The Secret to Strong Glowing Skin
3 Simple Pillars for Healthy Skin, According to an Esthetician
As an esthetician, one of the questions I’m asked most frequently is: ‘What is my skincare routine missing?’ It comes from people of all ages, genders, skin types, and even levels of expertise. You might think your most skincare-obsessed friend has all the answers — but oftentimes, the deeper you go, the more questions you have. So I’m bringing it back to basics with the three pillars I consider the true cornerstones of a healthy skincare routine.”
Let’s start with DAYTIME
1. CLEANSE YOUR SKIN
I have seen sooooo many people say they don’t wash their faces in the morning. Some people splash with water, some use a micellar swipe, some do absolutely nothing before slapping on their morning products. This, in my opinion, is crazy. Well, maybe not crazy, but it’s not my preferred method for starting your day.
I’ll explain why. Your skin is repairing itself at night. Cells are turning over and desquamating (shedding) from the skin. You’re sweating. You’re drooling. Dust is flying around in the air and settling on your skin. Your cat is walking across your headboard shedding fur onto your pillow. Not to mention, you did this whole beautiful nighttime routine before going to bed with layers of delicious serums and rich creams, and you’re just going to leave that all there??? Then slap on some serums in the morning and hope for the best? I hope I’ve created the visual for you that haunts my brain whenever I think about this pervasive issue.
To be clear, washing your face in the morning doesn’t have to be a production. The reason most people give for not cleansing is they don’t want to strip their skin of oils. I don’t want you to do that, either, just remove what accumulated overnight. I like a gentle cleanser for this, like Neova Cu3 Gentle Cleanser. If your skin is dry, Olivier Midy Lait Midy would be nice. My point is, we’re doing a very light cleanse to freshen the canvas that is our face before we apply our daytime products.
2. USE AN ANTIOXIDANT
Antioxidants as an ingredient category are vital for skin health. During the daytime, our bodies are in defensive mode. We’re fielding environmental and physiological assaults like UV, pollution, stress, hormone fluctuations, etc. Many of these assaults produce free radicals, which are unstable molecules that scavenge our healthy cells and create oxidative stress, which leads to cellular dysfunction. This can show up as anything from premature aging to chronic disease. To fight this, we use antioxidants. We prioritize them in our diets, and should also prioritize them in our skincare.
My favorite type of antioxidant skincare product will have multiple antioxidants in the formula. As the antioxidant neutralizes the free radical, it loses an electron. When you have multiple sources of antioxidants, they will loan each other electrons and keep the formula in an active state longer. I don’t expect everyone to have a list of antioxidants memorized, so a great way to check if your product has more than one in the formula is the website incidecoder.com. It is a huge database of products, broken down by ingredient function with detailed explanations if you wish to explore further. The real magic is the “Decode Inci” function, which allows you to photograph the ingredients list from the back of the box or a screenshot on a website and it will instantly produce the same breakdown for products already saved to the database. Skincare nerds can spend their whole day there.
A short list of some of my favorite antioxidant products includes: Neova Total DNA Repair, Calecim Professional Pigment Solution, Environ Colostrum Gel, Cosmetics 27 Baume 27 (both Creme Riche and Creme Legere), Auteur Definitive Lifting Toner, Costa Brazil Kaya Anti-Aging Face Oil, Environ AVST Gel, Environ C-Quence Serums (find your level 1-4+), Reome Active Recovery Broth. Not such a short list and I could continue lol.
3. APPLY SPF
This is my ultimate, most non-negotiable skincare rule. UV exposure is responsible for 90% of our cutaneous aging. We all know that sun exposure can cause skin cancer, so for that reason alone you should be protecting your skin. But besides that, it leads to premature aging such as wrinkles, hyperpigmentation and textural changes. Once the DNA has been damaged by UV radiation, it is nearly impossible to repair. And by the time serious damage appears in the skin, you’re cooked. Well, not fully, but what you may need to do to fix it won’t be fun – we’re talking painful lasers with downtime. An ounce of prevention (SPF 30+) is worth a pound of cure (Fraxel). So just make it a habit, apply 1/4 teaspoon to your face every morning year round, reapply when you’re in the sun, take a Vitamin D supplement if your doctor suggests, and you won’t be sorry.
So that’s it! Three basic pillars to create a healthy skincare routine. If you have these in place, you can build the rest of your routine out to target whatever particulars you want to address. Or, if you’re a minimalist who wants to do the least, stick with this and I’ll be satisfied.
Stay tuned for my cornerstones of a well-rounded nighttime skincare routine.
xx Raquel
