Follow-Up Skin Care

Picture yourself looking fantastic with balanced facial features and smooth, radiant skin. Facial cosmetic urger y can help make that vision a realit y, but follow-up skin care is important to help maintain the esult s of your surgery. Doing everything you can to make your new look last means taking tender care of yourself all over.

The very best thing you can do for your skin is to keep yourself in glowing good health. Beware of your skin's worst enemies: stress, lack of sleep, smoking and environmental pollutants, inadequate water intake, excess sunshine, a sedentary lifestyle, and a poor diet. The following fundamentals will help you maintain healthy skin after your cosmetic procedure.

• Be good to yourself. You can't avoid stress altogether, but you can see to it that your needs for quiet time, recreation, and stress reducers are met.
  
• Get enough sleep - seven to eight hours every night. Restful sleep gives your cells a chance to repair themselves.
  
• Don't smoke. It wreaks havoc on your skin and other organs as well.
  
• Remember that sweat is friend and enemy alike; it leaches toxins out of your skin, but essential salts and minerals are lost, too. Don't leave sweat on your skin any longer than necessary; the toxins can clog your pores.
  
• Exercise regularly to increase blood flow, which supplies oxygen and nutrients to your skin and other organs.
  
• Eat those veggies! Be sure you're ge tt ing enough fiber, protein, and other nutrients needed by your skin and the rest of you. Avoid simple sugars, greasy snacks, and highly processed foods.

Good Skin Care

Pampering your skin can be a relaxing ritual, but even if you don't have time to indulge yourself, do follow the four basic steps of facial skin care: cleanse, exfoliate, moisturize, and protect.

Normal Skin

Complete facial cleansing is most important at night when you're washing off the residue of the day - bacteria, sweat, pollutants, and especially makeup, whose pigments can irritate the skin and clog the pores. Remove every trace of makeup before you go to bed, including mas­ cara, especially if it's waterproof. The flecks can work their way into your eyes while you sleep. Here are tips for cleansing:

• If you use the mildest cleanser that will do the job and rinse thoroughly, you shouldn't need a toner to remove drying residues.
  
• Avoid scented cleansers and moisturizers.
  
• Cleanse the skin on your neck, too.

Keep your hands away from your face to avoid transmi tt ing oils and bacteria.

Dry Skin

Use a cleansing cream or lotion or a very mild soap with water. Antibacterial and deodorant soaps are too harsh for the face. If the product lathers easily, it may be too drying.

Wash your face and neck at night when your skin has time to replenish the oils that washing strips away. Rinse thoroughly with lukewarm water. Pat your skin dry - don't rub - with a clean towel. In the morning, just rinse with lukewarm water and pat dry. Don't use astringents, clarifying lotions, or toners unless they are labeled "moisturizing."Avoid those containing alcohol, witch hazel, and other drying ingredients.

Avoid steam baths and saunas; excessive sweating takes natural moisture out of your skin. In winter, turn down the thermostat. Heat from your furnace dries out the air, as does air conditioning in summer, especially in dry climates. Humidifiers and well-watered houseplants can put needed moisture back into the air.

Take warm, not hot, baths and showers, and keep them short.

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