I am one of those people who is obsessed with skincare to the point where I have been doing copious amounts of research to figure out the perfect skincare routine for my skin. So, while I have not yet achieved “glass skin” (and maybe I never will), I have definitely estabilised my skincare to the point where I feel like my routine does its job.
First off, an introduction to my basic knowledge of skincare. As I understand it, there can be anywhere from 3-15 or however many steps in a skincare routine. It gets crazy. I did a lot of research and I have decided to go with a four to eight step routine that I find easy enough. I use the four step routine for every day, and a couple times a week I’ll go for more steps depending on if I’m breaking out or how much time I have to spare. I usually tend to get breakouts on my cheeks and forehead and have a lot of texture and redness as well as the occasional blackheads on my nose. Here’s a breakdown of my routine for my ‘normal’ skin (not oily but not dry).
- Basic Daily Face Wash (CeraVe Renewing SA Cleanser)
- Serum (Morning: The Ordinary Ascorbyl Glucoside Solution 12% with Vitamin C, Night: The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5)
- Moisturizer (Up&up Daily Moisturising Lotion)
- Sunscreen (Kosé Suncut UV Protect Essence SPF 50+)
The other four steps that I sometimes include are a post-cleansing face mask (The Ordinary AHA 30% + BHA 2% Peeling Solution -the red one that looks like period blood on TikTok), using toner (The Ordinary Glycolic Acid 7% Exfoliating Toning Solution) before serums, using a treatment after cleansing (Mario Badescu Drying Patches), and sometimes I also use a jade roller and gua sha.
Over time, I’ve learned not to use these all at once, so my skincare routine is never fully eight steps. If I use the face mask, I don’t use toner because I find that it makes my skin extra sensitive. If I have a pimple patch on, I don’t use toner on top of it. Toner is usually only necessary on people who have oily skin or avid foundation wearers, so I only use toner after sweating a ton or wearing foundation for the whole day. That and a bunch of other tips have come in handy when treating my skin.
tip #1: Don’t wash your face in the morning
I kept hearing about this so I decided to try it, especially because it’s actually taking a step out of my routine. Basically, you don’t need to cleanse the products you put on your face the morning after, you just need to rinse them off. This is especially great for me because when I was cleansing morning and night, it was drying my skin out. It also feels nice to wash your face with lukewarm water (using hot or cold water can damage your skin) in the morning, it’s refreshing and helps wake you up. Before doing my morning skincare, I rinse my face and pat it dry before anything else.
tip #2: Wash your hands before doing ANYTHING
This one might seem obvious, but I used to make this mistake all the time. My main issue was that I have a whole haircare routine as well and sometimes I would get out of the shower and start putting leave in conditioner and hair oil into my hair and then do skincare immediately after without washing my hands in between. Admittedly, tons of hair oils work on skin as well; but, always apply oil-serums or face oils last because no other skincare product can penetrate an oil. It also led to product buildup that was doing my skin dirty, literally. Now, when I get out of the shower, I always do my skincare before my haircare and I have found that it leads to less breakouts.
tip #3: don’t mix exfoliates
This one is huge especially because I know how retinol can seem like this amazing end all ingredient to use on acne. Personally, I don’t use retinol, but I still thought this would be a great tip to include because I do use AHAs and BHAs. AHAs and BHAs are exfoliating chemicals such as salicylic acid, glycolic acid and lactic acid. These can be great to use to prevent and dissolve breakouts, but they definitely require tons of moisturizing agents and SPF. AHAs and BHAs should also only be used at night because they do make your skin more sensitive to the sun. Retinol is the same, don’t use it in the morning and never use it at the same time as AHAs or BHAs. Retinol is also an exfoliate, and an incredibly powerful one, and using them together wouldn’t be doing your skin any favors.
tip #4: reapply sunscreen throughout the day (every day)
I’m sure you’ve heard this one before. If you’re not wearing sunscreen, your entire skincare routine is basically useless. Sunscreen is, above all, the most important step in any skincare routine. Even so, it’s not enough to just apply it in the morning once and then just leave it. You should be reapplying your sunscreen every 2-3 hours. There are also a ton of products that help with reapplying sunscreen over makeup, like the Supergoop (Re)Setting Mineral Powder Sunscreen SPF 35 or the Public Goods SPF 50 Spray Sunscreen. It’s also worth mentioning that you should be using at least SPF 30 (no matter how much melanin you have) and above SPF 50/60 there isn’t much of a difference in protection, so as long as you’re between 30 and 60, you’re fine.
tip #5: wait to apply serums after applying toner
Always wait until your toner dries to apply face serums. I found that if I don’t wait long enough between applying toner and serums, my skin gets irritated. It goes red and my serum starts to sting when it goes on. If I’m using hyaluronic acid serum and it stings my face, I know I’m doing something wrong because hyaluronic acid is moisturizing and it shouldn’t irritate, but instead calm my skin. After applying toner, that’s usually when I brush my teeth to give my skin time to settle.
tip #6: facial massage
Facial massage is relatively new in my skincare routine, and I don’t just mean using a jade roller or gua sha. I recently discovered this video by GlowWithAva that shows three different facial massages that help reduce morning puffiness and open up your lymph nodes. If you’re like me and often wake up with a stuffy nose from allergies, doing this cleared it for me in just five minutes. I usually do each step as I apply serum, moisturizer and SPF because otherwise my products dry on my face and the facial massage tugs on the skin too much. Also, if you’ve never seen this account before, I highly recommend scrolling through because her IGTVs are a gold mine of skincare tips and recommendations.
tip #7: don’t let shampoo/conditioner wash over your face
This one is more of something that causes breakouts that I just didn’t know about for a long time. Basically, letting shampoo or conditioner wash over your face, specifically your forehead, can cause breakouts. This just comes naturally to a lot of us, because when you’re in the shower it’s natural for some soap to get on your forehead. I try to avoid it as much as possible and I think because of that I have less breakouts on some parts of my forehead. It’s definitely not the only thing that causes breakouts in that area, I know that any other hair product on the forehead as well as bangs, sweat, diet, or maybe just hormones could all be factors in forehead breakouts. This is just one that I hadn’t known before and I definitely would have benefited from knowing it sooner.
It’s worth mentioning that some of these tips may not work for everyone. Maybe not the ‘wash hands before skincare’, that one’s pretty universal. But maybe washing your face in the morning helps balance your breakouts. This happens to work for me, but if it doesn’t work for you that just means that we have different skin, which makes sense. No one’s skin is going to be the same as yours. You may have had a bad reaction to one of the products I use. I’m still learning too, and my skincare routine isn’t perfect. I have accepted that I may never have perfect skin and I mostly like skincare because I like to take care of myself. Even if I do still get breakouts sometimes, I know what I’m doing is good for the overall health of my skin. Plus it’s nice to have 10 minutes to myself to relax and only focus on a routine that I know is going to help me. I hope some of these tips can help you the way they helped me and remember to take care of yourself during finals!