Our teens and wide-eyed college coeds are returning from sleepaway camp, teen tours and backpacking excursions in Europe and Asia. The 12 – 21 set has been so busy soaking up the sun, and god knows what else, that they are probably in need of a good facial to reset their skin. They have been so busy with summer activities that a daily skin care regimen has fallen to the bottom of the to do list. Our progeny have returned home with breakouts and post-summer skin irritation due to overexposure to the sun, perhaps sans proper protection and care.

Whether going back to school or off to university, it is a good time to start kids off with a simple custom regimen that will empower them to easily take care of their skin all year round. Yasmine Djerradine Institut de Beauté offers a Teenage Facial devised with teenage skin in mind.

A Cautionary Word of Warning

Young skin is sensitive. It is an imperative to select products that are gentle (organic is not always the answer – many organic products can be the harshest as they tend to have high concentrations of ingredients) on the skin. Products that are too harsh tend to be a major culprit contributing to adolescent skin irritation and spots.

Back To School Skin Care Regimen

In the spirit of keeping it simple, here are three easy, turnkey steps that are sure to work for all:

Step One: Cleanse

Lavido makes a gentle Purifying Face Cleanser that is specially formulated for sensitive skin. It is well suited for everyone and gently removes dead skin cells and impurities. For those in their late teens and early twenties, who wear makeup and are willing to take an extra step, I also suggest a post cleansing toner. Heaven Skincare EllaJane Celebrity Skin Wipes are ideal. It’s a toner in an easy to use wipe. They contain honey which heals and moisturizes as well as peppermint which balances the skin’s oil levels and keeps blemishes at bay. Wipes are my favorite, particularly for nighttime when everyone is tired and just wants to crawl into bed. Cleansing and moisturizing are most important at night as this is the time when the skin carries out its filtering activities at the cellular level.

Step Two: Moisturize

Alchimie Forever Daily Defense Cream SPF 23 is all natural, dermatologist-tested and vegan. This moisturizer is gentle and has a light SPF, which is beneficial all year long.

For young men that are about to start shaving or are already doing so, Ursa Major Traveler’s Skin Care Kit is an all encompassing try me kit containing a cleaner, toner, moisturizer/aftershave and toner soaked face wipes. Fortifying Face Balm is an ideal moisturizer and/or aftershave. It fights razor burn and irritation like a charm. Ursa Major’s individually wrapped Essential Face Wipes are perfect for use after gym class, as a late afternoon refresher or quick clean-up before bed.

Step Three: At Home Mini Facial

For those that will take the extra step, applying a mask once a week will do wonders. It is akin to an at home mini facial that will keep their skin clear all year long. Lavido Gentle Exfoliator Peeling Cream is meant to be a 2- 3 x per week gentle face scrub but I use it as a face mask. The formula contains oyster shell powder and pomegranate peel grains to turn over dead skin cells and buildup. It is extremely effective at unclogging pores but is gentle enough not to overdry skin. Plus, on days that it is used, it can be used as a 2-in-one cleanser and mask. Just apply, leave on for 5 – 10 minutes and rinse. Very easy.

Some Useful Extras

For teens that find themselves with blemishes, B. Kamins Laboratories Blemish Gel 5% is the perfect spot treatment to dab onto affected areas. It delivers the right amount of medicine in a lower dose than other over the counter treatments and will not irritate or overdry skin.

Additionally, Yu-Be Moisturizing Skin Cream is a no brainer. With the change of season and school stress, everyone can use a new lip balm to kick off the school year with a stunning smile!

All of these products will take you and your teens through fall and into winter seamlessly.

By: Alyssa Barrie Weiss, Twitter @AlyssaBarrie

Even the product obsessive compulsive rotates a product or two with the change of season. During the summer, when the northern hemisphere is closest to the sun we need to give our skin a little extra added tender loving care. Here is how one particular girl on the precipice of 40 keeps her skin in check all summer long.

Starting With The Basics: Facial Cleansers

We all know it’s important to wash the face morning and night. I’m still 39, for another 9 days anyway, and my skin tends to be sensitive and on the drier side. This summer I’ve worked Emma Hardie Moringa Cleansing Balm into my routine. It’s a quadruple-threat spa in a jar. A moisturizing, deep-cleansing, makeup-removing mask and face wash that doesn’t strip the skin of its essential oils. This is a rare and important beauty find especially in summer when we tend to spend more time outdoors. While skin can seem a bit more oily during the summer, it really just needs some extra special loving care. Resist the temptation to exfoliate often and use strong, soapy cleansers. This will only over dry skin and encourage it to produce more oil and sebum. It will also exfoliate any semblance of a healthy tan you may be working on.

Morning Moringa Massage

I store mine in the refrigerator: the cool temperature is refreshing and calms puffiness. I apply it first thing in the morning, take a minute or so to massage it into my skin in the direction of lymphatic drainage.

• Line up your fingers, with both hands, right below the bridge of your nose and sweep out (repeat this down the entire length of your nose and don’t be afraid to apply pressure directly below your eyes) and then make a wide circle down the jaw and meet at the chin.
• From there sweep down your neck. Go back up to the bridge of your nose with your middle fingers and sweep up. Once you hit your eye brow, sweep in an outward motion towards your temples (repeat this upward until you hit your hairline at the top of your forehead) and then back down to your jaw, meeting up at your chin.
• Don’t leave your mustache area out. Place both middle fingers at the center, right under your nose, applying pressure, sweep out and around to your jaw line and meet again at your chin.
• Have a cup of coffee and go about your morning routine.

This enables me to leave the mask on for 10 – 20 minutes. I also apply it to the backs of my hands. When you enter mid to late thirtydom, even if you take A+ care of your skin and have great genes, you will notice age starting to rear its ugly texture on the back of your hands. There is no place that shows age more than the back of one’s hands.

The all-natural scent of moringa is also calming to the senses which is beneficial especially on hectic mornings. Though this cleanser can be used day and night, if your skin is dry like mine, you may want to use it only once a day.  At night I don’t use a cleanser at all. I spray Vine Minus Ion Care Water on a cotton pad and wipe off the day – it is anti-bacterial, hydrating and can be used to remove makeup as well. It also boosts the efficacy of your nightly face care regimen to follow. This is particularly useful as skin care does its most important work at night when we sleep.

Additional note: Emma Hardie Moringa Cleansing Balm can also be used as a moisturizing hair mask.

Moisturizing Regimen

In summer it’s important to use a moisturizer with SPF. Institut Esthederm Bronz Repair Sunscreen for Face SPF 15 is an anti-aging moisturizer and sunscreen rolled up into one. Esthederm sun care is – bar none – the best you can find on the market. Its high tech formula works to strengthen the skin’s ability to protect itself from the sun. It contains active beeswax and rice bran oil, both specially chosen for their highly nourishing, moisturizing and anti-free radical properties.

Summer Anti-aging Serums

When using an SPF moisturizer, you must apply a serum underneath. SPF can clog pores and as my mother says, you always need a little something between the wheels and the road. I stay away from face oils during the summer. My skin craves hydration, but nothing so rich or thick. Sapelo Skin Care Renewing Serum floods the skin with the nutrients and moisture it needs to stimulate cellular renewal, including gardenia stem cells, natural humectants and collagen that protect and nourish skin, enabling it to fight signs of aging and protect your pores.

Summer Body Care

The summer sun and air is just as harsh on the body as it is on the face. It goes without saying that one needs to use a sunscreen during the day. Sun Bum makes a high quality, reasonably priced sunscreen that offers broad spectrum UVA/UVB protection for up to 80 minutes. Great for golfers, surfers, tennis players, sand castle builders and sun worshippers alike and it’s PABA, paraben, oil and fragrance free. Most people are good about applying sunscreen. Where many of us fall off the wagon is in the aprés sun department. After washing off the day you really want to nourish your skin with a lotion that will sooth dry skin, boost elasticity and fight the damaging effects of the sun, pollutants and free radicals. Packed with ingredients like Aloe Vera Juice and, Avocado Oil, moisturizing omegas and powerful antioxidants, Mio Skincare A Cream Firming Active Body Cream will do just that.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

If you are traveling regularly over the summer or just on a summer gym tear, Mio Skincare Your Fit Skin Kit is a great way to sample some of this wonderful body care line. I also recommend Mio Skincare Clean Slate Workout Swipes – these, all natural, full body wipes are ideal for any summer situation you can imagine, including what I’ve come to call a dry shower.

By: Alyssa Barrie Weiss, Twitter @AlyssaBarrie

I’ve shared before my love that squeaky clean feeling I get from washing my face with a gel or foaming face wash. As I’ve gotten older, and as balm cleansers have become more prevalent, I’ve expanded my cleansing horizons and embraced many types of non-sudsy cleansers. Now, a skin care trend that has been gaining a lot of traction of late, double cleansing, has allowed me to have my skin care cake and eat it too. I can use a balm and a foaming cleanser all in one night! Dreams do come true, people.

Why Double Cleanse?

If you’re reading this from New York City, Los Angeles or any other major metropolitan city with major metro city air quality, I’m hoping you understand why. Ditto if you’re someone who wears a full face of makeup every day. And I know EVERYONE READING THIS wears some sort of SPF everyday, right? Well, the thing about SPF is, it’s is formulated to stay on your skin! When you add all these up, you can begin to see why a single 20-second sudsing is just not going to cut it, and by it I mean all the grease, grime, oil, dirt, makeup, sweat and SPF.

Nighttime Treatment Products are Pricey!

It feels good to get all the remains of the day off your face before bed. But feeling so fresh and so clean isn’t the only reason you should double cleanse. The cleaner your face is before you put on your night time treatment products, the better those products – and all their lovely active ingredients – will penetrate the layers of the skin. Serums, night creams and face oils can be very expensive, so it makes sense to do all you can to get the most bang for your buck from them. Double cleansing is the keys to the kingdom.

Finding your perfect routine and favorite products is a very personal journey you’ll have to undergo on your own. As a starting point, here is what I do during my nightly double cleansing.

First cleanse: I love a balm for this. Emma Hardie and Supernatural Beauty make great ones. If you’ve fallen in love with a cleansing oil, that is great for a first cleanse as well. Supernatural Beauty Glorious Cleansing Balm is quite thick, so it takes longer to remove than Emma Hardie Moringa Cleansing Balm, but it also has sodium bicarbonate in it, so it has a very gentle buffing action. If I’m wearing mascara, I make sure to gently apply the balm to eyes and lashes. Never rubbing back and forth, but closing my eyes, then taking my fingertips (covered in balm) and gently wiping from base of lashes to tips. I do this a few times. Then I cover the rest of my face and neck in the balm, really massaging it in. Because the balms emulsify into oil, massaging them into my skin feels so soothing. At the end of my day, this is always a welcome relaxing ritual. Often, I’ll leave the balm on my skin while I read to my kids before they they go to bed. Letting the balm really work its magic leaves my skin looking extra fresh and luminous. I always use a washcloth to remove. Moringa Cleansing Balm comes with its own, but any washcloth will do. Make sure to machine wash between each use.

NOTE: If you have a lot of eye makeup on, you may want to precede this first step with some eye makeup remover, so you don’t have to go over your lashes and lids too many times with the cleansing balm.

Second cleanse: This is when I use a more traditional face wash. I have several that I choose from, depending on what I did that day. (Did I workout? Was I out in the sun and applied extra SPF? Did I just Netflix and chill?) If I want a deeper clean, I’ll use Ursa Major Fantastic Face Wash. For a more gentle, yet still thorough wash, Sapelo Skin Care Rosemary Cleanser is wonderful. If my skin is congested due to hormonal changes, I’ll use Jillian Wright Congested Cleanser. This second cleanse gets all traces of the balm off my skin, as well as any lingering eye makeup. My skin feels amazingly fresh and ready for all my treatment products…which are a blog unto themselves!

NOTE: I skip my second cleanse if I am using one of my exfoliating peel products. On those nights, I will just use one of the “second cleanse” cleansers, followed by my peeling product of choice.

Have you tried double cleansing? Let us know in the comments below!

By: Claire McCormack, Twitter & Instagram

After having kids, I wondered how I ever lived my life without a supply of baby wipes on me at all times. It was nothing short of a revelation for me: A stack of quality baby wipes could literally solve 95% of my problems. You can imagine my joy, then, as I’ve watched the number and variety of “beauty wipes” explode in recent years. No longer limited to wipes made for a baby’s bum, I can now choose from big ones, small ones, body wipes, face wipes, hair wipes…big hair/body/face wipes…every type of wipe I could ever hope for! I’ve found a few favorites along the way, so here they are, why I love them and a quick how-to on making the most of them.

Ursa Major Essential Face Wipes

The most deeply cleansing wipes I’ve ever used. Some wipes leave my face with a not-so-fresh feeling. Not these. Ursa Major’s individually wrapped 100% bamboo fiber face wipes infused with a generous dose of 4-in-1 Face Tonic – Ursa’s answer to the common toner. You get all the same benefits as you would from Ursa’s Face Tonic in pocket-sized, spill-proof packets.

What are the 4 benefits in this one wipe?

• They cleanse: Removes oil and grime without stripping skin of its moisture or throwing off pH balance.
• They exfoliate: Dissolves dead skin cells and clears clogged pores (3% natural AHA/BHA complex).
• They help heal: Soothes irritation and inflammation and accelerates healing
• They hydrate: Hydrates and firms skin (without leaving any residue).

I love the aroma, too: A refreshing medicinal brew spiked with orange, fir and lavender. The super natural ingredient list for these wipes reads like a farmer’s market shopping list. They are packed with aloe to soothe, hydrate and promote healthy tissue regeneration, witch hazel to tighten/shrink pores, willow bark extract for its exfoliating and acne fighting abilities (it’s a natural source of beta hydroxy acid “BHA”), antioxidant, anti-inflammatory & anti-microbial rosemary, as well as apple, green tea, birch sap and radish root to boot! Due to their size, I mainly use these on my face. If you’re looking to give yourself a post-workout wipe down – face and body – you’ll need more than one.

All Ursa Major’s products are made with the highest-grade natural ingredients (99.9% natural, 53% organic), sourced wherever possible from family-owned, sustainable growers. There are never any petrochemicals, sulfates, parabens, synthetic fragrance or color, glycols, silicones or PEGs.

Heaven Skincare EllaJane Wipes

Heaven Skincare’s EllaJane Celebrity Skin Wipes are so big, soft and strong that a recent first-time user excitedly exclaimed “you can do an entire whore’s bath with one”! (Not that we know what that is…but it sure sounds impressive.) Though these wipes were designed for use on the face, they are certainly big enough to cover more ground than that. These durable skin wipes are made from 100% organic cotton. They not only cleanse, but also tone and moisturize, covering three skin care steps in a few fell swipes. These wonder wipes have also become the official skin wipe of Travel Beauty expert Dara Liotta M.D.’s practice.

Did you know you can also CLEAN YOUR TEETH WITH THEM? Yup, these organic wipes can be used to wipe down your chompers anytime, anywhere. They are super soft and taste very mild. Infused with taste bud-friendly honey, peppermint and apple pectin, they are almost good enough to eat (but don’t eat them, please.) Just take a wipe and gently wipe along the outside and inside surfaces of your teeth, focusing on the gum line to attack that plaque, and viola! Your mouth and breath will feel totally refreshed in seconds flat.

If using a skin wipe on your teeth is too odd for you, don’t fret. These wipes perform traditional skin wipe duties with aplomb as well:

• Apple pectin works to exfoliate and deeply cleanse skin
• Honey heals and moisturizes skin
• The peppermint base works to balance skin’s oil levels
• Peppermint oil helps keep blemishes at bay
• Made with only the highest quality natural and organic ingredients, these wipes are so pure you can even wash your teeth with them

New to Travel Beauty: Mio Skincare Clean Slate Workout Swipes

You know that amazing cucumber-infused water that you can sip in most spa lounges? That is exactly what these jumbo face and body wipes smell like. Softly scented with a hint of fresh cucumber and mint, they are the ultimate shower-free way to cleanse, refresh and revitalize your face and body before and after a workout, when traveling, or any other time you’re feeling the funk.

Each jumbo (they are huge) Clean Slate Swipe is specially formulated with natural ingredients – like exfoliating lactic acid – to effectively remove makeup, pore-clogging bacteria, sweat and oil. They help prevent blemishes and post-gym breakouts (they’re naturally antibacterial), whilst aloe vera and omega oils exfoliate and moisturize leaving skin feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, without stripping essential oils. Your entire body feels soft and smooth, never irritated.

Mio Skincare adheres to a strict no nasties policy with all of its amazing products. That means the products are free from parabens, petrolatum, synthetic fragrance and colorants, xenoestrogens, PEGs, glycols and phthalates.

Dr. Dennis Gross Extra Strength Peel Pads

These wipes are the winner of New Beauty’s Beauty Choice Award for Best At-Home Chemical Peel. And personally, I’ll never NOT use them.

This peel is an extra-strength version of Dr. Dennis Gross’ patented #1-selling Alpha Beta Daily Face Peel on presoaked cotton towelettes. Higher concentrations of alpha beta acids plus newly added anti-aging boosters, including mandelic acid and willow bark extract, deliver a stronger peel without risk of irritation or recovery time.

Why I can’t live without them:

• They diminish the appearance of lines and wrinkles
• Visibly reduce pores and treat breakouts
• Target dark spots while improving skin tone and texture

Which wipes do you swear by and why? Let us know in the comments!

By: Claire McCormack, Twitter & Instagram: @clairemcmack