SKIN CARE IN SUMMERS

After a long winters we eagerly wait for summer season as this season gives us freedom to wear more fashionable clothes, we come out from long jackets and boots to light tshirts and flip flops, family vacations on beaches & pools, cool things to drink and eat like ice creams, longs days allows us to hang out with friends in evening and many more.

But otherside it brings intense sunlight, raised temperature, sweating that can spoil your skin if you have not taken care proper care in daily routine life, diet habbits and skin care.

Here we are bringing some basic information about skin problems which exculsively increases in summer and summer skin care tips.

Advent summers is marked by increased temperature and long duration of bright sunlight. These conditions generate following skin problems:

1. Oily Skin: Increased oil production is one of common consequence of increasing heat in environment. Body naturally produces more oil which get mixed with sweat and gives a feeling of sticky skin.
2. Open pores:Though open pores are normally found on skin, increased sebum/oil production and over exposure to sun are causes of prominently large looking open pores in summer season.
3. Acne flares: Because of oily skin, and raised temperature of skin some people can get exacerbation of their acne problem in summer season.
4. Uneven tone of skin: some areas are more prone to get darken faster in summer season because of ultraviolet light exposure, dehydration and friction on sweaty skin. These areas are around mouth, eyes, sides or centre of forehead.
5. Tanning: Visits to beaches and pools are common reason behind getting easy tanning on face but sometimes in some individuals whole face skin can get tanned even on small sun exposure.
6. Freckles: they are small 1-2 mm brown colored spots on face mainly located at cheeks and nose tip get worsened in sun exposure.

Problems Related To Rest Of The Body

1. Increased sweating/Hyperhidrosis: Hyperhidrosis or excessive sweating is a condition in which your body sweats heavily and may disrupt your normal activities and lead to social embarrassment. The sweat may soak your clothes and drip off your hands and make you very uncomfortable.
2. Fungal infections: Because of repeatitive sweating specially in skin folds some fungus may grow on our skin and give rise to fungal infections commonly known as ring worm.In current scenario fungal infections are very frustrating disease as it takes long time to resolve and chances of recurrence are very high. Itching is major concern.
3. Skin allergies: Summer season is well known for worsening of existing skin allergy or having first episode of eczema.As perspiration increases, chances on skin allergy also rises. Many skin allergies are worsened by ultraviolet light ans some are aggrevated by sweating or dust. Skin lesions with itching are major sign of these allergies.
4. Summer specific rash (Miliaria): It is commonly known as “ghamori” in hindi. In humid environment our skin sweat more and many times when we are not able to make it dry soon it may give rise to this rash. It is very itchy or gives a feeling pricking sensation.
5. Sunburn:Rarely if we do not care from ultraviolet light, body parts like arms, shoulders, varea of neck can also have sun burn.

Above metioned skin problems require prevention strategy if somebody doesn’t want to spoil their summer because of skin problem. Following tips can help you glide smoothly through summers:

Life Style Tips : These are the daily life routine tips for summer season which can help your body as well as skin to stay healthy. Most of things we know already but I am telling you about how they are connected with skin care.

1. Full sleep: Sound sleep is very important to keep you whole day active and attentive. So it is recommended to have 7-8 hours sleep. Bed room should have comfortable temperature as per your suitability. It is good if early morning sunlight comes to your room directly.
2. Early morning yoga & Exercise: After having a sound sleep what can makes your body energetic bettern than daily dose of yoga and exercise.It makes your skin open to breath in fresh air in early morning.
3. Cool Shower: In summer season cool shower helps your skin to remain within normal temperature limits. Cool shower is one of add on to moisturiser for your skin. Moreover it helps in preventing miliaria (heat rash). If you have developed miliaria already then 2 times cool showers in a day can help in faster clearacne of rash and symptoms.
4. Just Pat Dry Your Skin: After bath, just pat dry your skin with towel. Aggressive rubbing the towel on skin can make it dry. Sometimes friction may start itching senstion too. So keep it soft pat just to soak water which is dripping down from body.
5. Clothing: Keep it light ans loose fit as much as possible. Excess sweating, prolonged wetness of sweating can be avoided by summer friendly clothing which helps in preventing fungal infection and skin allergies.
6. Try to stay indoor inpeak UV hours: Morning 10 o’ clock to afternoon 3 o’clock afre peaks hours of intense sunlight which have maximum of ultraviolet rays. You can calculate your “sun score” by giving 1 point to your outing in hours others than 10 to 3 and 2 points to outing between 10 to 3. Try to maintain sun score under 3.
7. Limited screen time: As summer season is vacation season for school or college going boys and girls. It should not be reason to increase your screen time. From skin point of view it may give rise to dark circles. If because of screen time sleep is getting compromised then it can disturb your whole day schedule. Try to keep it as low as possible.

Food & Drink Tips: Summer warns you little about diet habbits. You cant continue same diets which you were consuming in winters. Here you want something that quickly digest and keep you cool from within.

1. Summer brings light diets: You should have easily digestible diets. You can keep your meals frequent but they should be light enough mainly consist of fruits and salads.
2. Water rich fruits: There are plenty of fruits which have water as their main ingredient like watermelon (92%), cucumber (96%), pineapple, pears, lettuce, spinach, grapes, tomato, cantaloupe, orange etc. you can replace some part of your conventional diet with these fruits. They help in maintaining hydration of body ans skin.
3. Antioxidants rich fruits & vegetables: These fruits help in fightening skin from UV rays and protect skin from getting aged. Few examaple are grapes, lychee, pear, cranberry, kiwi, blueberry, pomegranate, banana, mango and many more. Antioxidants clears free radicals from our body faster.
4. Drinks: You should avoid cold drink, soda based or high sugar based drinks as they all worsen ageing signs. You can use butter milk, coconut water or lemon juice which will help in maintaining hydration level.

Skin Care Tips: When you come out of winter, many skin creams and products become waste in summers, why? Because your skin need something less greasy, light to keep breathing. As a being dermatologist I am telling you best skin care advices for summers.

1. Steaming: It give your skin hydration and helps in clearing pores which may be closed due to mixture of sweat and oil. You can do it easily at home by using hot water pot and covering your face and head with towel. Steam once or twice in a week is beneficial for your skin.
2. Exfoliation: Skin need cleaning periodically by removing dead layer gently so skin can make best of it. Normal skin people can do gentle scrubbing once in 10-15 days while people with greasy skin will need it more frequently. At home it can be done with brown sugar and honey mixture.
3. Facewash for Summer: Mostly people have oily or greasy skin in summer but still some may face dry or combined skin. For oily skin salycylic acid 1 % facewash can be used or if you don’t want to use medicated then tea tree oil face wash can help you in oily skin and acne. If your skin is dry then ou should use cleansing lotions in place of foam generating facewshes. As cleaners clean skin well without irritating your skin.Combined skin people can use combined use of both facewash and cleaning lotion to prevent worsening of skin status. Normal skin can be washed any suitable facewsh with cooling effect.
4. Moisturiser for Summer: Selection of moisturiser formulation also depend on type of skin. Oily skin individuals should use lotion or gel based moisturisers containing aloevera, vitamin E and hyaluronic acid will be suffice. Dry skin will need moisturiser which may stay for little long so cream form moisturiers containing squalenes or ceremides. Normal skin person may use lotion or cream based moisturisers or only little amount of coconut oil may also help them. It helps in maintaining your skin tone as even as possible.
5. Wearing aSunscreen: Wear a doctor prescribed broad spectrum sunscreen for optimum protection from UVA and UVB rays. I will suggest you physical sunscreen because of their broad spectrum activity and least side effect to skin in long term. Any sunscreen above 30 SPF is good. If you are going out frequently or having sun light skin allergy or melasma the sunscreen must be reapplied every 3 hours till after noon. If you are staying indoor most of the time then you should apply it at least two times. Sunscreen helps you in preventing skin from uneven tone, sunburn and tanning.
6. Make Up: Try to keep your make up light as much as possible, because skin also need to breath. Always remove your make up before bedtime.
7. Home Made face packs: In between if you feel to use something skin friendly then some face pack like banana + yoghurt, honey + lemon, cucumber or clay based face packs can be tried at home. But it is always suggested that if you are using first time, give first try on inner arm then wait for 24 hours. If not reaction then you can use on face.
8. Always carry sun protection kit: This kit incudes SPF, wide rim hat, goggle, scarf and water bottle. So whenever you are going out in peak hours use this kit to prevent tanning and ageing concerns.

Problem specific skin care tips: Above mentioned tips were related to daily life routine and suitable for any type of skin. Following advices are customised according to speficic problems of skin

1. Controlling excess oil production: As the temperature increases, skin becomes oilier resulting in shiny and greasy look.Following are the ways by which oil production can be kept to minimum:

• Use non comedogenic, non-greasy, gel-based skin care products and make-up.
• Wash your face with a non-comedogenic mild cleanser at least twice a day.
• Always remove make up before bedtime.
• Keep your skin hydrated by having adequate amount of water and using right water-based moisturizer.
• Visit a doctor to guide you through appropriate treatment and skin care products to take care of oily skin

1. Managing Open pores: They are normally present on our skin but as the oil production increases, they become more visible. We cannot change the number of pores or permanently shrink them but can keep them clean and shrink them temporarily to refine their appearance. Treatments like microdermabrasion, clean-ups, Medifacials, carbon facials, chemical peels, Microneedling and CO2 resurfacing help you to make open pores less visible.
2. Managing Acne: Acne if left untreated, can cause lot of cosmetic disfigurements like:

• Comedones
• Dark spots
• Scars

It is important to treat acne as soon as possible. Apart form medical treatment, there are various procedures which help you to keep your skin clear and acne free like, Comedone extraction, clean-ups, carbon facial, chemical peels, Microneedling and CO2 resurfacing.

1. Managing Hyperhidrosis: Generally sweating occurs when we exercise or feel stressed or are anxious or there is excessive heat. But in Hyperhidrosis, sweating occurs unrelated to above situations and is excessive. It may affect, hands, feet, underarms or face. Sweating is similar in both sides of body. You may have at least one episode in a week during daytime. For treatment of hyperhidrosis, you have options of medical treatment and Botox injectionsat our clinic.
2. Fungal infections, allergies and other skin infections: Following will help you manage them effectively:

• Avoid self-medication at all costs
• See a dermatologist as soon as possible for treatment
• Take bath at least twice a day
• Wear comfortable cotton cloths
• Avoid scratching the skin.