Summer Skin, Naturally: The Benefits of Herbal Ingredients in Your Skincare Routine

Summer brings sunshine, warmer temperatures, and more time outdoors—but it can also bring its own skincare challenges. Increased sun exposure, heat, humidity, sweat, and dehydration can leave skin feeling dry, irritated, oily, or simply out of balance.

At Vivoderm Natural Skincare, we believe healthy-looking skin starts with thoughtful ingredients. For more than 50 years, our dermatologist-formulated skincare has combined the principles of holistic dermatology with the benefits of natural botanical ingredients.

This summer, discover how herbal ingredients like Chamomile, Comfrey, Aloe Vera, Rosemary, and Green Tea can help soothe, hydrate, nourish, and protect the look of your skin.

Chamomile: Calm and Soothe

Summer heat and environmental stress can leave skin feeling sensitive and irritated. Chamomile is well known for its soothing and calming properties and is a wonderful botanical ingredient for helping skin feel comfortable and refreshed.

You’ll find Chamomile in the Vivoderm Facial Cleanser and Intense Moisturizer, where it helps provide gentle, comforting care as part of your daily skincare routine.

Summer skincare benefit: A soothing botanical choice for skin that needs a little extra comfort after exposure to heat and environmental stress.

🌱 Comfrey: Comfort and Skin Support

Comfrey has a long history of use in traditional herbal skincare. Its naturally occurring compounds, including allantoin, are valued for their soothing and skin-conditioning properties.

Comfrey is featured in several Vivoderm formulas, including our Zinc Repairing Facial Cream and Intense Moisturizer, helping provide nourishing care for skin that may become stressed or dry.

Summer skincare benefit: Helps support soft, conditioned skin while providing soothing botanical care.

Aloe Vera: Nature’s Hydration Helper

When temperatures rise, keeping skin hydrated becomes especially important. Aloe Vera is a classic skincare botanical known for its cooling, soothing, and moisturizing qualities.

Aloe Vera is featured in several Vivoderm products, including our Facial Cleanser, Intense Moisturizer, and Anti-Aging Daily Moisturizer.

Summer skincare benefit: Helps replenish moisture and soothe the feel of skin after a warm day outdoors.

Rosemary: Antioxidant Botanical Care

Rosemary isn’t just a flavorful herb—it is also a valuable botanical ingredient in skincare. Rosemary contains naturally occurring antioxidant compounds that help support skin against everyday environmental stressors.

Vivoderm incorporates Rosemary into products such as our Facial Cleanser and Intense Moisturizer, combining its botanical benefits with other nourishing ingredients.

Summer skincare benefit: Provides antioxidant-rich botanical care for skin exposed to everyday environmental stress.

Green Tea: Antioxidant & Refreshing

Green Tea is rich in naturally occurring polyphenols and antioxidants, making it a popular ingredient for skincare focused on protecting and refreshing the appearance of skin.

Our Vivoderm Facial Toner with Grape Seed & Green Tea combines Green Tea with antioxidant-rich Grape Seed to help balance and refresh the skin.

Summer skincare benefit: A refreshing, antioxidant-focused addition to a warm-weather skincare routine.

Why Choose Herbal Ingredients?

Your skin is exposed to many environmental factors every day—and summer can intensify that exposure. Choosing skincare formulated with thoughtfully selected botanical ingredients can be a gentle way to nourish and care for your skin.

At Vivoderm, we combine herbal ingredients with dermatologist-formulated skincare to create products designed to support healthy-looking skin without relying on harsh ingredients.

From Chamomile and Aloe Vera to Comfrey, Rosemary, and Green Tea, each botanical is selected for a purpose and thoughtfully incorporated into our formulas.

Build Your Summer Skincare Routine

A simple summer routine can help keep your skin feeling fresh, hydrated, and balanced:

1. Cleanse gently.
Use a gentle cleanser to remove sweat, oil, and daily buildup without over-drying your skin.

2. Refresh and balance.
Follow cleansing with an alcohol-free toner such as Vivoderm Facial Toner with Grape Seed & Green Tea.

3. Keep skin moisturized.
Even oily or combination skin needs hydration. Choose a moisturizer suited to your skin type to help maintain a healthy moisture balance.

4. Don’t forget sun protection.
Use appropriate broad-spectrum sunscreen and follow sun-safe habits whenever you’re outdoors. Natural ingredients can complement your skincare routine, but they are not a substitute for properly tested sunscreen.

5. Listen to your skin.
If your skin feels dry, tight, irritated, or congested during the summer, adjust your routine accordingly. Sometimes a simpler routine is exactly what your skin needs.

Naturally Inspired Skincare for Summer and Beyond

Summer skincare doesn’t have to be complicated. By choosing products with carefully selected botanical ingredients, you can give your skin the soothing, moisturizing, and antioxidant support it needs throughout the season.

For more than five decades, Vivoderm Natural Skincare has combined holistic dermatology with the benefits of natural ingredients to create skincare for healthy-looking skin at every stage of life.

Let nature be part of your summer skincare routine. 

Explore Vivoderm’s collection of natural skincare products and discover the herbal ingredients that can become part of your daily routine.

We all know that hydration is crucial and that drinking plenty of water optimizes the functions of the body. What some people forget is that the body needs not only to be hydrated from the inside but also from the outside. With the summer sun sapping moisture from your skin, it’s the perfect time to introduce ultra-moisturizing shea butter treatments into your skincare regimen.

Shea butter comes from nuts of karite trees, which are only found in the wild in the savannah regions of West and Central Africa. It is said Cleopatra used to smooth shea butter onto her body to counteract Egypt’s scorching climate. Centuries later, people around the world turn to this versatile skincare ingredient for all manner of applications from soothing scrapes to treating parched hair.

closeup of shea butter and shea nuts

Shea trees can live for 300 years, but they produce nuts only once annually. It takes about 15 to 30 years for karite trees to bear high-quality fruit that is later crushed and boiled to obtain a yellowish-colored fatty extract. According to the American Shea Butter Institute (ASBI), this product, which is rich in vitamins A, E, and F, is a superior moisturizer that contains remarkable healing properties for a variety of skin ailments, including eczema, psoriasis, and acne. It is also used to fortify and protect cell membranes, fade scars, minimize the appearance of stretch marks and wrinkles, improve hyperpigmentation, offer natural protection from harmful ultraviolet rays, and even relieve sinus problems. Shea butter is known as one of the most effective skin healers and moisturizers ever created. Originally used by African healers thousands of years ago, shea butter remains one of nature’s most potent skin rejuvenators and hydrators.

The ASBI recommends using the cold pressed shea butter that does not contain chemicals or preservatives. The ASBI classifies products as A, B, C or F. Class A is premium shea butter while class F is poor quality shea moisturizer. Pure shea butter is also edible and has long been used for cooking in many parts of Africa. Unrefined 100 percent shea butter is available at health food stores throughout the US.

This deeply nourishing product also has a low melting point, and it penetrates quickly when it comes in contact with the skin without leaving behind any greasy residue. Shea butter’s ease of use and myriad benefits have made it extremely popular and a darling on spa menus. Shea butter is high in oleic acid – a deeply moisturizing essential fatty acid that comprises the trademark thick texture. It’s also an ideal carrier for essential oil blends and mixes well with other oils such as fractionated coconut, jojoba and safflower.

While shea butter is effective on the body, it can also help people put their best faces forward and be a saving grace for those with troubled skin. Studies have shown it to be a natural anti-inflammatory agent. It decreases any acne flare-ups while naturally hydrating the skin, hence normalizing the sebum production to avoid future outbreaks – leaving the skin less oily.

Shea butter works well on all skin types, even sensitive skin. In addition, it boasts cinnamates and other compounds that may help inhibit enzymes that contribute to the inflammatory response.

The delicate and wrinkled eye area can benefit greatly from using shea butter to plump the skin around the eye area and help erase crow’s feet. Because the eye area does not have many oil glands, the skin around the eyes easily dehydrates without the ability to reproduce oil. The use of shea butter in eye cream provides a rich and healing source of hydration to penetrate the neglected eye area, keeping it supple and helping it retain moisture.

Also look for shea butter in your all over body creams and body butters. Shea butter and Coca Butter is used to help skin of all types heal and regain moisture levels and leave a silky finish. In addition to treating the delicate eye area, lips and lip lines can also be improved with shea butter. Not only does shea butter nourish the skin but it is also used to treat troubled tresses. Warm shea butter can be applied to the shaft of the hair to heal, protect, and penetrate every strand to make hair shinier, softer, and stronger. This treatment is perfect for people with dry, damaged, or over-processed hair as it promotes restructuring of the hair shaft. It’s beneficial to those who have been exposed to the sun and ocean, or extreme elements that are damaging and drying to the hair.

No matter what your outdoor preference is this summer –whether it is swimming, hiking or simply sunning – be sure to include versatile shea butter in your skin care treatment plans!