8 Skincare tips for 9-5 office hours

If you work in an office environment, you can optimise your appearance, prevent air-conditioning dehydration and look after your skin health by including these ideas in your daily routine.

1.     Get up 30 minutes earlier and exercise

If you spend eight or nine hours of your day sitting in an office chair, investing 30 minutes in an early-morning workout isn’t a big ask. Try some You Tube yoga in the living room, do a workout from a phone app or tie on your trainers and head out for some walk-run intervals (20 seconds running, 10 seconds walking; repeat until finished). Getting the blood flowing and working up a sweat is great for keeping your skin clear and giving you the glow of good health.  

2.     Follow your favourite shower ritual

Your face needs more than a rinse after a night’s sleep and a workout. If you’re after the super-clear ‘glass skin’ effect, do your double-cleansing in the shower. Use a sudsy cleanser first, like Okana’s Apple Juice Foaming Cleanser[WJ1] , then do a second cleansing with a richer, oil-based cleanser. A top-to-toe exfoliation using shower gloves will make you feel brand new. If you’re feeling brave, finish with the shower on cold for 10 seconds. It’ll wake you up, help to close your pores and give your circulation a rev up. On days when you’re washing your hair, the cold rinse also helps to close the cuticles of every strand to prevent the frizzies.

3.     Give your skin the total care package

If you’ve double-cleansed in the shower, carry on the good work with toning, serum and moisturiser before you apply makeup. Think of it as laying down a foundation of protection for the day ahead. Air-conditioning takes water out of the air, which means your skin will be losing moisture all day. To minimise dehydration, use a moisturiser that incorporates natural oils. Our day cream includes highly-concentrated apricot and olive oil to provide nutrition and a barrier against moisture loss.

4.     Keep makeup light

Daytime cosmetics should be light and natural. From a professional point of view it’ll help you, because people will see your face not your makeup. And from a skincare point of view, there will be fewer impurities on your skin to get absorbed by your pores. Instead of foundation, use a BB or CC cream. Save your smoky eye for night-time and choose nude eyeshadow shades for daytime. Use a neutral pink blush or bronzer to give your face some colour, because office lighting isn’t kind. Finish with a lipstick shade that matches the inside of your bottom lip

5.     Keep a tall glass of water on your desk at all times

Whether you prefer a bottle or a glass, having water on your desk at all times will encourage you to keep on sipping. For every 1kg of body weight you should drink 33mls of water, so if you weigh 60kg, you should sip about 2 litres of water a day.  Herbal teas and other non-caffeinated beverages count towards your total.

Drinking water during the 9 to 5 isn’t just good for your skin; it’s good for your brain. Our brains depend on proper hydration to function optimally. But don’t get too carried away - excess water can lead to an electrolyte imbalance that’ll make you feel scatter-brained.

6.     Spritz your skin lightly during the day

A very light misting with a hydrating toner, like Okana Cucumber + Lettuce Toner will freshen up your skin and help to keep it hydrated. The emphasis here is on light. If you mist too much, your makeup will run down your face. Not a good look! Our toner is full of minerals and vitamins, so your skin is getting nutrition as well as moisture.

7. Moisturise your cuticles

Whether your wear nail polish or not is totally up to you, but make sure your cuticles are pushed back and moisturise around your nails to prevent hard, dry bits of skin. You can use a lip balm as a cuticle cream, because you probably have one already in your top drawer. The best way to look after your cuticles is to push them back at the end of your shower, when the skin is moist and supple. Your thumb nail makes a handy cuticle pusher.

8.     Stay away from the perfume

Reapplying perfume several times a day can make you very unpopular in the office. Recent estimates say that up to 4% of the general population are sensitized to fragrance ingredients[1], so there will be people you work with who are actually allergic to artificial fragrances.  Even if you’re not allergic to fragrance yourself, most perfumes are a cocktail of carcinogens, allergens, irritants and endocrine disruptors. If you love to smell good, you can buy natural, hypoallergenic scents online or use an aromatherapy oil.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14572300