Facial cleansing is a popular procedure that helps at any age to have beautiful smooth skin. But before you start cleaning, the dermis (upper layer of skin) needs to be steamed. Why is this done and how to properly carry out this procedure at home?
What is steaming for?
Rashes, inflamed areas, gray color, comedones speak about the need to seriously deal with the face. The problem can occur at any age, although most often young girls and young women resort to cleaning. At their age, skin secretion is actively allocated, pores are clogged, they need to be cleaned often. Otherwise - alas: black spots, endless acne, acne.
But women after 30 need from time to time to conduct a deep cleansing of the dermis. The skin in any case suffers from street dirt, cosmetics. Add the factor of chronic stress and poor ecology - and now on your face you can see all the years lived, and sometimes five to ten extra.
What does the steaming have to do with it? The relationship is the most direct. To remove sebaceous plugs, clogged pores, they need to be softened. This can be done using heat treatment, that is, heating. In addition, the pores will expand, which means that they can not only give away what they have accumulated without problems, but also absorb the active nutritional components in the process of subsequent manipulations. This is why it is important to know how to steam your face for cleansing.
Steam is used in the following cases:
• before deep cleaning, involving scrubbing;
• before acid peeling;
• before applying a mask with a nutritious or therapeutic composition;
• to remove the purulent contents of pores, acne and blackheads;
• with individual intolerance to cleansing cosmetics (masks, peels, scrubs, etc.).
Steaming, which has become a regular procedure during deep cleansing of the skin, will forget about acne, and ugly enlarged pores, and comedones. Knowing how to steam your face before cleaning, any girl will avoid injuring the skin and prevent infection of the skin with a purulent secret.
Steaming the skin is recommended before depilation or shaving. On steamed, and then well-scrubbed skin, the blade, scraper and epilator handle slide more easily. There will be no pain from the procedure, and the likelihood of ingrown hairs is minimal.
How to prepare skin for steaming
If there are no contraindications to thermal heating of the skin, you can start steaming. But previously, it is better to prepare for this procedure. Much depends on the type of dermis. It is important not only to understand how to steam your face for cleaning, but also why different methods of preparation are needed for dry or oily skin.
• If the skin is dry or very dry, then before the procedure it must be softened by applying a cream or fluid. It is important that steaming is not necessary for this type of skin as often as for oily or combination skin. The pores on the dry face are small, clogging slowly, so three or two times a month will be enough. In addition, dry skin needs to be steamed for no longer than five minutes.
• Combined and normal skin before steaming, just moisturize. Rinse your face with water first, pat it dry with a clean towel, and then apply a light moisturizer. You can repeat the steaming procedure every ten days, the procedure time is no more than ten minutes.
• For oily skin, a more frequent steaming mode is suitable: twice a week. The skin should be exposed to steam or thermal composition for at least 12 minutes. Before you start steaming, oily skin type must be wiped with lotion.
Important: before you start steaming, all cosmetics should be removed from the skin. Water for washing should be warm, means for washing - familiar and soft. It would be nice to make a light home scrub by adding a little bit of ground coffee and honey to a cleansing gel or milk. After massaging the skin, the composition will need to be washed off, apply the product according to the type of skin on the face and begin the actual procedure of steaming.
Steaming facial skin over hot steam
How to steam your face for cleaning? There are three methods that are quite suitable for conducting a home procedure:
• steaming over a herbal bath;
• hot wet compress;
• use of a chemical warming mask.
A steam bath is the easiest, cheapest, and safest way to steam out. You need to prepare a deep bowl or a small pan for hot water, a large towel. It is convenient to steam over a special steamer, which is designed as a mini-sauna for the face.
How is the procedure carried out:
1. Place a vessel with hot water on the table;
2. sit down and bend over the bowl;
3. Cover your head with a towel to create a bath effect.
Beware of leaning heavily over hot steam in the first minutes: you can get burned. Moreover, not only the skin of the face, but also the nasal mucosa can suffer. You can focus on the sensations: steam should not burn.
In principle, you can steam your face just over boiling water. But for the greater benefit of the procedure, you need a herbal decoction - about a liter. You can brew any medicinal herb: calendula, chamomile, coltsfoot. Pouring raw materials with boiling water, he needs to let it brew for five minutes. Strengthen the healing and relaxing effect using essential oil (two drops per liter of decoction).
What combinations are possible (herb plus essential oil):
• Dry skin: linden blossom or chamomile for decoction and essential oil of grapes or roses. If the grass is dried, you need to take a glass per liter of water, if fresh - half a glass.
• Normal skin: a mixture of sage, lavender and nettle (in decoction) and rosemary oil to enhance the effect.
• Oily skin: thyme or calendula in combination with the emir of lemon or mint.
After steaming, you must either narrow, “close” the pores (if there are no more procedures like cleaning or nourishing masks), or continue facial treatment. If steaming was carried out as an independent procedure, the skin should be wiped with a hard towel (mechanical cleaning will be obtained) or wiped with a streptocide tablet ground into powder. Then rinse the skin with warm water and wipe with a cube of frozen water. Ice acts instantly: the pores are narrowed.
Steaming compress
This method is similar in action to steam, but hot water is used instead of water vapor. How to steam your face for cleaning in this way:
• fold natural cotton fabric several times (you can take an old, soft chintz or flannel) and make something like a napkin so that it covers the whole face and neck;
• brew herbs by skin type, insist them to cool slightly (the hand should tolerate the temperature calmly);
• dip a napkin into a decoction, squeeze;
• immediately, hot, put on face and lie down;
• when the cloth cools down, moisten it again in a hot broth.
Repeat the application procedure three more times until the skin turns bright pink. After completing, pat your face with a dry towel and start cleaning.
Steaming masks
Hot masks are another simple and effective answer to the question of how to steam your face for cleaning. The salons use professional chemical compounds that the cosmetologist applies to the face. Such, but for domestic use, are sold in cosmetic stores. They usually contain extracts from their plants (cucumber or strawberries, doggie or tomato) and minerals (zinc).
Such compositions act in the same way: they create a vacuum between the dermis and the film of the applied agent. This creates the conditions for deep heating of the skin down to the deepest layers.
But you can steam the skin in another way: just apply a hot composition to it, that is, use not the chemical, but the thermal principle of steaming. Well proven such home masks:
• yolk-honey;
• oatmeal;
• semolina.
For the first mask, you need to mix one yolk with a spoon (tablespoon) of natural honey, mix and warm in a water bath. The composition should become hot enough, but pleasant to the face. You can enhance the nutritional effect of such a home remedy by adding to the honey and yolk a spoonful of vegetable oil (only not linseed oil, since linseed oil deteriorates when heated).
An oatmeal mask is oatmeal cooked on water, into which neither milk, nor salt, nor sugar is added. To overpower the cleansing properties, you can put a tablespoon of soda in the cooked gruel. In a similar way (but without soda) a semolina mask is prepared. They must be applied hot enough, but not scorching.
As a result of applying hot masks from the cereal, the pores open, sebaceous plugs soften. After washing off the formulations, you can start cleaning. An additional effect that such masks will have is whitening and nourishing the skin.
To whom steaming is contraindicated
Procedures associated with heating tissues, you can not do everything. Steaming can negatively affect not only the condition of the skin, but also generally on the well-being of a person. Hot air saturated with water vapor really penetrates deep into the skin and affects cellular processes, lung function and the circulatory system. If there are any chronic diseases associated with these organs, it’s not worth the risk.
Steaming is contraindicated in the following ailments:
• acute period of SARS;
• high temperature of any origin;
• bronchial asthma;
• hypertension;
• pneumonia and bronchitis;
• heart disease;
• vascular diseases.
Interestingly, steaming before cleaning dries the skin, and does not saturate it with water molecules. Moisturizing after the procedure is not worth the wait. That is why you should not ignore the preparation for steaming, especially if the skin is dry or sensitive.
With rosacea, which often appears on the cheeks and in the nose, you can not only do steaming, but also visit a bath or sauna. If the vessels are weak, then it is strictly forbidden to carry out the procedure often. This can trigger the appearance of rosacea.
