The skin is the body’s largest organ, but for most of us it’s an afterthought. For me, it took me a long time to care about my skin. Let me give you a little history of my skincare journey.
The History Of My Skincare (Or lack thereof)
As a kid my mom would wrangle my brother and I and do her best to get sunscreen on us, but I still got sunburned a few times when going to the beach and playing sports.
In my teen years, I was so lazy about applying sunscreen and hadn’t come to terms with the fact that a tan just wasn’t in the cards for me. I would get really serious sunburns when spending a day at the beach with the girls and only applying sunscreen once.
To add to my bad skincare practices, I would always forget to take my make up off at the end of the day, waking up with the eyeliner still on from the night before.
When I did used skincare products there were always harsh cleansers or exfoliators whose only job was to eradicate the few spots of acne that came with puberty, but mostly just dried out my probably already dehydrated skin.
I continued the less than ideal face cleaning habits as I headed into college, where I would occasionally pass out wearing a full face of makeup. However, when I was going to bed at a regular hour I was washing my face every night and every morning and using dreaded face wipes to remove my makeup. When it came to sunscreen I started to wise up when I knew I would be outside for long periods of time. I would make sure to reapply it every 20 minutes to avoid burning.
Once I hit my mid 20s I started learning about the Youtube beauty community, and that opened my eyes to skincare. I began to wash my face daily even when I didn’t have to take off my makeup. I really got into using masks and trying a bunch of different skincare products.
After trying and testing a bunch of different things I got overwhelmed by the options and decided to stick to a simple routine. At night, I remove my makeup with a cleansing balm, wash my face with a cleanser, and then add my retinol and finish with a moisturizer. All I do in the morning is apply moisturizer.
Recently I have decided to put a little more thought into my skincare because I think its important to take care of your body because it’s the only one you get and that includes your skin. So I did a little bit of research.
What the Experts Say About Skincare
After searching around the internet and a google search or two I found a couple of articles regarding skincare. What experts say should be included in your skincare routine. I added the steps from the two articles I found most helpful below.
From Women’s Health Mag
They believe this is the combination of products you need in your morning and evening skincare routine in your 30s.
Morning
- Cleanser
- Toner
- Serum
- Moisturizer
- SPF
Evening
- Cleanser
- Exfoliator
- Serum
- Night Cream
- Eye Cream
My thoughts on the morning routine is that everything looks like it makes sense except the toner for me. Toners I have tried in the past always dry out my skin. Many toners have alcohol as an ingredient which will dry out the skin.
As for the evening routine, there are two products I am not sure about. First, is the exfoliator. I stopped using an exfoliator because it was too strong for my skin and started giving me milia which is small white bumps caused by over exfoliation.
The next product I am not 100% on board with adding to my routine personally is eye cream. I have dark circles under my eyes and I have tried many eye creams. None of the eye creams I have tried have made a huge difference. So I spoke to the wise women who does my facials about my dark circles. She told me the only thing that would improve them would be sleep and water so I might wait to add an eye cream.
Caroline Hirons
This is a general skincare routine for any age by the queen of skincare herself, Caroline Hirons.
- Cleanser
- Exfoliate with acid
- Hydrating Mist
- Eye Cream
- Serum
- Oil
- Moisturizer
- SPF
- Vitamin A/Retinoids for Anti aging
This routine has more products than the first one so it feels a little overboard for me at the moment, but who knows maybe it turns out you need all this in your routine.
I will say I think a hydrating mist is a bit of a waist of money. Is it a nice feeling on the skin? Probably. To me it seems like a waste to spend money on something that just feels nice with no huge benefit. The oil also seems nice, but might be an add for a later date since a serum and moisturizer are already adding moisture back into the skin.
What I am Adding to my Routine
Seeing these lists I am definitely going to update my skincare routine a bit by adding a few things.
- Acid (AHA) – In the Caroline Hirons article, she speaks to exfoliating with acid instead of a harsh scrub or a drying toner.
- Serum – I have used serums in the past, but never see a huge difference so I am going to try something new. I definitely want something with hydration and if it also has anti-aging benefits then I will be all in.
- SPF – I am bad at wearing SPF everyday so I want to buy a moisturizer that has a high SPF in it so I make sure I am protecting my skin from daily sun damage.
Make sure to subscribe to see what I ended up picking up, and how I liked each product. Do you have a skincare product that you absolutely love? Let me know in the comments below!