7 Day Skin Care Guide: A Countdown to Your Wedding Day

It’s only a week from your wedding, one of the most important days of your life.  Correction, maybe the most important day of your life.  You’ve shed a few pounds and your gown looks a second skin, but make sure that your own skin looks like a million bucks as well. After all, you’ll be looking at those pictures for years to come.

Whether you’re contending with a full-on acne emergency or just want to make sure you say “I do” with a healthy glow, you’ll thank yourself for taking just a few simple steps to give yourself perfect wedding-day skin.  We all know that a bride-to-be’s schedule tends to get a bit frantic, so we’ve made it simple for you with a seven day guide to treating your skin.

Day Seven

The first step is probably the simplest, but during your week of wedding march madness, it might also be the hardest: creating a beauty regimen, and sticking to it.  With the endless phone calls, last-minute appointments, and general running amok that you’re probably facing, keeping anything like a schedule is a challenge.  However, stealing away just a few regular moments per day will add up to a radiant payoff.

• Be realistic and honest about how much you can do…and how much you need to do.  You may simply need to get stricter about the regular maintenance you do anyway, or target any dryness, oiliness, or blemishes that choose to rear their heads.
• On top of settling on your designated blocks of “you time,” make sure your sleep cycles are ample and regular.  Lack of sleep is one the biggest invitations for those unwanted blemishes, so get regulated with melatonin (not sleeping pills) if you’re finding it hard to wind down.
• Great skin is one of the many benefits of exercise, so do your best to pencil in as much yoga, pilates, or the like as you can.  However, some workouts may negatively affect skin quality, so be careful.  If you truly can’t find time to hit the gym or studio, turn some of your errands into power walks!

Day Six

Once you have your routine settled, it’s time for one more difficult task: relax!  Nothing can bring on dermal chaos faster than stress, so worrying about your skin can be counterproductive.  For today, give yourself a gold star for the great work and focus on less obvious good habits.

• While there is no one “miracle food” for skin care, there are a few usual suspects that can only do you right.  In particular, try to incorporate dark leafy greens (kale, chard, or spinach) and deep orange veggies (squash or sweet potatoes) into your meals:  they are rich in antioxidants, which are great for your skin.

• If home cooking isn’t in the works this week, make sure to pick up some supplements to ensure you get skin-friendly nutrients such as Vitamin C, beta carotene, Omega 3s, and probiotics.

• Some preventive pampering is a great way to stop breakouts, so treat yourself to a steam room, spa, or even mud bath for an hour. Days Five-Three

You’re almost there, so now make sure you don’t grow overzealous with any one line of defense:  too many products can backfire.  In general, you should be rolling back your usage of daily skin products.

• One everyday facial cleanser, a single exfoliant, and just one moisturizer is all you need.

• Washing away dead skin is important, but only exfoliate every other day.

• Stay away from soaps that dry out your skin, especially if you already have a dry or mixed skin-type.

• After a vigorous hot shower, apply moisturizer before the steam clears and you’ve only lightly towel dried.

Day Two

If after all this effort the skin-gods decide to zap you with a blemish, all is not lost.

• Salicylic acid can knock out even nastier attacks with little turnaround, and while it runs the risk of dryness, the old fashioned astringent witch hazel can be surprisingly effective.

• Whatever happens, a tailspin of stress can only make things worse at this point.

Day One

Your wedding day is finally here, so forget about everything else!  Even a doozy of a pimple will not outshine your happiness, so don’t let anything distract you from it!

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer from Los Angeles. Her writing covers a variety of topics, but after working for several years with skin care companies, she specializes in health & beauty and loves sharing her knowledge.