Skin Care During Self Isolation Guide

How to Use Quarantine Time to Get Glowing Skin

In this crazy pandemic time it is really easy to feel down and worried even for the most optimistic people.

I think what gets me the most is uncertainty – when this isolation and fear of getting a virus is over and we can all return back to our normal lives.

Even my teenager said that he wants to go back to school, and I never, I mean NEVER heard that from him. It was always the opposite: I hate school and my favourite subject is going home.

It is extremely important to monitor our mental health, not to be hard on ourselves and perform some form of self-care.

I would like to offer you a skin care self-isolation survival guide (I am trying to be humorous here :)) in hopes that it will help you to feel that you are doing something specifically for yourself.

Skin Care as A Form Of Self-Care

There are many forms of self-care out there: anything from taking a 15 min shower to going for long walks, buying expensive stuff and taking vacations.

Skin care is an amazing way to take care of yourself:

• you are taking time for yourself;
• you are doing something nice/good for yourself;
• you are buying products that are for you only (not for your kids, relatives, spouse; you and you only – because, let’s face, most of us spend money on others before we spend anything for ourselves);
• if your finances are tight, you can easily make natural skin care products from simple ingredients;
• you are doing something that will make your skin look glowing and younger;
• in many cases you are able to see and feel instant results (for example after a nice facial mask);
• if you stick to a routine, you will see your skin transforming;
• others will notice for sure;
• and as a result you will receive compliments on your skin;
• and let’s face it, we love and deserve compliments;
• compliments make us feel better and more confident;
• so not only do we LOOK glowing, young and beautiful, we also FEEL that way

Looks like a WIN-WIN situation to me 🙂

What Does Usually Stop Us From Skin Care and Self-Care?

I think the answer is super easy: TIME, TIME and TIME

We are just too busy. And too tired.

We come from work, have barely something to eat and then drive our kids to after-school activities. Or we do homework with them; or we cook, do laundry and so on, so on, so on.

Of course there is no time and no energy for us to do any self-care.

I learned how to do some house choirs and skin care at the same time. It is not the most ideal way to do self-care, but it is something.

How to Find Time For Self-Care During Self-Isolation

There are some perks of working from home.

For example, we can sleep in because we do not have to get ready, do our make up, style hair and pack lunches.

We do not have to get kids ready.

We do not have to drive and be stuck in traffic.

We also do not have to be stuck in traffic on a way home, drive our kids to the activities, prepare school lunches for the next day, start cooking dinner (keeping in mind that we will need to cook more, so we will have something for tomorrow’s lunches) and so on.

I know that some of us have to work, while having kids at home. Kids, who are bored and have too much unburnt energy since they are stuck indoors. I am sure that you already did a research and found many activities to give to your kids to keep the occupied a bit.

However, still, staying home does give us extra time since we do not have to do all those hectic things we are used to doing before and after work.

So, let’s spend this time for ourselves.

We do not need hours, sometimes simple 15-30 minutes a day will lift up our mood and make us feel well taken care off.

Or we can do some skin care routine while working in front of the computer, cooking and cleaning.

Skin Care Routine

In the morning

The usual multi-step morning routine is as follows:

1. Clean your face – I usually use just lukewarm water in the morning to avoid extra rubbing and scrubbing. You do not want to destroy your outer protective skin barrier.

2. Apply toner – I have a very extensive post about what toners do in case you would like to read about it.

3. Apply an essence or serum.

However, because you are at home and not in a rush to leave, you can take an extra step and……

4. Apply a sheet mask. Choose something suitable for daily use, lightweight and simple.

These masks usually stay on your face for 15 minutes. So it is your choice what you want to do for 15 minutes.

• You can go and put a coffee pot on,
• You can start making breakfast,
• You can go and dress up – put on the most comfortable track pants, warm socks and a shirt,
• Or you can go to your computer, turn it on and read work emails.
• Or, if you are able to, you can just lie down in bed and enjoy quiet 15 minutes.

Remove your mask off.

5. Apply moisturizer or a day cream to seal in ingredients from the sheet mask

Have your coffee, breakfast and some fun with the family.

6. If you do not have sheet mask, make a facial mask from ingredients that you have at home. Apply it and continue doing what you have to do for the same 15 minutes.

I have a giant number of different homemade facial masks for any skin type on my blog. So pick one, it is fun and easy.

Here are some posts to look at:

10 Simple DIY Face Masks for Healthy, Glowing Skin

Homemade Skin Care Products with Honey

7 Amazing Homemade Beauty Products with Aloe Vera

6. Apply eye cream

7. If you are planning on going outside, always apply sun protection: SPF50++ is ideal

8. Go about your day, enjoy, laugh, have fun.

In the evening

Your evening routine all depends on how much time you really have.

The usual Korean skin care routine is as following:

1. Cleanse your skin
2. Exfoliate (you should only do this step 1 or 2 times per week)
3. Apply toner
4. Apply essence and/or serum and/or ampoule (see what the difference is between all of them here)
5. Apply any spot treatment if you are using it. For example, I often use Tosowoong powder for pimples and breakouts.
6. Apply sheet mask (this step is usually done instead of step 4 and you do not have to do it every night). If you apply sheet mask, do not wash it off – you would want to keep the essence from the mask on your skin.
7. Apply Eye cream
8. Apply Moisturizer
9. Apply night cream
10. Apply overnight sleeping mask – you apply overnight sleeping pack only once or twice a week. Pleaser, read more about overnight sleeping masks here.

However, you can pamper your skin even more. Let’s say you have about one hour.

Then you can easily have A Spa-Like Facial at Home.

If you prefer homemade products, I am here to help too:

How to have spa-like facial with natural products

Skin Care Routine …Without Following a Routine

The thing about staying and working from home is that you do not really have to follow strict routine steps. You can take things more easy and to a skin care step when you can and it is convenient for you. After all you have the whole day.

Many times I just clean my face, apply toner and have a coffee.

Then I would feel like exfoliating my skin, so I will do a clay mask or heating cleaning mask.

Then apply a toner, then essence and so on.

In the beginning of the day, I might decide all of the sudden, that my skin feels “too heavy”, too oily and so on. So I will clean my face with warm water, apply toner and then apply a sheet mask. Or homemade mask. Whatever I feel like.

Then I apply moisturizer.

So for me it looks like that I am always doing something throughout the day, but each step only takes me 3 minutes.

Taking Care of Your Hands and Feet Without Taking Extra Time

It is also time to take care of your hands. After all, our hands work hard and often are exposed to heat, water and harsh chemicals.

However, it is hard to find extra time for our hands. After all, who can really sit down with a hand mask and do nothing?

Most of us apply a hand cream and that is about it for hand care.

I came up with a way to treat my hands with a rich hand mask on the go.

How To Do A Hand Mask When you Do Not Have Time For It

What you need:

• 2-3 tablespoons of warm olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of lemon oil
• Vitamin E or any other oil (optional)
• Pair of cotton gloves
• Pair of heavy duty rubber gloves

How to do it:

• Mix oil and lemon juice together, generously apply to your hands
• Put on cotton gloves
• Put on rubber gloves
• Continue with your house choirs. I usually clean bathrooms and kitchen (I always use gloves when cleaning bathrooms and kitchen).
• Rubber glove will create sauna-like effect for your hands, which will make oil penetrate into your skin deeper.
• It usually takes me about hour and a half to finish all my bathrooms and kitchen skinks.
• Remove all the gloves, rub in the oil, wash hands with warm water if you’d like.
• You will notice how soft and smooth your hands become.

Feet Mask

Our feet also need extra care. I have a whole post about feet and how to do an acid peel for feet at home.

However, it is very hard to order things from amazon right now. So, you can easily make a feet mask from ingredients you have at home.

What you need:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of coconut oil (melted)
• plastic wrap
• thin socks
• thick socks (optional)

How to do it:

• Mix all ingredients together, apply to your feet
• Wrap feet with plastic wrap
• Put thin socks first, then follow with thick socks.
• Leave mask on for 1 hour. Walk around the house, work, clean, cook, play with kids etc.
• In 1 hour remove everything, massage oil into your feet.
• Your feet will feel so soft and smooth.

Taking Care of Your Body

Let’s not forget our body. We can use extra time to pamper our whole body and give it much deserved care.

You can easily make body scrubs from simple ingredients at home.

Apple, Strawberry and Vanilla Sugar Scrub

This scrub contains fresh ingredients.  Apples and strawberries will detoxify your skin, gently peel off dead cells, whiten age spots and brighten the overall appearance of your skin.

Ingredients:

1 fresh apple, skin peeled off, seeds removed

5 medium fresh strawberries

½ cup of white sugar (or cane sugar)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Grate apple using the smallest size grater
2. Puree grated apple and strawberries either using hand blender or any other blender
3. Add sugar and vanilla extract to the mixture and stir well
4. Keep in glass air tight container.
5. This body scrub contains fresh ingredients, so keep it in the refrigerator for about a week or two

Please, check out the following post to find other nourishing body scrubs.

7 Homemade Amazing Simple Body Scrubs for Glowing Skin

I know it is hard to be isolated at home. I personally feel that my life is put on hold and I have no idea when we can go back to normal. Also fear of contracting the virus contributes to my anxiety and stress.

However, this is what our reality is for now. It will pass. So, let’s use this time as an opportunity to do something, that we had no time for before.

Why not use extra 30 minutes for ourselves and give our skin extra attention and care. We all deserve it.

Stay beautiful!!!!