Boost The Benefits of Your Beauty Routine: 8 Simple Tweaks

You’re committed to your natural skincare regimen, but sometimes little tweaks to your daily routine can help maximize your results. That’s where these simple beauty hacks come in. All are designed to be low- to-no cost ways to enhance the nurturing you get from your favorite Pharmacopia products. Check out these easy tips.

1. Apply your Pharmacopia lotion to damp skin.

When skin is damp, it’s already hydrated. The natural ingredients in our better-for-you Body Lotions—like shea butter and jojoba oil—help to add more moisture and seal in that moisture to keep skin soft and smooth.

After getting out of the shower or bath, gently pat skin with a towel (don’t rub!), leaving it slightly damp. Then apply your favorite Citrus, Verbena, or Argan Oil Body Lotion to lock in moisture. This technique creates a barrier that helps prevent water loss, keeping your skin soft, smooth, and hydrated longer.

2. Use lukewarm, not hot water.

Everyone loves a hot shower, particularly on a chilly day, but those extra minutes of indulgence can strip your skin of its natural oils, leading to dryness and irritation. This is particularly true if your skin is already sensitive or easily irritated.

Instead, skip the hot temps and turn the dial to lukewarm (it should be slightly warm but not steamy). This way, you can enjoy a refreshing cleanse without compromising your skin’s hydration. Plus, when temps are more tepid, you’ll be tempted to spend less time under the spray, saving water too!

Why it works: Lukewarm water cleanses without over-drying. It maintains the skin’s protective lipid barrier while still effectively removing dirt and impurities. This allows your Pharmacopia natural Body Washes to do what they do best: cleanse and hydrate the skin with good-for-you ingredients like aloe vera, coconut oil, and chamomile and green tea extracts.

3. End showers with a blast of cold water.

Think of showers as a way to invigorate your skin. If you’re already using lukewarm water, turn down the thermostat a bit more to end with a blast of cold. Rest assured, you don’t need to sit under the cold spray for long! After rinsing off our biodegradable Body Washes or Body Bars—and our hydrating natural Conditioners—turn the water cold for just 30 seconds.

Cold water helps reduce inflammation and redness, making it particularly beneficial for those with sensitive skin. It also promotes better blood flow, which can give your skin a healthy radiance when you step out of the shower.

When it comes to hair, hot water can dissolve the protective hydrating sebum on the scalp and cause overlapping cells on the hair’s cuticle to be uneven (making hair look dull and frizzy and prone to tangles). But cold water helps the hair’s cuticle to lay flat, sealing the cuticle and trapping moisture inside the hair shaft. The end result: smoother, shinier hair with less frizz and fly-aways.

4. Add humidity to the air in cool weather.

Cooler weather months can be hard on your skin. Indoor heating systems can sap moisture from skin, lips, and hair, leading to dryness. Adding humidity back into the environment—while using your hydrating Pharmacopia Body Lotions, Tangerine Lip Elixir, and Conditioners—can make a big difference.

Humidity adds moisture to the air, allowing the skin and hair to absorb water and helping maintain a natural moisture balance. When it comes to hair, the right amount of humidity can help prevent excessive dryness, flyaways, and frizz.

To do it: Invest in a cool or warm mist humidifier for your home and use it while the indoor heat is on. Running one in your bedroom while you sleep is particularly helpful. You can also place bowls of water near heating vents to naturally increase humidity, though this may take longer to get results. The ideal humidity level in a home is between 30% and 50%. A humidistat can help you monitor humidity levels.

5. Massage in your lotion with extra oils.

Enhance your Citrus, Verbena, or Argan Oil Body Lotion with a few extra drops of nourishing jojoba oil or argan oil. These are essential ingredients in our better-for-you body care products; adding a little extra when skin is particularly dry can be extra nurturing. These plant-based oils help to nourish and maintain the skin’s barrier.

By massaging in your lotion with a few extra drops of these oils, you’re boosting the hydration and helping to lock in moisture. These oils can also deliver extra essential fatty acids and nutrients to give skin a pampering boost.

6. Exfoliate once or twice a week.

Skin cells naturally shed themselves every 28 days, a process that slows down as we age. But this exfoliation process is important because it promotes cell turnover, revealing new radiant skin underneath that’s better able to absorb moisturizers like our Pharmacopia Citrus, Verbena, and Argan Oil Body Lotion.

You can easily create a natural exfoliant by adding granulated sugar or even coffee grounds to your Pharmacopia Body Wash, or for a little extra moisture and extra smooth skin, add it to your Pharmacopia Conditioner. Add a little water to create suds and gently massage into your skin, rinsing thoroughly. You can even take a little Lip Elixir, mix it with granulated sugar, then gently massage lips (be sure to rinse off) for a softer, smoother kisser.

Aim to exfoliate at least once or twice a week to help keep skin soft and smooth—and to maximize the benefits of your lotions and lip balm. Keep in mind that dry, irritated, and sensitive skin may need to exfoliate less; the goal is to know your skin and gauge what works best for you.

7. Pay extra attention to your feet.

The feet are often neglected in daily routines, but these hardworking extremities deserve as much attention as the rest of your body. Prioritizing your feet is not only relaxing, it can also prevent hard, unsightly calluses and dry skin.

To do it: Schedule time once a week for foot care, including sloughing off dry skin with a gentle foot scrub or natural foot pumice. You can make your own foot scrub by mixing equal parts granulated sugar and olive oil and gently massaging into feet. You can also mix granulated sugar into your favorite Pharmacopia Body Wash, massaging the suds in, then rinsing off. After exfoliating, rinse your feet and apply a generous amount of Pharmacopia’s Body Lotion to keep them soft and hydrated. Don't forget to massage your feet as you apply the lotion; this can boost circulation and help you relax.

8. Drink plenty of water.

The health of your skin and hair is a reflection of your overall health. What you put into your body—from the foods you eat and the water you drink—can boost any beauty routine. Water can help boost circulation and nutrients to the skin and scalp, helping nourish both.

But when it comes to staying hydrated, researchers say you need both water and lotions to keep skin soft and smooth. They found that drinking plenty of water while regularly using a hydrating body lotion (like Pharmacopia’s Body Lotions) was more effective for skin hydration than just drinking plenty of water alone.

Drinking plenty of H20 can help your hair too. It boosts circulation to your scalp, which nourishes hair follicles. Healthy hair follicles are essential for the growth of healthy hair strands, which results in shiny, smooth locks.

Aim to drink at least eight, 8-ounce glasses of water daily. Carry a reusable water bottle to minimize single-use plastics and ensure you're consistently hydrating throughout the day.

A little extra time spent in your daily routine will pay off. If you can put one, two, or all of these tweaks into practice regularly—with your favorite Pharmacopia products—you’ll get noticeable results: softer, smoother skin and shinier, healthier locks. What’s not to love about that?