By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS

Skincare during the covid-19 pandemic can be complicated.

On the one hand, you have more time to take the care to make sure you don’t skip steps in your daily beauty routine.

On the other, you have a lot of extra concerns on your plate and aren’t seeing other people (other than your mom and pet cocker spaniel) as much as you used to, so there is that temptation to forego your beauty hygiene as you slouch around in those torn sweatpants from the 1980s.

But this is not the time to slack off and let your skin deteriorate.

Dermatologists warn that stress — and we are all stressed these days — can be a major factor in breakouts, dull skin and even wrinkles.

So make sure you cleanse, tone and moisturize, and don’t forget the sunscreen, even if the extent of your outdoor outings these days is a few minutes of relaxing on your front balcony.

Setting the Mood

Stress can affect both your mood and your energy levels, as well as how you look.

In fact, a recent neuroscience study in Belgium showed that it can even affect your brain patterns, and that emotions and feelings can be clinically altered with aromatherapy.

The Swedish direct sales cosmetic and personal hygiene brand Oriflame did scientific research with various essential oils to see exactly how scents can influence the brain and emotional levels.

Their findings, based on extensive medically monitored magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, showed that aromatherapy can help people relax, feel more at ease and even reduce stress (which, in turn, can influence blood pressure health).

Based on those studies, Oriflame has just released its new Mind & Mood line of high-end essential oils, the first-ever essential oils to use neuroscience to zoom in on how each scent can affect mood and energy levels.

Oriflame Mind & Mood includes a selection of four different blends of essential oils to help get your through the day no matter what life throws at you.

Mind & Mood Energise Me is a robust blend of pink pepper and grapefruit to help perk up your mood and get you going in the morning without that caffeine-heavy cup of Joe.

Mind & Mood Empower Me, a zesty fusion of laurel and bergamot extracts, helps to inspire a sense of self-confidence (and who couldn’t use a boost of self-confidence during these difficult times?).

Mind & Mood Balance Me helps to make the mind focus and increases concentration with cedarwood and olibanum (frankincense) oils to get over that afternoon slump without pigging out on a junk food binge.

And Mind & Mood Relax Me, with sandalwood and lavender flower extracts, is designed to relax you into a less stressful mood so that you can get to sleep at night after a long day of Zoom meetings and Skype calls.

Applied directly to the wrists and other pulse points or infused into the air via a diffuser, these four deliciously scented oils are a pleasant and indulging way to help you stay healthy by staying happy.

Oriflame also has a new line of Beautanicals holistic beauty products that are 100 percent vegan, eco-friendly and derived almost entirely of natural ingredients.

The Beautanicals line products are packed with the curative and soothing powers of honeysuckle.

Honey Hands

By now, everyone knows just how important it is to wash your hands as often as possible in order to help curb the spread of the covid-19 virus.

Indeed, regular and thorough hand-washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or, alternatively, using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer after touching foreign surfaces, is a key step in reducing the risk of contagion.

But with all that constant hand washing, it’s easy to develop dry, chapped skin or exacerbate existing skin conditions.

Repetitive exposure to soap, water and alcohol can strip away the skin’s natural protective top layer of skin (stratum corneum), which, over time, can lead to dry skin and inflammation, or even dermatitis or a flare up of underlying eczema.

Fortunately, the luxury French design and cosmetic house Guerlain Paris has just introduced a double-whammy solution to over-washed, irritated hands.

Guerlain’s Abeille Royale line (which is packed with the soothing, healing and nutritive qualities of carefully selected bee products — Ouessant Island honey, Corsican honey, New Zealand clover honey and Guerlain’s exclusive royal jelly, harvested in France) now includes a honey-based Repairing and Youth Hand Balm, that instantly relieves and intensely nourishes irritated skin.

This rich and silky balm absorbs quickly and leaves no sticky finish, leaving hands softer, smoother and visibly younger-looking, with a subtle honey scent.

Guerlain has also brought out a super-gentle Abeille Royale Soft Hands Hygiene Gel with honey concentrate, specifically formulated to cleanse hands while keeping them hydrated.

This sweetly scented gel is suitable for all skin types (including sensitive skin), and comes in an handy, fit-in-your-purse tube.

Best of all, this gel can be used as often as needed without irritating the skin.

Both products draw on Guerlain Abeille Royale’s longstanding expertise in honey and bee products, renowned as some of the world’s most effective natural revitalizing substances.

Guerlain Research has been working for more than a decade with honeys and royal jelly to create Abeille Royale: a skincare program that helps to minimize the visible signs of aging on skin.

The company has its own honey island, Ouessant, just 18 kilometers off the
coast of Brittany, which is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with an ecosystem that is parasite-free and protected from pesticides.

Bee products are some of the world’s most effective natural revitalizing substances, and Guerlain researchers have been working continuously with honeys and royal jelly to create Abeille Royale: a skincare program that scientifically helps to minimize the visible signs of aging on skin.

The exclusive Ouessant black bee honey has been developed for its exceptional healing and beautifying properties, rich in amino acids, trace elements and fructose content, the essential ingredients that are vital in the repair process of skin tissue.

And Guerlain’s exclusive royal jelly — the most precious substance produced by bees — is a natural source of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and vitamins, all produced in a protected environment to offer exceptional benefits for the skin.

Neck Rescue

All that slouching over your computer for online work meetings and facetiming with friends and family can take a toll on both your back and your neck.

And the skin in your neck is almost as delicate as the skin around your eyes (only a 10th of the thickness of the rest of your facial skin).

That means you need to give it special care to avoid premature signs of aging.

SkinCeuticals’ new Tripeptide-R Neck Repair is a corrective retinol neck treatment that targets early to advanced signs of visible neck aging.

Powered by 0.2 percent retinol and a 2.5 percent tripeptide concentrate, this potent cream helps to minimize the appearance of horizontal neck lines and wrinkles, loss of firmness, crepiness and uneven skin tone, revealing a firmer, smoother and more youthful-looking décolletage.

It also has 5 percent glaucine, a complex found in certain poppy plant species that has been shown to support skin’s resistance to visible neck aging.

Formulated for daily use, Tripeptide-R Neck Repair can be used alone or as a complement to neck-contouring treatments such as under-chin cryolipolysis and skin-tightening therapies.

It is paraben-, alcohol-, dye- and fragrance-free.

…Oct. 28, 2020