I love my skincare routine to be simple and my products to be natural as possilbe. One must be careful because just because a product calls itself natural. It does not necessarily mean it is non-irritating and because of my sensitve skin I have often had to compromise between science and nature. So, my skin care is actually about 95% natural (but 100% cruelty free-tested only on Ana you might say!)

I don't want to give specific skin prodcut names because I switch them so much depending on the seasonal needs of my skin and also because I love to try new products!

The important part of my skin care ritual is that I keep my skin as fresh and clean as possilbe. I never ever in my life have gone to bed without having washed my face.

I also cleanse it every morning and apply a non chemical sunblock every day of the year.

I love facemasks and at least once a week use a gentle exfoliating mask.

Makeup:
Again less is more! I like my makeup to be simple and quick! My makeup is 100% natural. My essentials are:

Mineral Powder Blush Lip balm with some color rubbed in. Brown liner on upper eyelash line only.

Silk Pillowcases: (Not satin which do not breathe!) You know that little halo of short hairs on the back of your head? So much hair
breakage is caused by cotton pillowcases! Silk pillowcases allow your hair to glide across the pillow safely.

April Showers Shower filter: with KDF (copper-zinc) filtration ionically removes harmful chlorine and vapors that damage skin, hair and lung tissue and accelerate aging. It also inhibits mold and fungus amd removes iron oxides (rust water), hydrogen sulfide (sulfur smell), and traces of heavy metals.

Who doesn't want beautiful skin? It's the first thing we present to the world. I had a friend who always said, "Skin is the most important thing. If your skin looks good, you look good. Period." A sweeping statement but in many ways true. Skin after all reflects the state of our inner and outer health. And, skin that functions well reflects light and has a luminous radiant quality that no makeup can replicate. So how to get more beautiful skin? My inbox is flooded daily by beauty articles with titles like: Luminous Skin On Speed dial. And Look Radiant Now! When temptation gets the best of me and I open one, I am always disappointed because they usually direct me to quick but temporary and fleeting fixes. The thing is ...I AM GOING TO BE WEARING MY SKIN THE REST OF MY LIFE so I want practices and products that really work to lay the foundation for true skin health. I'm not interested in paying big bucks for products that simply cover up flaws! Even worse, many of the products that popular beauty "experts" recommend are laden with chemicals or contain pore suffocating ingredients. Definitely not the way to long term Real Skin Radiance!

here are 7 Top Tips for Real Skin Radiance!

1. First, don't worry about your skin being less than radiant right this moment! When we're worrying we are not being proactive; we are waiting for our worst fears to materialize! The first rule of radiance is to remember that only when we feel good can we look good. This means to take time to do things that make us happy. Being creative, being around kids, dancing, laughing with friends, whatever floats our happiness boat will work. Of course, a daily Kundalini Yoga practice will keep happy vibes on high. Our daily practice is an on-the-spot life guard when life currents carry us into deep water. Get onto your magic mat. Your practice will wash away your worries and ratchet up your radiance!

Ravi taught Kundalini Yoga to the actress Liv Ullman when she was in her 40's. She reported that each time she did Kundalini Yoga she would get compliments on her youthfulness. She attributed her Kundalini Yoga practice with getting more acting work!

2. Recognize the unique needs of your skin with each new day. Have you ever noticed your body is different every day? Sometimes we have lots of energy, sometimes less, sometimes we are feeling flexible and sometimes tight. Based on how we feel, we pick the most appropriate workout to bring our body back to balance. It's the same with our skin, so why use the same beauty routine every day? Sometimes we sleep less. Sometimes we sweat more. Sometimes we are stressed, sometimes not. Sometimes we wear makeup and sometimes we don't. Consider keeping a couple different cleansers on hand, a deeper cleansing version and a very light foaming one. A couple different masks are also great to have on hand. One with natural exfoliants, maybe a clay one to draw out pollution and impurities, or a hydrating mask if your skin's feeling thirsty. An important addition to your beauty routine that helps all the concerns above is drinking plenty of filtered water to stay hydrated. Hydrated skin is plumper, smoother and reflects light more readily.

3. Kundalini is the Yoga of Awareness so trust your ability to discern whether on not a certain product works for you. Make sure it works over the long haul and not just temporarily, because quick fix ingredients can create more problems than they solve! Read labels and remember your skin is a living breathing thing that is interacting with its environments all day. It's not working just as a barrier. It absorbs much of what you feed it topically! As an example consider how quickly a person's skin can absorb nicotine patches or hormonal creams.

4. Consider NOT using a moisturizer over night every so often. I know, I KNOW, this is shocking. It's beauty blasphemy! We have been told over and over to moisturize, moisturize, moisturize! Even if skin is oily we are told-MOISTURIZE! But if you haven't worn much on your skin that day, and don't have be aggressive removing products, your face isn't stripped and you can skip the moisturizer once in awhile. Our skin likes to do what its made to do and that is to recalibrate on its own. If you are dry you may feel tight for 15 minutes or so, but then your skin will start to produce its own oil and soften up. Your skin will thank you in the morning by producing its own radiant glow!

5. Kundalini Yoga allows us to go more than skin deep. Not only does Kundalini Yoga flood our bodies with feel good things which is an immediate uplift for skin, but it also gets our blood pumping and our muscles working. Do your practice vigorously and break a sweat. This is wonderful for skin. Yogi Bhajan recommended that a woman break a sweat daily for glandular health which translates as healthy glow and a youthful appearance.

Do you know how you get a little lift when someone gives you a compliment? It's because you are being reflected back to you positively. Well, when we practice Kundalini Yoga, the Universe gives us a compliment. There's no better kind!

6. But don't sweat the small stuff! Accept your little imperfections. If only we all realized that its actually the flaws that make any beauty fascinating! Have you ever noticed that when women want to look their absolute best for their big day they never quite look as good as they do in their more natural state. They over curl, over spray, over powder, over fuss, and over stress and the end result is a like a bad prom photo! The moral is less is more, and keepin' it at least somewhat real. Forget about being perfect every day of your life. I know of one woman who is a natural radiant beauty but seems to love the big eyebrow trend and has decided to have the thickest by drawing two thick furry black caterpillars across her forehead. She likes fair skin so she has made her natural golden skin the whitest white she can with her makeup. She loves dark hair and so has decided to have the blackest of anyone. Goth is great, but it wasn't what she was going for!

7. Rest and be blessed. Ever notice that your skin looks plumpest and freshest first thing in the morning? Its the overnight repair work skin does so well when we allow ourselves to truly do nothing. Meditation is even better then sleep because it puts us immediately in healing mode and gives us an even deeper form of rest. Meditate. Zen you will be radiant!