Over a decade ago, I embraced a minimalist lifestyle. It was a gradual change that led to downsizing from a 2-bedroom condo to two suitcases in pursuit of enjoying sunshine and shores rather than boardrooms and meetings. I craved a simpler life with more time to do less, more time to be present in my life, explore the world and pursue my dreams. I simplified everything from my daily routines, to-do-lists, outfits and purchasing habits.
Everyday we are bombarded with beauty messages about the “must-haves” ranging from eye creams, moisturizers, foundations, blushes and who knows what to look beautiful. It can be overwhelming trying to understand how and when to use all these products. Six years ago almost no one cared about skincare or bodycare.
Due to the pandemic, fewer in-person meetings with friends or colleagues, face coverings and much more time at home resulted in a closer consideration of a “less is more” lifestyle. Today we’re experiencing a huge shift from utilizing makeup to cover up imperfections with concealers and foundations to a more authentic journey to glowing skin with premium quality ingredients, healthy foods and a focus on self care.
To my absolute delight, the beauty industry is evolving its focus to a minimalist and eco-friendly approach. The latest beauty trend “Skinimalism” employs only the most essential multitasking products that reduce the number of bottles that end up in our landfills.
A simple life with minimalist beliefs can still look and feel beautiful.
If you’ve been thinking about simplifying your life and beauty rituals, keep reading.
LESS IS MORE!
What are the benefits of minimalist skincare?
- Less waste from product packaging and unused products
- Less expensive, spend less on trying ineffective products and gain impressive results with multipurpose products
- Spend less time on beauty rituals and more time on self care and the things you love
- Reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals in products that disrupt and irritate your skin
How to Simplify Your Skincare Routine
Extravagant 12-step skincare routines are time-consuming and expensive. Using too many beauty products and complicated regimens can confuse and overstimulate your skin, disrupting the pH balance leading to redness, dryness, irritation and acne.
A simplfe skincare routine with effective products keeps your skin healthy and happy regardless of your skin type.
Conventional beauty standards advise us to stick to three practices: cleanse, tone and moisturize.
My personal beauty needs and beliefs inspired me to create products that provide minimalist, holistic rituals for your face and body - PURIFY & NOURISH, in addition to a RESTORE pillar, uniquely dedicated to self care:
Purify
FACE
A good cleanser is the beginning of glowing skin. Clean skin enhances the absorption of other products, maximizing the results. Ideally, you should clean your skin in the AM and PM. If that’s not possible, commit to removing the daily buildup of dirt, grime, sweat, oil, dust, and makeup at night. Your skin renews itself while you sleep, for optimal results go to bed with a clean face.
Conventional beauty rituals include using a toner to help restore your skin’s natural pH balance after cleansing. Since toners have always been too strong for my skin leaving it dry and red, I formulated our cleansing bar to include lemon essential oil which balances the skin’s pH. Lemon controls the production of oil in the skin and reduces the look of blackheads with pore tightening properties, just like a toner would but without the bottle.
Multani Mitti is a natural cleanser, clay-like substance rich in minerals offering abundant benefits to the skin like reducing acne by controlling excessive oil production, eliminating black and white heads, shrinking the appearance of pores and gently sweeping dead skin cells and impurities away leaving the skin nice and smooth!
By including this clay in my cleansing bar, the natural exfoliation enabled me to reduce another step and another bottle from my routine.
NOURISH
FACE
Dry, flaky skin and toxic ingredients in skincare and makeup can clog pores and create inflammation in the skin. When the skin is stressed from too many products, it produces more sebum, the skin’s natural oil, causing breakouts. That’s why it’s important to maintain the BALANCE of the sebum in your skin with sebum-stabilizing ingredients and products. Hello, Teal N Bronze’s Balancing Face Oil, carefully formulated with non-comedogenic oils to NOURISH facial skin types. Use it with moisturizers and serums or by itself. And of course, protect your skin with a good, non toxic, cruelty-free SPF.
For many skincare gurus and well known beauty brands this blog ends here, which is where Teal N Bronze literally began. From day one, our first product filled a void that still exists in the beauty industry.
I’m talking about BODYCARE.
BODYCARE
With a total area of about 20 square feet, almost 2 sq meters, the skin is the largest organ of the body. How much of that skin do you think belongs to your BODY? It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that body skin is the majority player here, but you’d never know it based on the overwhelming number of facial products in stores today. For Teal N Bronze, we started with Body Care.
And considering our skin absorbs approx 60% of what you put on it, you want to make sure you’re giving yourself the good stuff either way.
Our minimalist Bodycare is as easy as 2 steps: PURIFY and NOURISH
PURIFY
BODY
Clean your body skin. Just like your facial skin, body skin accumulates dirt, sweat, and residue from products. Our Multi-use cleansing bar has been formulated for your body skin as well. Lemon essential oil makes it effective in removing bacteria that causes odor or irritation in the body skin. Yes, you can use THIS cleansing bar on face and body because lemon essential oil is an antibacterial agent, bacteria is not carried via the cleansing bar. Multani Mitti clay gently eliminates dry, dead skin leaving your body smoother and ready to be nourished by a decadent body butter or oil.
NOURISH
BODY
Hydrate, Moisturize or as I like to say NOURISH your body. Retaining moisture after your shower or bath and replenishing dehydrated skin, enhances your skin’s glow, and applying Body Butter to your skin can be very relaxing, leaving you less stressed. While there are some choices for body creams, lotions and oils, that 60% absorption rate means you really have to choose ingredients that will nourish your body skin, avoiding ingredients you can’t pronounce. There's a long list of questionable ingredients or synthetic compounds that can lead to inflammation and disease.
For a nutrient rich body butter or body oil check out our gender free Nourish Collection at Teal N Bronze.
RESTORE
Teal N Bronze is one of the first brands to create rituals dedicated to holistic overall skin, body and mind health. I’ve been indulging in self care Sundays long before Teal N Bronze started in 2015. My mental health has always been a priority for me: taking the form of therapy sessions 2005-2008, frequent visits to some of the best spas, self care nights at luxurious hotels and beach vacations with my girlfriends. Disappointing spa visits, where inferior products that weren't cruelty-free and post-spa traffic undermined the stress-reducing experience, sparked a desire to create better solutions for myself. The RESTORE pillar came from a need to improve my mental health at HOME. Years later and with the push of the pandemic many are waking up to how important it is to slow down, rest and take time to adopt a self care Sunday practice.
The RESTORE pillar is achieved with two steps, enhanced rituals for face and body dedicated to a day you have time to indulge in care for yourself, which for me has traditionally been Sunday.
FACE
Purify and detox excess build up with Teal N Bronze’s Purifying Masque. With the benefits of Multani Mitti clay in our cleansing bar daily, the ritual of a weekly mask with Multani Mitti clay alone amplifies that goodness. It draws out impurities from the skin, reducing the look of scars & pigmentation, balancing the production of skin’s natural oils, sebum, in all skin types and removes whiteheads and blackheads as well as oil-absorbing properties to prevent future acne breakouts.
BODY
Nourish with a restorative bath.
The inspiration for Teal N Bronze Restoration Salt Soak came from my desire to recreate the relaxing feeling and health benefits of a sunny day at the beach, reminiscent of life in Trinidad. I love the way my skin feels after a dip in the saltwater and sun. Single-ingredient, natural spa experiences really interest me and I would do it all the time if I could, like a water therapy spa in Calgary robust with Rocky Mountain salts (2007), a deep tissue massage with aloe off the tree on a beach in Barbados (2012), the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa in Iceland (2014) and the mud bath in Totumo Mud Volcano, Cartagena (2015). While I was formulating and testing Restoration Salt Soak for the optimal bath experience, I reminisced about all of these places.
Throw in some relaxing vibes with one of Teal N Bronze’s Spotify playlists to enhance your relaxation retreat at home.
Minimalism, Beauty and Bodycare
There are no rules to minimalism. Consistency and commitment is the key to achieving a minimalist lifestyle. Minimalism can be less makeup, less clothes or single use items. A good place to start, find what works for you and eliminate what doesn’t. For me, it was my beauty routine. I realized I didn’t need as much as I was accumulating and the beauty market didn’t offer what I was searching for, products with less toxins. Commitment to healthier, greener, multipurpose beauty products leads to a healthier planet.
I hope you’re inspired to adopt a minimalist beauty routine.
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