Dawn Siler

We all know that sun damage degrades our skin taking away from our bouncy, lifted, glowing glass skin, but did you know that studies show that, for many people, about 80% of skin aging happens in the summer? We know that wearing SPF daily is key to keeping skin looking and feeling its best. Unfortunately, we also know that that’s often easier said than done. A lot of sunscreens can sit heavily on top of skin, leave a white cast, or even irritate skin, clogging pores with heavy formulations that dry out skin and just don’t feel good.

Wearing sunscreen daily then becomes that chore that never gets done — or only gets done reluctantly from time to time. We all know our skin needs protection from the sun, though.

This is why we went on one of our most important beauty curation journeys! We tested hundreds of different sunscreens, trying to find one that met all our criteria:

1. Fast-absorbing with no residue, chalkiness, or dryness
2. Absolutely no white cast
3. Truly weightless
4. Effective protection against UVA/UVB rays and environmental pollutants
5. A matte but hydrated finish

It sounds like an impossible task, and, sometimes, along the journey, we admit we felt discouraged, too. We’d find a sunscreen that felt weightless and absorbed quickly, but it didn’t provide adequate protection. Or we’d find a sunscreen that provided excellent protection from both UVA/UVB rays and environmental pollutants, but it would leave us looking like a ghost with pallid skin. Or we’d find a sunscreen that left a matte finish but made our skin feel heavy and chalky and weighed down.

And then we found this Daily Mild Sun Cream from Village 11 Factory.

The light, almost milky cream absorbed quickly. It left zero white cast. It felt truly weightless on our skin, like we hadn’t applied anything at all. With SPF 50+ PA++++, it provided us from both UVA and UVB rays, and it was formulated using titanium dioxide, a natural mineral that reflects UV rays away from skin and rarely causes irritation. It left our skin feeling hydrated and happy, matte but dewy.

(Note: it’s important to find a sunscreen that protects skin from both UVA and UVB rays! UVA and UVB rays affect skin differently; UVA rays are more commonly linked to premature aging, while UVB rays are more commonly linked to skin diseases.)

As we started to learn more about the Daily Mild Sun Cream, we learned that it uses proprietary technology developed by Village 11 Factory that helps the Sun Cream form a barrier on skin, protecting it from pollutants and environmental stressors. The Sun Cream also contains beautiful plant-based ingredients that help hydrate, soothe, and calm skin, ingredients like portulaca oleracea extract (helps soothe skin), chia seed extract (helps protect skin), and centella asiatica extract (helps heal and calm skin). There’s also niacinamide to help brighten and even skin tone, as well as squalane that helps deeply hydrate and, even, balance oil production!

We’re so excited to bring you this wonderful sunscreen! With the Daily Mild Sun Cream, we’re sure you’ll be so excited to wear sunscreen everyday; it won’t be that product you know you need but want to avoid anymore. Now you can go out and get your daily vitamin D without worrying about sun damage — and, before you ask, studies show that sunscreen doesn’t drastically affect the absorption of vitamin D and that as little as 10 to 30 minutes of sunlight are sufficient! Our recommendation is to be diligent about applying sunscreen to protect your skin, especially with a worry-free sunscreen like the Daily Mild Sun Cream!

Cheers to radiance and happy, carefree days protected from the sun!

Meet Your New Favorite Sunscreen.
Originally posted here: https://www.peachandlily.com/blogs/news/meet-your-new-favorite-sunscreen

We think it’s fair to say that we all deal with stress on a daily level. Some days, our stress levels are low, and, on other days, our stress levels are higher — that’s pretty normal! Sometimes, though, we struggle with chronic, elevated stress, and it starts to take its toll, whether in our moods or the quality of our sleep or in our relationships. Stress also affects our skin.

When we’re stressed, our bodies respond like they do to wounds — by releasing chemicals and hormones (you’ve heard of cortisol, the stress hormone) that trigger inflammation. In a normal situation, inflammation is how the body heals; it’s one of our bodies’ immune response to damage or harm. When we’re in a state of chronic, elevated stress, though, our bodies are in a constant state of imbalance, our immune responses going haywire and triggering too much inflammation all the time, which can have an impact on skin.

If you have a pre-existing skin condition, like eczema or rosacea, you might find that chronic stress triggers a flare-up or just makes an ongoing episode so much worse. If you have acne-prone skin, you might find yourself struggling with more active breakouts; inflammation, after all, is already one of the causes for acne.

You don’t have to have a skin condition for your skin to react negatively to stress, though. Even normal skin can react to stress.

How should you help your skin when you’re stressed and your skin is getting stressed? We know it’s pretty unhelpful advice just to say, “Manage your stress levels,” so, instead of that, we’ve got three practical ways you can help your skin.

Go For Gentle.

When you’re stressed and your skin is stressed, you might want to step back from stronger products and pare things down to the basics. Stress already increases inflammation, so focus on soothing skin with gentle products that have anti-inflammatory properties and help hydrate, nourish, and calm. When your skin starts to go back to normal, you can always reintroduce stronger products like retinols, vitamin C serums, and powerful exfoliators.

We especially want to stress a gentle cleansing routine, one that doesn’t strip your skin dry or compromise your natural skin barrier. We like a cleanser like Atoclassic’s Real Tonic Soothing Multi Cleanser; it contains no sulfates and has a pH of 5.5, making it very gentle. It uses a blend of root and herbal extracts found in Korean traditional medicine to help soothe and restore skin, so it’s a great cleanser for sensitive or stressed skin.

Stay Consistent With a Routine!

Don’t neglect your routine! One of the keys when it comes to skin health is consistency, and, even if you only have time to do the very basics of cleansing, toning, and moisturizing, make sure to do that every day. Here at Pibuu, though, we believe that taking the time to do a skincare routine every day is not just good for skin health — it’s also a great way to de-stress every day, serving as a way to manage stress levels.

Maybe it sounds a little silly in the grand scheme of things, but making the time to do a skincare routine can be a way of caring for yourself. It can be mentally and emotionally calming to focus on your skin, away from the stressors in your life, and maybe even taking the time to do a facial massage while doing a breathing exercise or meditation to help calm and center your mind. The Peach & Lily Glass Skin Refining Serum is particularly suited for a facial massage, with a thicker texture that cools and soothes skin. The serum itself is packed with beneficial, antioxidant-rich ingredients like peach extract, mountain yam extract, niacinamide, and madecassoside to help nourish stressed skin, as well as hyaluronic acid to help deeply hydrate.

Get Enough Sleep.

They call it beauty sleep for a reason, after all! As we sleep, our bodies go into restorative mode, healing itself and recharging neurons, and our skin is no different. It’s why dermatologists will often tell clients to apply medication meant to help repair skin before they go to sleep, and it’s the idea behind sleeping packs, which you might apply in lieu of your moisturizer at night. Sleeping packs take advantage of the restorative period of sleep, and they’re often full of powerful ingredients and formulated in ways to help them really sink into skin and help with rejuvenation as you sleep. With the help of a sleeping pack, getting enough sleep helps manage your stress levels while helping alleviate stressed skin.

The Dream Age Sleeping Pack from Rose by Dr. Dream specifically harnesses the power found in the rose, starting with rose distilled water for its skin-conditioning properties and adding rose stem cells to help encourage skin rejuvenation. It also has aloe and hyaluronic acid to hydrate, niacinamide to brighten, and portulaca oleracea extract to help soothe, and the natural rose scent will help soothe you mentally as you drift off to sleep.

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We hope those are helpful, practical ways to help manage stressed skin. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below!

The post Three Practical Ways to Manage Stressed Skin appeared first on Pibuu.

Three Practical Ways to Manage Stressed Skin
Originally posted here: https://www.pibuu.co/2019/05/22/three-practical-ways-to-manage-stressed-skin/

Glass skin — skin that appears like glass, poreless, luminous, translucent. We don’t mean that skin that you can literally see through (obviously), but skin that is so clear and radiant, it has that clear, glossy look of glass.

You might be thinking, That sounds impossible. I don’t have the time or money to do that.

Au contraire! To be sure, it would be nice if we could all get expensive facials and have the time for extensive, thorough routines, but we know — reality doesn’t always allow for that. However! That does not mean that glass skin is unattainable!

Glass skin is, essentially, healthy and hydrated skin; it’s about making sure your skin gets the nutrients and the hydration it needs to thrive. It’s about finding the products that work for you and your skin, that help keep your skin balanced, nourished, and, again, hydrated, and it’s about finding that routine that works for you — and sticking to it because consistency is key!

It doesn’t matter if you have a quick and easy routine or an intensive 10-step one — just make sure you’re doing it every day! Skincare is a marathon, and you’re sure to see the rewards of committing to a routine. If you’re intrigued but don’t know where to start, let us walk you through a sample routine!

Cleanse Thoroughly Every Day.

Even on your laziest days, cleanse your skin! Cleansing is one of the most essential steps because it dissolves away makeup and sweeps away excess sebum, grime, and other impurities that may have gathered on your skin during the day, helping prevent pores from clogging and gathering bacteria and other congestants. It’s key to keep cleansing gentle but thorough, so your skin is cleansed but not stripped dry, which can cause it to become dehydrated. We’re big proponents of the double cleanse, but we also love when products let us combine both steps in one, like the Eco Your Skin Oil-to-Foam Cleanser. The convenience (and gentleness and efficacy) makes it so much easier to commit to a routine!

Tone Skin to Help It Stay Balanced.

Toners help re-balance the pH level of skin after cleansing. Skin’s pH level lets you know how acidic or alkaline it is on a scale of 0 (totally acidic) to 14 (totally alkaline), and skin is considered balanced when its pH level is in the 4.5 to 5.5 range — so, slightly acidic, which allows for skin’s microbiome to thrive while fending off bad bacteria and harmful irritants. You can imagine why we stress the importance of keeping your skin balanced.

Cleansing can throw skin’s pH level off, and a toner helps “balance” it, which means bring it back into the happy range of 4.5 to 5.5. The Peach & Lily Good Acids Toner does exactly that, while also providing gentle exfoliation with a small amount of glycolic acid that’s effective and gentle enough for daily use, even for sensitive skin. The toner doesn’t just stop there, though; it also helps hydrate, soothe, and nourish skin, prepping skin for the products to follow.

Hydrate Skin With an Essence.

One of the primary characteristics of healthy skin is that it is sufficiently hydrated, and the primary task of an essence is to drench skin with hydration. Essences come with other secondary benefits, of course, like brightening or, in the case of the Atoclassic Real Tonic Soothing Origin Essence, soothing and helping calm irritation. With 14% hanbang ingredients, the Soothing Origin Essence help reduce redness and provide skin with the gentle, healing properties of hanbang ingredients and principles, while deeply hydrating skin.

Get a Boost of Nutrients With a Serum.

A serum is a treatment you can use to give your skin a boost and/or target specific skin concerns. It’s also a good way to make sure your skin is getting all the nutrients, hydration, and antioxidants it needs to thrive, which is exactly what the Peach & Lily Glass Skin Refining Serum was formulated to do. Packed with peach extract, madecassoside (derived from centella asiatica extract), peptides, niacinamide, and mountain yam extract, the Glass Skin Refining Serum is an easy way to glass skin!

Seal Everything In With a Moisturizer.

A moisturizer provides another layer of hydration to skin, and then it serves as the final step in a routine by sealing everything in. Moisturizers contains occlusives, which create a barrier on the surface of skin that helps slow down transepidermal water loss, so hydration and all the other ingredients you’ve just applied can stay in skin. That’s not all moisturizers do, though; they’re also another layer of nourishment and protection; so we recommend selecting one that is rich in beneficial ingredients.

The Peach & Lily Matcha Pudding Antioxidant Cream is packed full of matcha, one of the best sources of antioxidants, which help fight free radical damage caused by environmental stressors. The cream, which plays particularly well with the Glass Skin Refining Serum, also has cape lilac extract, niacinamide, and adenosine, which help brighten and firm skin.  

Don’t Forget About the Eye Area.

The skin in your eye area is the thinnest and most fragile, and we like making sure it gets a little extra love. Eye creams are actually formulated to be lighter than moisturizers, so as to prevent overloading such thin, delicate skin, and different eye creams can target different concerns, from puffiness to fine lines to dark circles. We recommend the Aromatica Rose Absolute Eye Cream, which helps protect against visible signs of aging and dark circles, with a waterless formula made of an aloe base that’s been fortified with high-quality oils and plant-based extracts.

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And on those lazy days or those super demanding days or those days you just don’t have any spoons? It’s okay to pare things down, but we still recommend you cleanse, even if it’s just using a cleansing water (like Jungsaemmool’s Essential Cleansing Water Finisher) on a cotton pad to swipe all the makeup and grime off your skin. Follow that up with the Peach & Lily Lazy Day All-in-One Moisture Pads, which work as a toner-serum-moisturizer in one cotton pad, and finish with the Peach & Lily Glass Skin Refining Serum to make sure your skin gets all the vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants it needs!

The post A Routine to Glass Skin. appeared first on Pibuu.

A Routine to Glass Skin.
Originally posted here: https://www.pibuu.co/2019/05/21/a-routine-to-glass-skin/

If you grew up in Korea or in Korean diasporic communities around the globe, you may know about hanbang, traditional Korean medicine. You may have grown up going to the hanisa, a practitioner of traditional Korean medicine. You — or, let’s be honest, your parents — may have left with a concoction of herbal ingredients and instructions on how to cook them, instructions they followed to extract a dark-colored, bitter drink (aka hanyak) that filled your home with strong, acrid smells. You may have blown on the hot liquid furiously to cool it down, pinched your nose to block the smell, and chugged it, allowed to come up for air only when you’d emptied the cup. You may have demanded a sweet candy to help remove the bitter taste from your mouth.

If you didn’t grow up going to the hanisa and drinking hanyak, you may still have encountered hanbang in other ways. Hanbang, traditional Korean medicine, can include acupuncture, food, salt rooms in Korean, and, yes, even skincare.

What is hanbang?

Hanbang refers to traditional Korean medicine that treats the body using herbal ingredients and particular techniques, like fermentation. It’s a holistic approach to medicine, emphasizing the balance between mind and body and targeting the root causes behind ailments, instead of simply the ailment itself. Hanbang, to put it shortly, wants to treat all of you, not just one individual part.

In similar fashion, for something to be considered to be part of hanbang traditions, it’s not just about the ingredients used — hanbang ingredients, like ginger root or licorice root, are commonly used — but also about how the various ingredients are combined together and formulated. Hanbang itself is about the whole, not the individual parts.

What is hanbang skincare?

Hanbang skincare is rooted in this traditional Korean medicinal foundation, but it combines the traditional with more modern ingredients and technologies. It’s why you might also see ingredients like niacinamide, shea butter, and glycerin alongside these traditional ingredients; hanbang skincare is about maximizing efficacy while being faithful to hanbang principles.

That means that hanbang skincare is also more holistic — rather than target a specific concern, like acne or visible signs of aging, hanbang skincare seeks to treat skin as a whole. It treats the foundation of skin.

A great example of a hanbang skincare brand is Atoclassic, a skincare line from the Woobo clinic in Seoul. The Woobo clinic was founded in 1912 and is now in its third-generation of hanbang practice, and Atoclassic’s products are formulated with up to 14% hanbang ingredients, capturing the power of Korean traditional medicine to help calm, soothe, and heal skin. We particularly recommend the brand if your skin is feeling sensitive or irritated, though Atoclassic is suitable for all skin types and even for children and pregnant women (though you should always check with your doctor first).

Our favorite Atoclassic products are their Real Tonic Soothing Multi Cleanser and Real Tonic Soothing Origin Essence, which are both easy to incorporate into your daily routine. We also love the Real Tonic Soothing Moist Mist for those times skin needs some refreshing during the day, as well as the Real Tonic Perfect Treatment Mask on those days when skin just isn’t cooperating and needs a blast of goodness.

What are common hanbang ingredients?

Of course, you’ll also find a lot of these hanbang ingredients in skincare products that aren’t necessarily considered “hanbang skincare.” These products might use ingredients commonly found in hanbang in general, the most common of which are ginseng root extract and ginger root extract, but that’s where the connection ends. That doesn’t mean these products are not as good or as effective or as gentle as hanbang skincare; like so much out there, hanbang skincare is not inherently better than non-hanbang skincare.

Ingredients like ginseng root extract and ginger root extract are great even outside of traditional hanbang practices. Ginger root, for instance, is a medicinal plant that’s high in antioxidants, helps stimulate circulation and encourage cell turnover, and has antiseptic and antibacterial properties. Ginseng root helps firm skin, reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, and it helps balance sebum. Coptis root extract has natural anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-bacterial properties, helping calm skin and provide moisture. These are just three ingredients you’ll find that are also common ingredients in hanbang medicine!

Product recommendations: The Be the Skin Daily Complete Cleansing Oil is fortified with ginger root extract, Chinese cassia root, and great burnet root to help stimulate circulation and help skin appear more youthful.You’ll find licorice root extract, skullcap extract, and ginger root extract in the Peach & Lily Power Calm Hydrating Gel Cleanser, a gentle, soothing cleanser that hydrates skin and leaves it calm. These two cleansers, one oil-based, the other water-based, pair well together for a gentle, soothing double cleanse. 

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We hope that explains more about hanbang in skincare! Have any other questions? Leave them in the comments below!

The post Hanbang Skincare, Where Traditional Meets Modern appeared first on Pibuu.

Hanbang Skincare, Where Traditional Meets Modern
Originally posted here: https://www.pibuu.co/2019/05/20/hanbang-skincare-where-traditional-meets-modern/