The 4 Cycles That Affect Your Skin

Have you ever noticed that your skin feels like a different skin from one week to the next? Dewy and calm one day, a little shiny or sensitive the next. Nothing is wrong. Your skin is simply alive, and like everything alive, it moves in rhythms.

I think of these rhythms as four cycles: your monthly cycle, the moon it has long been linked with, the seasons of the year and the seasons of your life. Once you start to see them, your skin begins to make so much more sense. And caring for it becomes simpler, not more complicated.

Here is what each cycle does, and how to work with it.

1. Your monthly cycle, and the moon

A menstrual cycle lasts about 29.5 days on average, almost exactly the length of a lunar month. Many women once had their periods synced with the new moon, and for centuries women have used the moon as a gentle monthly rhythm for rest and self-care.

Across those weeks, your hormones shift, and your skin shifts with them:

• In the first half of your cycle, rising estrogen often brings plumpness, bounce and a natural glow.
• Around ovulation, many women find their skin at its most radiant.
• In the second half, progesterone rises and skin can feel oilier, with the odd breakout around the chin and jawline.
• Around your period, skin can feel a little drier and more sensitive.

Practical tips:

• Keep a few notes on how your skin feels each week. After two or three months, you will see your own pattern.
• When skin feels sensitive, be gentle: a soft cleanse, fewer steps, more care.
• When it feels oilier, a thorough evening cleanse helps keep pores clear. Oil dissolves oil, so a cleansing oil works beautifully here.
• Let the new moon be your reminder to slow down for a longer evening ritual.

2. Your yearly cycle: the seasons

Your skin feels the weather just as you do. In winter, cold air outside and heating inside pull moisture from your skin. In summer, heat raises oil production, and sun, wind and salt water ask a lot of your skin barrier.

The seasons affect your hair, skin and nails, and they affect your sleep too. That makes good sleep and nutrition especially important as the seasons turn.

In summer, skin is often dehydrated rather than dry. It may look shiny on the surface but still be thirsty for water underneath. This is when water-binding hyaluronic acid shines, because it helps your skin hold on to moisture.

In winter, skin needs lipids: the natural oils that seal your skin barrier and keep moisture in. Think of them as the soft, protective coat that keeps everything nourished inside.

Practical tips:

• Apply your serum to slightly damp skin, so hyaluronic acid has water to hold on to.
• In winter, seal your routine with a nourishing oil or cream, and use a humidifier or a bowl of water near the heater.
• Eat for your skin: healthy fats such as olive oil, nuts, seeds and oily fish, plus plenty of fruit, vegetables and water.
• Protect your sleep. Skin does much of its repair work at night.

3. Your life cycle

Your skin changes through every chapter of your life: as a teenager, through your twenties, pregnancy and menopause, and beyond.

• As a teen, skin often makes plenty of oil, but it still needs water to stay balanced. Oily skin can be dehydrated skin too.
• From your mid-20s, collagen production gradually slows. Collagen is the protein that gives skin its firmness and bounce.
• Through pregnancy, shifting hormones can bring glow, sensitivity or changes in pigmentation.
• After menopause, skin makes fewer lipids and can feel drier and thinner, so nourishment becomes even more important.

What stays beautifully constant is what healthy skin comes back to at every age: water, lipids and nourishment.

Practical tips:

• Whatever your age, hydrate first, then seal in moisture.
• Support collagen from the inside too, with protein, vitamin C-rich foods and good sleep.
• Wear daily sun protection. It is one of the kindest habits for skin at any age.
• Listen to your skin as it is today, rather than to the number on your birthday cake.

4. One ritual for every cycle

When you see your skin through these four cycles, something lovely happens. You stop chasing a new product for every change and start nourishing the skin you have, in every season.

That is the idea behind Matinata. When skin is fed and balanced, it moves through every cycle more easily.

How Matinata fits

Matinata is one nourishing, certified organic ritual for every cycle of life, crafted in small batches. You simply adjust how much you use:

• re.purify to cleanse, morning and evening.
• re.balance to mist and prepare your skin.
• re.hydrate for water-binding hydration, with a little more in summer or when skin is oily.
• re.glow for nourishing lipids, with a little more in winter or as skin becomes drier.
• re.nourish to seal everything in.

An oily teenager might use more re.hydrate and less re.glow. A woman after menopause might lean on re.glow and re.nourish. It is the same ritual, simply shaped to you.

Which cycle are you in right now?

I would love to hear from you. Which cycle is your skin feeling most at the moment: your monthly cycle, the season or a new chapter of life? Share it with us, and save this post to come back to as the seasons turn.

With love,
Natalie