Costhetics is proud to be a leader in reporting on the latest news and information about cosmetic surgery, aesthetic enhancement, and healthy beauty. Sometimes, however, we like to get back to basics.
This is one of those times. We’re re-visiting the rules for using skin care products correctly to help ensure you’re getting the best bang for your beauty bucks.
There’s a method in our madness…
How Daily Skin Care Can Take You to Your Happy Place
Are you feeling frazzled? We have a fix for that. It’s your daily beauty regimen. Costhetics wants to invite you to think of your daily skincare routine as a sea of tranquillity in these stormy times. Twice a day, you can literally wash away the stress and do your skin a world of good at the same time.
Taking care of your skin is always a good idea, but it’s especially important now when the COVID-19 pandemic has everyone chewing their fingernails. “Something as simple as a three-minute skincare routine twice a day can be huge,” reports Healthy Magazine in their article The Positive Power of Beauty Rituals. “It’s great for helping lower stress and anxiety, and it keeps your skin healthy, which feeds back positively.”
How to Get the Full Benefits of Your Skin Care Program
You may not realise it, but your skin and your skincare products are locked in mortal combat. (How dramatic!) Your skin is a protective barrier. Its job is to keep in good things (like water) and keep out bad things (such as environment toxins). In its job to be a good steward of health, skin errs on the side of caution. It prevents the beneficial ingredients in skincare products from penetrating the stratum corneum (the skin’s outer layer), too. When you follow the correct order in applying skin care products, however, you can make the stratum corneum more receptive.
Don’t feel self-conscious if you’ve never stopped to think about this. The vast majority of consumers are (to be blunt) pretty clueless as to what to do with the myriad beauty products cramming their bathroom. They use products irregularly and apply them in a random order. This approach truly turns skin care into a game of Russian roulette, with your skin the big loser. Your wallet is a loser, too, as you toss out expensive products you think are ineffectual, when they’re actually being used incorrectly by you.
Costhetics wants you to be a winner, not a loser, so we’ve prepared our simple step-by-step guide to layering skin care products. Ready to dive in?
Protection Racket
The three most important words in daily skin care are protection, protection, protection. During the day, your skin is under siege from punishing UV rays, drying air-conditioning, air pollution, and more. The time you invest caring for your skin each morning will reward you with a radiant youthful complexion. Once your face is clean, there’s an easy phrase for you to use and to get the order right in applying skin care products:
Thin goes in, then thick stays on your skin.
The first products you apply each morning have a consistency that goes from the thinnest to the thickest. Antioxidant-rich serums need to penetrate the skin while moisturisers sit on the top. Reverse the application, and the moisturiser joins the stratum corneum in creating a barrier. Epic fail!
Proceed in an Orderly Fashion: Applying Skin Care Products Correctly
Dermatologists and skin care professionals recommend you take the following approach to your morning beauty ritual:
- Step 1 – Wash Away Dirt – A facial bath with warm (not hot) water with a cleanser formulated for your skin type kicks things off.
- Step 1A – Exfoliate – This step should be part of your regime a couple of times a week. Be careful not to over-exfoliate. You will end up irritating your delicate skin.
- Step 2 – Get Toned – If only it were as easy to tone your abs as it is to tone your skin. Toners were developed to balance the skin’s pH after the use of soap. Today’s toners are true multi-taskers with the ability to do both balance pH, firm skin, and even work as delivery systems, for skin-loving ingredients such as vitamin B derivatives, antioxidants, and more.
Costhetics Pro Tip: Like cleansers, toners are formulated for different skin types, so be sure you select one that’s right for your unique skin.
- Step 3 – Use a Serum – Antioxidant serums are widely available and provide a variety of benefits thanks to ingredients the skin finds nutritious. When it’s well-fed with antioxidants, your skin is better able to neutralise UV damage and quiet inflammatory skin problems.
- Step 4 – Cream Your Eye Area – The skin surrounding our eyes is thin and extremely delicate. By the time you enter your 20’s, it’s already beginning to feel (and show) the effects of time. Applying an eye cream to your eye area daily can help you prevent skin laxity and collagen loss, and (hopefully) delay the need for surgical or non-surgical solutions.
Costhetics Pro Tip: An eye cream with SPF gives your delicate eye skin even better protection.
- Step 5 – Replace Lost Moisture – Whether your skin is dry, oily, or a combination of the two, it needs help staying hydrated. Your body’s sebaceous glands work hard to lubricate the skin in the face of weather, toxins, and the sun, but they need your help.
- Step 7 – Apply Sun Protection – Chemical sunscreen and moisturisers are at odds. Apply a moisturiser first and it will prevent the sunscreen from being absorbed. Apply the sunscreen first and the moisturiser won’t work as well. Look for formulations that include moisturising among their benefits.
Generally speaking, Team Costhetics doesn’t like giving orders. When it comes to keeping your skin beautiful and healthy, however, we felt it was the right thing to do.