I am a college student. Therefore, I am lazy. (Or is it that I am lazy and therefore I must be a college student?) Combine that with my penchant for managing to contract whatever disease of the week is floating around my dorm floor and chronic migraines, I’m not exactly the best at keeping up with a proper skincare routine. Ten steps is a lot for me, even when I’m at my most productive.
However, there’s a few aspects to skincare that you should never ever skip out on, no matter how tired or haggard you’re feeling. Trust me when I say your skin and you will be thanking me years (or even a week) from now.
To quote the great Shia LaBeouf, just do it. It doesn’t have to be an intense thirty minute ordeal. It doesn’t even have to be the double cleanse. Just splash some water on your face and a little bit of soap and rinse it all off. I don’t care if you’re not wearing makeup, or if your face looks clean and fresh to you. Oil will build up, pores will be clogged, and acne will appear if you don’t wash your face.
2. Take Off Your Makeup
Even if you don’t wash your face, it is incredibly important that you take off your makeup. Grime is already building up on your skin as it is. When you add makeup to that, you create a barrier on your skin that keeps all that nasty stuff on it and all the good stuff (like moisturizers) out. Aside from just break outs, sleeping in your makeup can cause you to prematurely age. Please girl, just take off your makeup.
3. Wear Sunscreen
I do not care how long you have gone without wearing sunscreen, I do not care where you are from originally (all my fellow women of color, I am looking at you), I do not care about your family’s spotless record when it comes to skin cancer — if you have not currently been wearing sunscreen everyday you go outside, you better start now. You want to know what not enough sunscreen leads to? Premature aging and skin cancer. If you don’t believe me, just ask the American Academy of Dermatology.
If you follow just these three steps, you will see an improvement upon your skin, I promise. And if I, of all people, can manage these every day, then you can, too.