5 Tried & Tested Tips To Make Dull Skin Brighter & Give It A Radiant Glow

Korean beauty buzzwords like glass skin and honey skin come and go, but having naturally luminous and dewy skin will always be in style.

That can seem like an unattainable dream if your skin is dull, dehydrated and lacklustre. This dullness is a sign of damaged skin caused by everything from stress to bad lifestyle habits.

Thankfully, it's pretty easy to restore your complexion to its healthiest form which will look bright and have a radiant glow.

Keep reading to check out five tried & tested tips to make dull skin brighter!

#1 Have a Skin-Friendly Diet

It's no secret that what you eat has an impact on how you look. If your diet is high in fat, sugar and sodium, it can come back to haunt you in the form of dull skin.

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A healthy diet can help brighten your skin. Reduce your sugar intake and include more antioxidant-rich food to your diet. These foods include citrus fruits, tomatoes, nuts, spinach and broccoli. It also helps to cut out processed food and drink plenty of water.

#2 Use Topical + Oral Sunscreen Daily 

Applying sunscreen on the skin certainly helps to prevent pigmentation and dull skin. But there's a lesser-known beauty secret that goes beyond that and brightens the skin at the same time: oral sunscreens.

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Oral sunscreens contain ingredients that enable the body to shield itself from UV damage. For example, ASTALIFT's UV drink & supplements contain Nano Astaxanthin which minimises the skin's damage from UV radiation. That means your skin will have a backup when your topical sunscreen breaks down and wears off through the day.

And besides UV protection, the ASTALIFT supplements and drinks are packed with vitamin C and pure collagen to help brighten, firm and moisturise the skin. This brightening effect shows up not just on the face but also the rest of the skin on the body.

#3 Exfoliate Your Skin Gently

Exfoliation is an often overlooked skincare step that can work wonders in evening out the complexion.

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Physical exfoliators are the ones to avoid as they can cause micro tears in the skin. Go for gentle chemical exfoliants like glycolic acid and salicylic acid instead. They remove dull, dead skin while boosting cell turnover for skin that appears more radiant as well as even in texture.

#4 Choose Brightening Skincare Ingredients

What you should look for in skincare are ingredients that will moisturise your skin, strengthen your skin barrier and remove excess melanin.

ASTALIFT has added a new addition to their Jelly Aquarysta Series, ASTALIFT White Jelly Aquarysta, that ticks all the boxes and brightens the skin in three steps.

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Firstly, the ASTALIFT White Jelly Aquarysta provides duo ceramide reinforcement: double nano-ceramides on the outside and Uncaria gambir extract to build ceramides from the inside. Ceramides are key for healthy, strong skin which will look naturally radiant. It strengthens the skin barrier and its ability to hold moisture, seal in skincare ingredients and protect itself from UV rays. 

Next, ASTALIFT White Jelly Aquarysta gets rid of dullness with Arbutin which controls excessive melanin production and Horse chestnut extract which promotes the smooth shedding of excess melanin pigments. Melanin buildup in the uppermost layer of the skin covers the complexion in a dull veil. So without excess melanin that absorbs light, light bounces off the skin and gives it a bright, lit-from-within look.

Lastly, the brightening skin booster contains Bilberry leaf extract which helps realign corneocytes in the skin. This neat alignment lets light reflect uniformly which gives the skin a beautiful radiant glow. It also helps maintain the moisture-retention and barrier functions of the skin.

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The ASTALIFT White Jelly Aquarysta has a cool jelly-like texture that spontaneously reforms back into a flat surface. It's such a satisfying feeling to open the bottle to the pretty "jelly" that looks as good as new every time.

Besides the aesthetic and fun of using it, the jelly formula has a functional purpose too. In this state, the skin booster can be packed with a high concentration of ceramide particles while still kept stable.

It would be such a waste to throw out the gorgeous jewel-like jar with ombre red details, so it's perfect that there are eco-friendly capsule refills you can simply replace the empty tubs with.

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The jar also comes with a spatula and base for displaying on your vanity.

#5 Give Yourself a Face Massage

Massaging your face can boost blood circulation, stimulate muscles, smooth fine lines and help lymph flow. This all works together to give the complexion a bright, youthful glow.

After cleansing and drying your face, spread a pearl-sized amount of ASTALIFT White Jelly Aquarysta on clean hands and spread it on your face.

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Making sure your fingernails are short, use the ball of your fingertips to gently massage your face in an upwards and outwards motion.

Start from your forehead, then move down to your cheeks, under your bottom lip and jawline. For your undereye area, sweep your fingers upwards from the inner corners of your eye, and then glide your fingertips from your temples down the sides of your face towards your neck. Repeat until it's fully absorbed into the skin.

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Even though the ASTALIFT White Jelly Aquarysta looks and feels like actual edible jelly, it melts into a lightweight lotion-like texture on the skin that doesn't feel sticky.

This skin booster is suitable for all skin types, even sensitive skin. And thankfully, its clean floral fragrance didn't irritate my sensitive skin and made me feel refreshed every time I applied it.

While following these five tips above, I documented skin's progress. Three weeks later, my complexion was noticeably more radiant. I also started getting compliments from people I hadn't seen in a while that my skin looked brighter and generally better than before. Other changes I noticed was less breakouts and sensitivity, and a more even texture.

Photo from GirlStyle Singapore

For even better results, you can complete your skincare routine with the accompanying ASTALIFT White series products after this step including a lotion, essence and emulsion. These extra steps will also suit those with extra dry or premature ageing skin.

If you need to treat your dull skin to some TLC, follow these tips to bring it back to its bright, glowing glory. You can purchase the ASTALIFT White Jelly Aquarysta starting from $157 here -> astalift.com.sg.

This post is brought to you by Astalift.

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Text by: GirlStyle SG