Winter Skin still needs care

Once the cold days and nights of winter set in many of us tend to abandon any skin care routine we developed during the sunny days of summer.

We no longer moisturize our skin and certainly don’t bother to apply sunscreen.

However, if we want the best skin, we need to take care of it all year round whether or not it is going to be hidden under layers of clothing.

Just because summer is over doesn’t mean the damage from the sun is.

The sun’s UV rays are just as harmful in winter as they are in summer.

Since the skin is stripped of its natural oils in the winter due to harsh weather outside and indoor heating, it is even more important to use winter protection for our skin.

This lack of natural oils and moisture makes the skin more susceptible to any kind of UV damage from the sun.

During winter we can take two simple steps to protect skin from damage.

The first step is to take cooler showers or baths or at least reduce the amount of time.

While this may not seem best during the cold winters it will actually help prevent the amount of natural acid mantel that is stripped off by the hot water which leads to dry skin.

After any bath or shower always apply a good quality moisturizer to help keep the body’s natural oils sealed inside.

Moisturize daily and even those areas that are covered during winter can get dried out as a result of the central heating. OPINION: The Budget was designed for an election year. Tax cuts to appease traditional National voters and spray of catch-up spending in loads of areas to appease most others.

Opposition parties will be forced to argue that the Budget doesn’t go far enough. It will be received positively by middle New Zealand – who doesn’t like more money in their back pocket?

But there was nothing aspirationalto deal with crises in housing, infrastructure and the much-hyped social investment approach to break the poverty trap.

This Budget is different from the others in recent years: the purse strings have loosened. The new announcements are in the increase in government spending, of around $3b.

In the first term, government spending was boosting the economy through tax cuts and Canterbury earthquake related spending.

Since then, they have been cutting back on spending relative to population growth and inflation to get the government books in balance, and that was a drag on the economy.

This Budget is an expansionary one. Tax cuts and catchup spending means the Government will be boosting economic growth over the next few years.

The centre-piece of this Budget are income tax cuts.

The income tax cuts are broad. By lifting thresholds at which tax rates bite, the average worker will receive around $26 more per week.

In reality, these tax thresholds should be indexed to the cost of living and not left to politicians to cynically tinker with in election years.

Increases in working for families and the accommodation supplement were long overdue and will be some relief to families battling rising rents and living costs.

Other spending largely reflected catch-up after some years of restrained spending, which had not kept pace with growing population and costs.