A Resolution You Can Stick with
Korean skin care routines aren’t for the faint of heart. Like crash dieting, the restrictions (or excessiveness) can cause people to jump ship and give up entirely.
Honestly, we usually just don’t make the time to double cleanse and put on a face mask twice a day, no matter how trendy it is. Korea showed us the most extensive way to have youthful skin forever, but recently, we’ve seen a new (and much more casual) trend born in its path: skip-care.
Skip-care, in a nutshell, is about options. Rather than being bound to 10 products in a contractual morning and night agreement, you get to choose which of those products are working best for you and stick with them. If you find that you’re getting enough moisture from your night cream, skip the hydrating face mask. If you don’t wear makeup, you can easily get away without double cleansing. See how simple it is?
While describing essence as being “a hybrid between a toner and a serum,” Cosmopolitan also notes that the traditional 10-step routine still promotes the use of toner and serum alongside it. Skip-care was designed to cleanse your routine while cleansing your skin. It doesn’t take four moisturizing products to get hydrated skin and if it does, you probably just aren’t using the right one. At its core, skip-care is about using the right product, not the most products.
Products That Make it Work
Popularized for being the answer to all the “lazy girl” skin care prayers, skip-care serves a lot more function than just being less work. It’s also a lot more practical. A lot of K-beauty brands have beaten the new trend at its own game by offering products that can encompass two or more functions, shaving off a considerable amount of time, energy and cash from our routines. Brands are creating products that shorten the process without really removing any of its benefits.
Whether it be a moisturizer with SPF or an oil-based cleanser, there are a ton of products that were made to make your life a little bit easier. Papa Recipe Rose Gold Honey sheet masks are lined with essence, so you can use this in its place while getting the deep hydration of a mask.
Faith Xue at Byrdie reports that Innisfree’s Intensive Hydrating Serum is so moisturizing that she often doesn’t even use a moisturizer.
Of course, just because a product is a two-in-one extraordinaire, it shouldn’t be the first signal for quality. It might even take a while to find the exact products that make your routine the most efficient and effective, but trial and error have always been a player in the skin care game.
Eliminating the unnecessary or impractical products from your routine doesn’t make you lazy or cheap, it just makes you resourceful. You’re using less plastic waste, shaving time off a daily process while savoring its benefits and building stable habits. Skin care should definitely be taken seriously, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a chore.