Your Skincare Regime Could Be Making Your Make Pigmentation Worse
People of colour don’t need sun protection.
That’s one of the most common misconceptions that Bianca Estelle, medical aesthetician, skin specialist and founder of bea Skin Clinics & bea Skin Care told the Brown Skin Essentials team that she battles in her practice
“This is totally untrue of course, just that the higher the melanin, the more resilient the skin is to the impact of the sun,” she told the Brown Skin Essentials team.
“However, we as black women still tan, can burn, are susceptible to skin cancer etc., so adequate protection should be part of our daily skin care regimes and not just when we’re on holiday either!”
With a professional background rooted in science, she set out to build a career raising awareness of the unique skincare needs of women of colour, who often feel marginalised in the mainstream marketplace.
“As a black woman who has had skin concerns, I also felt it was important to work with successful treatments and develop products I believed in as general off-the-shelf products weren’t helping,” she said.
She encourages women to look for natural, medical-grade ingredients in skincare and treatments to treat pigmentation. This includes plant derivatives such as green tea and acids, such as glycolic which is derived from sugar cane.
Another option is to consider incorporating lasers. With the right practitioner, they can be safe and effective.
“When I opened my first clinic in Birmingham, my primary client-base was black and Asian women, many of whom had poor laser experiences due to lack of knowledge,” she said. “There’s also equipment available tailored to ethic skin to support these treatments.”
One of them is Surface White Mesotherapy, which involves using many small injections of vitamins, minerals, hyaluronic acid in addition to other ingredients that help support cell turnover.
“Especially with controversy around at-home treatments, this is a scientifically-proven safer method of skin lightening primarily used on scarring and uneven skin tone,” she said.
Beyond these state of the art innovations, though, there are some fool proof ways to maintain overall skin health.
“I always recommend general exercise and adequate rest,” she said. “In terms of food and diet, the healthier the better. Without sounding mumsy, keeping an eye on your alcohol intake, drinking lots of water, cutting back on fatty and greasy foods and upping your fruit and veg can all help toward achieving a clear and clarified complexion.”
Get more helpful beauty tips from the Brown Skin Essentials (www.brownskinessentials.com) team!