A Dermatologist shares a few tips to help you maintain healthy skin and hair during the lockdown triggered by the pandemic.
The lockdown could also mean adapting to a new routine, which includes hair and skincare Going back to basics to find ideas and solutions for your skin and hair care while being stuck at home is a good ideaHere are a few tips you can follow to get healthy skin and hair naturally
It’s been a few weeks since we’ve have been asked to stay at home in an effort to defeat the novel coronavirus that has baffled the world. Like many other businesses, beauty services are shut as we practice social distancing during the pandemic. This also means, adapting to a new normal, including skin and hair maintenance.
Perhaps, it is time to ‘go back to basics’ to find ideas for skin and hair care at home itself. Here are a few tips to take care of your skin, hair, and body during the lockdown.
Tips to take care of your oily, acne-prone skin at home
Beauty parlours are remaining closed, routine non-urgent dermatology and cosmetology OPDs are not functioning, and your local wellness is not able to stock all the products you need. But fret not! You can maintain gorgeous hair and skin by following some golden rules that dermatologists recommend to all of their patients. Here are a few tips suggested by Dr Smriti Naswa Singh, Consultant Dermatologist and Cosmetic Dermatologist, Fortis Hospital, Mulund, Mumbai, to take care of your skin and hair.
With summers setting in, the skincare regime of people with oily, acne-prone skin goes for a toss. If you can, buy a Salicylic Acid-based face wash from the store and use it 2-3 times a day. If you don’t, then search for the Multani Mitti (earthen clay) and Chandan (sandalwood) powder/packs at home, applying these will clear off the acne very fast. If these are unavailable, a pack with turmeric and curd can work wonders.
For those with active acne, do not use scrubs because it will burst the painful acne leading to pigmentation and scarring, it will also spread the free fatty acid radicals to other parts of skin and cause more pimples. Those with younger oily skin with open pores and no active acne, using scrub before applying face pack of Multani Mitti or Chandan is a good DIY facial routine that could be followed once or twice a week.
The scrub can be made at home too, with walnuts/almonds/besan/wheat flour mixed with turmeric (for its antiseptic properties) and curd. After applying this to the face, let it dry and remove it gently in a circular motion or remove the paste, then wash with water, finish off with a non-comedogenic moisturiser. This scrub can also be used for normal skin. For active acne, it is suggested to wash this pack before it dries.
Taking care of dry skin at home
For the older skin with a tendency of dryness that is linked to age, the scrub needs minor tweaking with honey or milk instead of curd, followed by a deeply nourishing moisturiser which can be Aloe Vera gel (or taken straight from the plant) or a glycerin/paraffin-based moisturiser. Lotion-based moisturisers should be preferred over the cream based ones.
Hair care at home
Hair condition can go for a toss for many due to summer heat and sweat. The ideal hair care is to shampoo the scalp, then condition the hair after shampooing, to be followed 2-3 times a week. Deep conditioning your hair once or twice a week is a good idea to keep the frizz away especially for curly and wavy hair. Try this technique – if you feel your hair is frizzier after a bath, tie your hair with a t-shirt rather than a towel because its fabric is softer, after 15-20minutes apply a leave-on serum on your hair. This is a good way to moisturise your hair. Overnight oiling once a week can be done.
General tips for glowing skin – Diet and Exercise
As always, our information remains incomplete without the very important but understated lifestyle measures. Skin is the mirror of internal body. A healthy body and rested mind leads to glowing skin, there is no shortcut to that. The aim of the lockdown is to fight the infection, hence, at this time it is all the more important to have food packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
Here are a few tips for healthy skin:
Have two local, seasonal fruits a day (in between the meals);
Have a multi-color salad before lunch and dinner
Try having 50 per cent of your daily intake as raw
Have different grains in your weekly menu which include cereals, millets as well as non-grains like amaranth (rajgira) and buckwheat (kuttu)
Include as many colours in your daily menu as possible. One green leafy and one non-green leafy vegetable daily
Remain active and don’t be a couch potato – complete your 10,000 steps a day
