Hello Aloe.

Whilst approaching the final stages of my summer tan, welcoming some aloe vera to my skin care routine has made major changes to how it looks and feels. If you have medium-dark skin you are most probably aware of or may even suffer from skin discolouration on your face. There's nothing wrong with getting some Vitamin D on your skin (if you're a sun lover like me) but over exposing your skin to it with no spf causes the excess melanin in our skin to darken some parts of the skin more than others resulting in uneven skin tone. It does take a while for the skin to recover, as it depends on how far down the layers of skin have been exposed to the sun. However, there are techniques to help quicken the process!


Ways to prevent uneven skin tone:
1. Always wear SPF.
Yes, including winter! If you're like me however and sensitive to everything, including creams with SPF try using a foundation with SPF. I use the MAC mineralize satinfinish with SPF 15. There are some chemicals on sunscreen which can cause sun allergy or further discolouration to some.


2. Don't Overexpose.
Love the sun, but don't over do it. Solar radiation is the main source of Vitamin D for humans and studies show that it even protects us from cancers including breast, colon, kidney and ovarian. However, overexposing causes hyperpigmentation (discolouration due to excessive melanin production) especially on the skin surface of upper lip, freckles, fine wrinkles and more damage.


3. Wash, Tone, Moisturise.
Condition and pamper your skin always. Try and pat it dry instead of rubbing a towel against your skin, use clean hands to allow your skin to soak up maximum amount of toner and finally moisturise whilst massaging and again patting it into the skin to be absorbed.

Ways to heal burnt/uneven skin tone:

1. Exfoliate

Find an exfoliator which your skin is happy with. It takes trial and error to work this out as we all have different skin types. Try and begin with something more gentle ie. st ives gentle apricot scrub. Then move onto something more invigorating if needed.

2. Home Remedies

Use ingredients you can find around the house to create a facial and relax. My 3 most favourite facials for healing discolouration are:

• Lemon/Lime juice: Pat onto skin for 1-3 mins, and no more.
• Potato slices: leave the slices covering your face until it soaks in for 5-10 mins 
• Sandalwood powder + Lime juice: both target discolouration's. Leave the mixture in the fridge for 5 mins before application and this makes it an amazingly cooling face pack too!

3. Introduce Aloe Vera to your skin
Aloe vera has cooling, healing, anti-fungal and anti-inflammotary properties. Perfect if you're going to be out in the sun, as skin can get irritated if overexposed to harmful solar radiation.

My 3 SKINSAVING Aloe vera products:

The Body Shop: Aloe Calming Toner

The Body Shop: Aloe Soothing Day Cream

The Body Shop: Aloe Eye Defence 

..What's your SkinSaver?

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