Blog Post For Laura Skin Care Petaluma, CA

Body Treatments and Facials for Valentine’s Day

Laura Pagliaroni Skin Care Feb 01, 2022 Comments Off

You don’t need a box of chocolates to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year. Instead, consider treating yourself to the healthier, all over good-for-you benefits of a body treatment or facial.

Body treatments and facials aren’t just good for your skin. The relaxing and pampering experience is even better for getting rid of stress and taking much-needed time out for yourself.

Consider these benefits:

Body Treatments

A body treatment takes the benefits of massage, relaxation and facial-like treatments and extends it to your body.

Since the skin on your face isn’t the only thing that needs attention, the deep cleaning, exfoliation and massage gives your body a jumpstart back to a healthy look and feel.

You’ll feel the difference from your arms and hands right down to your legs and feet.

A deep clean, removal of surface skin and massage helps brighten dry, dull skin, improves circulation and invigorates tired muscles.

Types of Body Treatments

One of the most neglected areas of your body is the skin on your back. Other than attempts at exfoliation with a loofah in the shower, it’s nearly impossible to reach and treat your entire back. For a deep, rejuvenating clean and exfoliation treatment, leave it to the professionals.

Because it’s difficult to reach and deep clean your own back, the area is prone to acne breakouts, including whiteheads and blackheads, under the surface skin. During professional body treatments, simple extractions take care of this problem, in addition to clearing out excess dirt and oil.

Try a soothing masque treatment followed up by a nourishing, organic lotion rub and you’ll feel both clean and hydrated.

Facials

Facials are a certainly a luxury experience that clean, exfoliate, treat, hydrate and leave skin feeling and looking refreshed.

Facials not only feel good and make your skin look great, they also help minimize the fine lines and wrinkles that come along with stress and aging.

A professional facial gives you a fresh, healthy glow but goes deeper than that. There are different types of facials based on your skin’s needs and can help with any skin issues you may be experiencing.

Benefits of a Facial

Deep Cleaning
Exfoliating
Purifying (removing excess oils, toxins)
Improved circulation and detoxification by hand massage
Treatment of specific skin conditions such as acne, dryness, inflammation

What to Expect

Whether in need of a skin refresh, treatment of a skin condition or a relaxing, pampering experience, here are just some of the things you can experience during a professional facial:

Hand massage for lymph drainage, circulation stimulation
Acupressure massage to treat specific areas of the face
Skin Peel
Microdermabrasion
LED Light Treatment
Serum, masque and/or moisturizer application to treat, heal and protect your skin
Products containing only the most effective and premium organic ingredients

Beyond Skin Deep

In addition, you can clean up your brows, take in a lip treatment or put together a customized skincare treatment plan to tackle any of your skin concerns.

Best Valentine’s Day Gift to Yourself

Instead of flowers or candy for Valentine’s Day this year, treat yourself and your skin to the indulgence, relaxation and rejuvenating experience of a body treatment or facial.

Book your appointment today with the esthetician experts at Laura Skincare in Petaluma, CA.

Should You be Using a Serum?

Laura Pagliaroni Skin Care Jan 19, 2022 Comments Off

Although it can be tricky to find a skincare product that will deliver the results you are looking for, a serum can certainly boost the time it takes to achieve your skincare goals.

Find out what a serum can do for you.

What is a Serum?

A serum is a highly concentrated skincare product meant to treat, hydrate and protect your skin.

It packs a skin-saving punch by delivering a more concentrated dose of active ingredients than a cleanser, toner or moisturizer alone can give you. A serum gives your daily cleanser and moisturizer the power to give you visible results even faster.

Benefits of a Serum

Aside from faster visible results, you can customize your serum to the type of skin issue you want to correct. There are different serums available to address just about any type of skincare issue.

Here are some of the most popular:

Anti-Aging

Most anti-aging serums are designed to help rejuvenate the skin and boost the production of collagen, which combats sagging skin and fine lines.

Most contain some type of retinol, in a concentrated form.

Hydrating

Hydrating serums are designed to help the surface layers of skin retain moisture, which in turn makes it look plumper and more youthful.

Most contain hyaluronic acid, which has molecules that bind with water in the skin to retain its moisture. The plumping effect also helps to minimize the appearance of fine lines.

Another common ingredient in hydrating serums is vitamin B5, which also helps to hydrate the skin.

Skin Brightening

One of the effects of aging and tired, dull skin in general is due to overall skin tone. Skin brightening serums work to rejuvenate and refresh the appearance of skin, giving off a healthier, youthful looking tone and glow.

Skin brightening serums often contain antioxidants to help accomplish this goal. Correcting skin imperfections like pigmentation and dullness with ingredients like vitamin C, and skin-loving glycolic, lactic or ferulic acids work wonders on improving skin tone.

Acne Serum

To calm and correct the problems with acne-prone skin, acne serums contain anti-inflammatory ingredients, in addition to salicyclic acid or vitamin B3, to soothe and hydrate irritated and sensitive acne-prone skin.

Using a Serum

Laying a moisturizing cream over a serum produces the best results.

A serum is lighter, almost a gel or liquid consistency, which delivers active ingredients to your skin quickly. It goes on first after cleaning your skin.

By first using a serum, you address issues like dullness, fine lines, acne or discoloration. By following up with a protective layer of moisturizer, you lock in moisture to keep the skin hydrated.

Use a face serum once or twice a day. Typically, any time you clean and/or tone your skin, it’s the next step or base layer under any type of moisturizer, sunscreen or makeup.

Wrap Up

A serum is a great addition to your current skincare routine to correct and prevent your unique skincare issues more quickly and effectively.

If you need help with choosing a serum, reach out to the skincare experts at Laura Skincare in Petaluma, CA for advice and answers to your questions.

Retinol vs. Hyaluronic Acid…How to Choose?

Laura Pagliaroni Skin Care Jan 10, 2022 Comments Off

More than likely, you’ve heard a lot about the importance of retinol and hyaluronic acid in combatting skincare issues.

All the discussion about these two skincare products leads to the question of which one to use. Is one product better than the other? How do you choose?

Retinol vs. Hyaluronic Acid – The Differences

The main difference between retinol (a form of vitamin A) and hyaluronic acid is that one is increases cell turnover and the other hydrates. But it goes deeper than that.

Retinol

Retinol is an antioxidant, or a molecule that slows down free radical damage to your skin cells. Free radicals are unstable molecules produced by your body that attack healthy cells, causing collagen breakdown, fine lines, wrinkles, sagging skin and age spots.

Retinol is scientifically and clinically proven to change your skin on a cellular level. It increases the rate of new skin cell turnover, shedding dull, dead skin cells from skin’s surface layer while replacing with fresh, healthy skin cells.

Retinol works to:

Improve collagen production to tighten and smooth saggy, wrinkled skin
Increase cell turnover
Improve skin tone while reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles
Decrease melanin production to reduce skin pigmentation
Reduce inflammation
Unclog pores
Treat acne-prone skin while improving and preventing acne scarring

Because a strong dose of retinol, especially at first, can make existing skin conditions worse or irritate skin, it’s important to use a gentle formula, use sparingly or and build up frequency of use over time.

Hyaluronic Acid

Scientifically speaking, Hyaluronic acid is classified as a glycosaminoglycan capable of retaining skin’s moisture and holding up to 1000 times its weight in water, which makes it an excellent choice for hydrating and moisturizing.

It is found naturally in your skin, but with age comes a decrease in the production of natural hyaluronic acid. As you age, skin is prone to dehydration and dryness, which increases the odds of enlarged pores, fine lines, wrinkles and sagging skin.

Hyaluronic acid is both hydrating and nourishing to your skin but does little for exfoliation or skin cell turnover.

The hydrating benefits of Hyaluronic acid include:

Improved skin elasticity
Reduction in the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles (dry, dehydrated skin is prone is more wrinkles and sagging)
Reduction in inflammation
Prohibits growth of bacteria

How to Choose

The good news is that you don’t have to choose one over the other. In fact, research suggests that they not only work well together, but compliment the benefits of each other after only 4-8 weeks of consistent, continued use.

Used together, the benefits multiply:

Retinol induced skin inflammation is reduced by the use of calming hyaluronic acid
Increased skin cell turnover due to improved levels of hydration
Long-term use of retinol boosts production of natural hyaluronic acid, while daily use of

hyaluronic acid produces instant hydration benefits

How to Use Retinol and Hyaluronic Acid Together

Because retinol may cause skin irritation, it’s best to use once a day, preferably at night. Hyaluronic acid should be used twice a day to take advantage of its skin-drenching hydration qualities.

Build up a tolerance to retinol by starting use once per week, then twice a week and so on until your skin adjusts and to prevent damage to your skin. It’s still effective and working even if you only use once or twice a week.

You can dive right in with hyaluronic acid because it doesn’t cause skin irritation and provides immediate hydration benefits. It’s recommended to use hyaluronic acid twice a day, after cleansing the skin. Follow up with a moisturizing cream after applying hyaluronic acid to lock in the moisture.

Hyaluronic acid should be applied to damp skin as it’s easier for it to bind to and penetrate into damp vs. dry skin.

Retinol should be applied to skin after patting dry with a clean towel.

If using together, apply retinol first, let dry, then apply hyaluronic acid and seal with a heavier moisturizing or night cream.

Wrap Up

Whether you want to slow down and improve the effects of aging with retinol or take skin hydration to new levels with hyaluronic acid, know that you can use both together to maximize healthy skin effects.

For more information on retinol, hyaluronic acid or the benefits of professional skin exfoliation and peels, contact the experts at Laura Skincare in Petaluma, CA.

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