Skincare for Gym-Goers: 10 Ways to Stay Clear and Glowing
Let’s not let our workouts get in the way of clear, healthy skin! My two favorite things? Skincare and working out—so I’m totally in my element here. 💪✨
These 10 tips will help you prevent body breakouts, acne, sun damage, chafing, and more, so you can be confident in your skin no matter how sweaty life gets.
🔶 Don’t stay in your sweaty clothes
Hanging out in your workout clothes post-exercise gives you a higher chance of breakouts, blackheads, or rashes on your body. Even if your sweaty clothes dry, or even if you didn’t sweat that much, your clothing fibers still have bacteria and pore-clogging debris. If your clothing is tight, it traps bacteria close to your skin, and if that clothing is damp from sweat or water, it can irritate skin and cause redness or rashes.
It’s best to change out of your workout clothes as soon as possible. If you’re running errands after your exercise, bring a quick change of clothes.
🔶 Use an anti-microbial mist
Having an anti-microbial mist in your gym bag is one of the best skincare decisions you can make. An ingredient called
Hypochlorous acid defends against bacteria and infection. So, misting your sweaty face or body with this ingredient will kill the bacteria, leading to fewer or no breakouts from sweat and exercise.
This is great to have on hand if you don’t have time to bathe or shower directly after exercise, you can wipe away your sweat with a towel and then mist your face and body. It’s also a helpful item to have if you have a training session that’s 2 hours or more; you can mist yourself halfway through the workout. I also love it after a hot yoga class or after a sauna session if I’m not showering at the facility; I’ll mist myself before I get in the car to come home.
Magic Molecule Mist is my favorite 💦
🔶 Remember your sun protection for outdoor exercise
I love cycling, running, and hiking outdoors. This leads to long periods out in the sun. If I’m being honest, I see a lot of sun damage, like freckling and dark pigment from the sun, in the outdoor exercise communities. I get it! Most of the time, your passion for fitness is going to override your passion for protecting your skin from the sun. But it’s SO important to defend our skin while we work out outdoors. We need to prevent cancers caused by too much UV exposure, and we want to prevent pigment and early-onset wrinkles.
3 things to remember before getting outside to exercise:
1: Apply SPF to face and body
2: Wear a hat or a visor (ideally one with UPF properties)
3: Wear a lightweight UPF long-sleeved shirt and/or leggings
scrub me secret: my favorite UPF clothing includes my cycling cap, running hat, leggings, and a long-sleeved, lightweight top.
🔶 Have multipurpose balm on hand for chafing
Chafing from skin rubbing against itself or from clothing rubbing up against your skin is super common. This chafing can cause red, irritated skin or long-lasting marks. scrub me multipurpose balm is the best for alleviating chafing because of its balmy/waxy texture. You just apply the multipurpose balm to places where you usually get sensitive skin or chafing before your workout. Bonus that it contains ingredients that heal abrasions or damaged skin!
🔶 Be intentional about your facial cleansing
If you have an active lifestyle, there is a chance you could be over-cleansing your skin. Washing your face more than 2x a day is too much disruption for our skin barrier. So if you’re using your facial cleanser in the morning, in the afternoon after a workout, and again in the evening, that’s too much. I’ve met people who cleanse more than that because they work out more than once a day. Overusing your facial wash can lead to dry, sensitive, itchy skin, or skin with little bumps or breakouts.
You can refresh your skin with a hydrating toner or use your Hypochlorous acid mist in place of excess cleansing. So instead of washing your face first thing in the morning, if you know you’ll be out for a sweaty exercise session later that afternoon, opt to swipe over your face with toner and wait to cleanse after your exercise. Or say you’re on your second workout of the day and you have already washed your face once, but you know you’ll also be using your face cleanser before bed, use your anti-bacterial hypochlorous acid spray to get clean instead of an extra cleanse.
scrub me secret: I suggest doing a double cleanse once a day! A double cleanse is when you use a facial oil or balm to remove debris like sunscreen, sweat, makeup, etc, effectively, without affecting your skin’s barrier. After your pre-cleanse, use your facial wash (creamy, foamy, or gel-like) to clean your skin thoroughly.
🔶Refreshing, hydrating toner is a must-have
If you read my section above about intentional cleansing, then you’ll know why a refreshing toner is a must-have! Sometimes we just need to swipe away a little sweat, dirt, or environmental debris after a jog, yoga sesh, etc, but we don’t necessarily need to give our face a full-on cleansing. This is where a hydration toner or hydrosol water is so helpful! You can use it with a tissue, clean cloth, or cotton pad to refresh your skin and clear away some debris. I always suggest a hydrosol water or hydration toner for this because these are items that can be used as often or as much as you want, and you won’t irritate your skin (unlike toners with salicylic acid or AHAs).
Hydrating toner and hydrosols are different than the anti-bacterial spray. The anti-bacterial spray kills bacteria upon contact, while the hydrating toner delivers hydrating ingredients to the skin while you physically wipe away dirt/sweat with your tissue or cloth. The hypochlorous acid spray and a hydrating toner are both great items for your gym bag.
🔶 CBD is your friend
Yes, topical CBD salves and balms are amazing for muscle soreness and inflammation, but I want to talk about what CBD can do for our skin! Bumps, little breakouts, rashes, larger breakouts, and areas with irritation are really common for runners, cyclists, weightlifters, swimmers, you name it! These types of skin concerns just come with the territory when you’re an active person (unless you’re lucky, in which case I’m jealous!).
CBD skincare items like lightweight lotion, toner, and calming serum work wonders for the areas on my body that get bumps, breakouts, and redness from being active. Since CBD is so anti-inflammatory and works to reduce both internal and external inflammation, it always decreases my amount of redness/texture/breakouts within about 48 hours.
I love Ology Essentials CBD lotion for any places on my body that need some TLC.
Scrub me secret: Speaking of recovery, Magnesium is an ingredient that is helpful for muscle recovery and relieves muscle soreness. It’s also said to help you sleep better if you apply a magnesium topical to the bottoms of your feet before bed. My next blog post is going to be on this ingredient!
🔶 Clean your headphones, hats, and headbands
Headphones, hats, and workout headbands are items that get coated in sweat and oils but we often forget to wash them or wipe them off. Headphones can be wiped off with an alcohol wipe or disinfectant cloth after each use; I don’t recommend wiping them off right before use because then the alcohol or disinfectant from the wipe could transfer onto your skin.
Hats and workout headbands should be washed after a sweaty workout. Every day hats or caps that you wear just to walk around in can be worn more than once without washing in between, but I suggest getting them into the wash every few uses.
scrub me secret: another thing that makes a BIG difference that you might not be thinking of: avoid touching your face a lot during your exercise sessions. Of course, you can wipe or dab sweat away with your workout towel or tee-shirt, but avoid putting your hands on your face because they most likely have debris on them
🔶 Use specific soaps or washes for body breakouts
Small whiteheads, pimples, and acne on the body are common, especially among those who exercise often. Many of the skincare tips I listed above are things that will keep those breakouts from happening. But if and when you do end up with some body acne or pimples, there are specific soaps and body washes you can use. Ingredients like salicylic acid, tea tree, activated charcoal, and clays decongest and help rid the skin of breakouts.
Soaps that reduce body breakouts:
Detoxifying activated charcoal soap
Body wash that reduces body breakouts:
A face wash I LOVE for the body 🤫
True Botanicals Nourishing Purifying Cleanse
🔶 Pamper your skin before bed
Your skin deserves some love and care after all your activity! Being outdoors in the sun and elements, sweating, swimming, holding heavy weights, playing sports, all these things really put our skin to the test.
Nightly cleansing and moisturizing with an antioxidant body butter, cream, or oil will keep your skin healthy, soft, and smooth. Exfoliating using the scrub me dry brush gloves or an in-shower body scrub 2-4x a week is excellent for cell turnover and overall circulation.
scrub me secrets: visit my blog post “Body Butter, Oil, Lotion, Serum: How to Build a Thoughtful Body Care Routine to help decide which type of body product you should pamper your skin with before bed.
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