Skin care after weight loss surgery

I have found since my surgery one of the questions people are most interested in but are least willing to ask is how has my skin fared through this process of losing 70 kgs. Unfortunately, once you get to being big enough that you qualify for bariatric surgery losing all the weight you need to is most probably going to leave you with some excess skin somewhere on your body. I follow a skin care routine for my face and after weight loss surgery is a great time to implement one for everywhere else.

I’m really lucky that my skin hasn’t ended up too bad. Since my gastric bypass surgery I’ve lost 70 kgs and some parts of my body, more than others, have shrunk significantly. I have a couple of advantages on my side. The first one is my age. The younger you are when you have surgery the more collagen you have left in your skin to help it shrink back and re-mould itself to your new smaller frame. The other is that my skin is pretty good generally and even now just over a year out my surgery scars are barely even noticeable since my skin tends to heal and scar well.

The parts of my body that I’m not overly impressed with are the top inner bits of my arms, the top inner parts of my thighs, the bottom of my tummy and unsurprisingly my boobs. I also have a bit of extra skin around my body under my arms sort of in my armpits which is a bit of a pain. I didn’t have high hopes for my tummy considering I have already had a child and had a c-section to get him out.

Since I am obsessed with all things beauty I have used quite an array of different products on my skin since surgery to try and see if anything would make a difference. What I have kept going back to and now don’t even bother deviating from is the Essano Rosehip range. In particular I use the Rosehip Body Oil and the Rosehip body lotion.

I started off using the pure Rosehip oil on my scars and the redness reduced in them significantly right from when I started using it and then I started putting it on the other parts that were worrying me as I noticed them. I did some reading a while later and found that the Rosehip Oil mixture (specifically for use on your whole body) was a better product to use in terms of helping skin to improve in the ways I wanted it to.

I put the Rosehip Body Oil (as pictured above) on the areas I would really like to see an improvement first. Then I layer the Rosehip Body Lotion over the top and pretty much drown myself from the neck down in it just before I jump into bed each night. I do this 6-7 times a week and notice a difference on the odd occasion I miss it. This range smells amazing and is really good quality. It’s also readily available in supermarkets throughout New Zealand so is easy to get your hands on.

Essano Rosehip is made in New Zealand and is made from organic ingredients. I find it sinks into my skin beautifully and I really do think it has made all the difference in how well my skin has coped with my big weight loss. The only thing I regret is not starting before surgery and waiting three months after to start worrying about it.

I find with my skin it stays same same for a while like a month or two and then suddenly it looks a bit better. Lots of things I have read suggest you should give your skin two years after surgery to re-mould itself to your body and sort itself out. I’ve noticed a big difference since I started running too especially on my tummy so with all these things together I’m going to make the most of the eight or so months I have left before my two-year anniversary!

Do you have a specific skin care routine that you follow or any uh-may-zing products that you recommend? Let me know in the comments below maybe you will suggest my next holy grail product to me 😀