deep into the skin.

Common ingredients used in treatment products include botanicals and minerals, antioxidants and peptides. Vitamin C is very popular due to its versatility. It promotes collagen and elastin production, which leads to firmer skin, brightens pigmentation and evens skin tone, and fights free radicals! Vitamins A and E are also very popular. While E strengthens cell walls, A promotes cell turnover, which in essence keeps your skin active and youthful.

Peptides are strings of proteins that have the benefit of repairing damage on a cellular level, which can decrease, stop and reverse the signs of aging. Pairing two or more peptides forms complexes, and now through modern technology, ingredients like Pepsyn allow for a stable blending of peptides and botanicals for more powerful, natural treatment products.

While not a necessary part of the skin care regiment, treating your skin can do much in the way of increasing your face value.

Next up: Moisturizing.