7 Things to Remember when Building a Skincare Routine.

1. Your Habits maybe causing the issues you're trying to fix

Take a look at your daily and weekly habits. Do you wash your face? Change your pillow case? Eat fast food often? Drink a lot of soda? Is your hair usually down? Do you wash your hands frequently or touch your face a lot?

These examples and more all contribute to the outcome of your skin. So, before you go buying every serum that promises to brighten tighten and clear your skin, evaluate how much of your skin problems are coming from your habits and target those root causes first.

Other habits include but are not limited to: wearing makeup, using unclean makeup brushes, eating a lot of greasy, oily or sugary foods (coffee, burgers, fries, energy drinks, lactose, butter, most cereals), letting unclean hands touch your face, not enough sleep and more.

A recommendation- keep some face wipes in your car so when you're eating lunch at work, getting a burger or you just feel unclean, you can wipe your face and fingers and steering wheel and kill some of the bacteria and wipe off the oils that would've clogged your pores.

2. Know your Skin

Is your skin oily or dry or a combination? Prone to acne?

Once your habits are better aligned to prevent breakouts, you can start really seeing the genetics of your skin.

Hormonal and bacterial acne are the only two that are difficult to beat with good habits and might require some chemical intervention to see results (see dermatologist for retinol or benzoyl peroxide).

If you're lucky enough to not have your genome interfering with your skin's smoothness, and you've done your best to change your habits to prevent breakouts, now you're ready to worry about which serums to use.

3. Never Overpay (looking at you Olay)

I personally recommend The Ordinary and Cetaphil. Don't buy into trends and make sure to test on e serum or moisturizer at a time to see how how your skin reacts.

4. Simplicity over Aesthetics

The basics for a solid skincare routine are moisturizer, cleanser and sunscreen. Additional serums or treatments may be for problems that you're causing yourself (as mentioned above) and aren't really necessary.

BUT some of these additional treatments may not be able to absorb into your skin anyway and are just marketed as "special treatments" for profit (we do not stan). This is the post that I read that opened my eyes to this stuff- https://blissoma.com/skin-absorption-how-much-does-skin-absorb-into-skin-chemicals-and-cosmetics. This fun video also made me rethink things too; https://youtu.be/GxQ33jJRN5E.

ANYWAY what the post explains is how ingredients will penetrate the skin. Size and chemical composition are the major factors, whether lipid or water based, less than 500 Daltons (1g/mol), or coupled with an emulsifier. And note that whatever you put on your skin will make its way to your bloodstream, so organic/natural penetration enhancers (soy lecithin) are better than synthetics (ex. ethanol).

Treat issues by addressing the problem, before worrying about treatments.

5. Note your cycle

Every girl notices how their skin breaks out the week before their menstrual cycle, but it good the rest of the time. Your worth and value will not deteriorate from a pimple or two, it is your soul and personality that people remember you by, so when that time of month comes by, just drink your water, eat cleanly, and in a week your face will be radiant again.

6. Consistency is important, but don't overdo it

I didn't even think about this until recently when I was doing my usual double cleanse with an SA Cleanser and my skin burned, it felt like I was rubbing sand into my face. It was red and sensitive, and I iced it immediately. Weird obstacles like this have often came up in my years of trying to consistently do my skincare- my skin suddenly hates anything touching it, serums hurt and I ice my skin into a calmer state of submission.

Sometimes, you can skip washing your skin every morning and night, putting chemicals on it or using special cleansers. Listen and feel to what your skin needs in the moment as you stand over your sink looking at yourself. Don't feel pressured to treat and cleanse your skin every day and night! You can give it a break!

7. Focus on You during these routines

A skincare routine isn't a 12-step process in which you end up looking photoshopped with glass skin (Although, yes- it is goals), it is you-time. I do gua sha not because I think my jawline needs shaping, but because face massages just feel soo good! I love it! You're being mindful and putting aside time for you. Over the sink, it's just you and yourself. You see all of your blemishes, all the problems you're trying to fix, all the things about yourself you wish you could change. But it's just you. It's just a body to hold all of the secrets, opinions, feelings, passions, dreams, fears, regrets, pain and love that make up you.