As women are experiencing ever increasing demands on their time,
many have opted out of using a toner in their
skin care regime and only use
cleansing and moisturising as the key steps to keeping their
skin looking healthy, vibrant and young.
This is however a big mistake, as toning is a very important
part of a daily skin care regime. Toning follows the cleansing
routine and actually serves some important functions.
1. Toning closes the pores of the skin. Once cleansing of the
skin has been completed, the pores tend to be open and therefore
slightly enlarged. As a result, moisture can leave the skin,
which in return dehydrates the skin. This is not a desired
effect on the contrary loss of moisture from the skin is highly
undesirable.
2. Closing of the pores has another benefit. It stops dust and
other air born particles from settling in the pores and
potentially causing problems. In addition, good quality, natural
toners are anti-septic and provides moisture and nutrients to
the skin, preparing the skin for the third step in a skin care
regime - Moisturising. Some skin care companies have tried to
eliminate the need for this step combining the cleansing and
toning steps into one step and formulated their cleansers to
include toning functions.
Now think about this for a second and you will realise how
ridiculous this concept is. A cleanser is supposed to open the
pores and remove dirt and stale natural oils from the pores and
thus cleansing the skin. A toner, as we discussed above, is
designed to close to pores... See the contradiction? It cannot
possibly work.
Any astringent (substance that closes the pores) cannot be
applied to the skin at the same time as a product that is
supposed to open and cleanse the pores. It just does not work.
The whole idea is just to market a product to time-poor women by
telling them they can combine these to steps and thus save time.
Unfortunately most women do not fully understand just how their
skin care products work. They like them, their skin may even
look good and the products therefore appear to be doing their
job. In reality however, these types of skin care products are
only doing a moderate amount of caring for the skin and the bulk
of the products do very little at all except look good on the
shelf and cost money.
The three steps in any good daily skin care regime must include
cleansing, toning and
moisturising. In addition,
you should always consider using
natural skin care
products, as there are too many synthetic and artificial
chemicals in commercially made skin care products which may
actually do you harm.
Let's look at a natural toner and it's ingredients to understand
how they actually work.
The
Wild
Herb Toner from
Wildcrafted Herbal
Products is used for oily skin and has a number of
specifically chosen ingredients, which include:
Rosemary, Witch hazel, Juniper Berry and Peppermint. These herbs
and essential oils are chosen for their toning and invigorating
effects on the skin, while Grapefruit, Niaouli and Sweet Orange
refresh the skin and combine to maintain normal sebum (oil)
secretion.
As you can see, it is important to understand the functions a
particular product is supposed to have and how these functions
interact with the other steps in your daily skin care regime.
Knowing this you will now probably understand why toning is a
necessary part of your daily skin care regime.
About the author:
Danny Siegenthaler is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine
and together with his wife Susan, a medical herbalist and
Aromatherapist, they have created
Natural Skin Care Products
by Wildcrafted Herbal Products to share their 40 years of
combined expertise with you.
© Wildcrafted Herbal Products 2006
