9 Tips for Improving Your Skincare Routine
What’s my main goal as an esthetician? To help everyone have a great skincare routine and achieve happy, healthy, clear, and radiant skin. My facial clients who see the best results from their skincare routine are the ones who follow my tips and directions to a T. When you’ve perfected your at-home skincare routine, use the right products, and are consistent with facials it is the perfect trifecta for skin that looks great, feels healthy and gets daily compliments ✨
Here are tips that I give to my facial clients to help them have their best skin ever.
scrub me secret: don’t be afraid to reach out to your esthetician in between facial treatments if you have any skincare product questions or specific skincare routine questions. Estheticians and facial clients work together as a team to give you happy and healthy skin and we understand that you might need some guidance or clarification about your at-home skincare routine. Ask your esthetician the best way to reach out in between treatments (text, email, call, DM)
Skincare Tips From an Esthetician
Don’t switch up your products all the time
Constantly switching up skincare products often or purchasing new products on a whim isn’t going to give us the best results. We want to find items that work for our skin and that have trusted ingredients. Then we want to stick to being consistent with those items. It takes about 4-6 weeks for a skincare item to really start working with our skin and delivering results. If you’re constantly switching products or trying new things then you won’t ever really know what works for your skin and what doesn’t. Also, if you’re constantly adding new items to your routine or using different products often then you have a higher chance of making your skin sensitive or broken out.
When shopping for skincare only purchase items that fit into your routine and treat your specific skin. I know it’s fun to try out new items we see other people using but I always deter my clients from purchasing new items when their skincare routine is already full of the right items.
Be consistent
This ties into what I was just talking about in my first tip. Find skincare items that work for you, apply them in the correct order, and be consistent with your AM and PM routine. Not every day and night has to be perfect with using every product but at the very least you should be cleansing in the PM and applying a mist, moisturizer, and/or facial oil. Then in the AM use toner and SPF if you want something quick and easy. It really does make a big difference in how our skin looks and feels when we are consistent with our full AM and PM routine (cleanser, toner, serums, moisturizer, SPF) and then on the times you feel like skipping your skincare routine, DON’T and just do something quick and easy instead.
Double cleanse
Double cleansing works for every type of skin! The science behind it is that your pre-cleanse facial oil or cleansing balm will attract and grab surface oils and debris like sweat, dirt, dust, makeup, and SPF and when you wipe off your pre-cleanse product it will take that surface debris with it. That leaves our skin with less buildup from the day and makes it possible for our actual facial wash to get our pores clean. When you double cleanse you’ll end up with fewer blackheads, smoother texture, and cleaner skin. A proper double cleanse is always a cleansing oil or balm followed by a facial wash, we need the first product to be oil-based so the double cleanse doesn't dry out or unbalance our skin.
scrub me secret: Here is one more cleansing tip! Don’t forget to get into all the nooks and crannies on your face. Sometimes I find extra blackheads and clogged pores beneath my facial client’s mouths or in the creases of their nasal fold or even at the edges of their face at the hairline or next to the ears. When we cleanse we want to be thorough and take our time to massage the cleanser all over the entirety of our face and neck.
Use vitamin C
Just like double cleansing, everyone can benefit from using daily vitamin C. The right kind of vitamin C product should have effective ingredients for protecting your skin but shouldn’t irritate your skin. Using a vitamin C serum underneath your moisturizer and SPF gives your skin an extra layer of free radical-fighting protection. This means that you’re keeping your skin more youthful looking and helping to ward off damage caused by polluted air and UV rays. Anytime someone doesn’t have a vitamin C serum in their routine I always suggest they add one, the Josh Rosebrook vitamin C to be exact.
Have multiple toners on hand
Here’s a tip that will make you feel like the ultimate skincare expert! Have both a hydrating toner or hydrosol plus a more astringent toner or a toner with a small dose of AHAs in your skincare arsenal. Our skin needs different things on different days, some days we might need more hydration and something calming, and on other days we can benefit from a little extra cell turnover or oil control. It also works well for our skin to use one type of toner in the AM and a different type of toner in the PM. Be intuitive with your skin and treat it to what it feels like it needs the most! Tight and dry feeling or lacking glow? Use your hydrating toner. Feeling like you have some buildup or are in need of some cell turnover? Use your toner with AHAs or BHAs.
scrub me secret: Here’s a bonus tip. don’t overdo it with BHAs, high percentage AHAs, retinol, and other exfoliants. our skin cells turnover naturally so we don’t to exfoliate daily. often flaky, dry, and crusty feeling skin is from using too many exfoliating products or using exfoliations or retinol too often. BHAs like salicylic acid are helpful for oil control and keeping pores clean but if you use a BHA more than once a day you can make your skin unbalanced or sensitive. I recommend 1-2x a week for retinol or exfoliants and 4-7x a week for BHAs
Use products that are free of fragrance
Any time you look at a product ingredient label and you see the word fragrance or perfume/parfume run the other direction! Do not purchase or use that product. These man-made scents have a long list of mystery ingredients that companies are not required to list on the product label. So when you see the word “fragrance” that is likely something made up of many different chemicals. Not only are fragrances known to be a skin irritant, causing redness, breakouts, and rashes, but they are also hormone disrupters and can cause serious health issues for some.
Essential oils are also sometimes used to scent a skincare product. Since these oils are derived from plants, herbs, and flowers they are much safer for our bodies and even have some health benefits. When used in low concentrations in skincare products essential oils are shown to have a positive effect on the skin. However, some sensitive skin types do have a negative reaction to essential oils and fragrances alike.
Hydrate AND moisturize your skin
Hydration and moisture are different, and our skin needs both! Hydration is when we give our skin water and water-binding ingredients. Examples of hydrating products would be hydrating serums, hyaluronic acid & other hydrating serums, and gel or other water-based facial moisturizers. These products are usually thinner in consistency and soak into the skin quickly. Hydrating items are to help our skin from becoming dehydrated and dull. Moisturizing items have oils in them and give our skin oils and nourishment that it needs to feel soft and supple. Facial moisturizers are often thicker in consistency and if you look at the product label they have an oil or multiple oils in the formulation. Facial oil also moisturizes our skin. Moisturizer and/or facial oil are always the last step of our skincare routine since these are our heaviest products. For skin that feels plump, is free of fine lines, and isn’t dry or flaky we want to be giving our skin both hydration AND moisture. For myself, this looks like using a hydrating toner, a water-based cream, and facial oil.
scrub me secret: oily skin types still need the right amount of hydration and moisture. we can’t cleanse away our oils without replenishing our skin in some way. Oily skin types will overproduce oils if they feel lacking. So when we cleanse and use an astringent toner without adding a lightweight facial lotion or moisturizer then our skin will rebound by making more oil, and this is when we end up feeling oil slick and unbalanced. The best thing for oily skin is to use something lightweight and hydrating in the morning like a gel-based hydrator or hydrating serum and use a non-pore-clogging moisturizer as your last step in the PM.
Get monthly facials
Monthly facials fill in the gaps of your at-home skincare routine. Your esthetician can do professional extractions of any stubborn blackheads and whiteheads (because picking your skin at home is a no-no), they can treat areas with signs of aging, work on pigment spots, and renew your skin in so many different ways. With monthly facials, your esthetician can also easily see your skin’s progress and help you tweak anything in your routine that might not be working for you. My clients who come in every 4-6 weeks are so happy with the way their skin looks, feels, and functions.
Layer your items correctly
Applying skincare in the right order is key because that’s how we get all our products to work and do their specific job. You’ll often hear this referred to as “layering your skincare”. This is how you layer your skincare items: Cleanse, exfoliation (optional and not daily), toner, retinol if you use it (also optional and not to be used daily), serums, moisturizer, SPF for AM optional facial oil for PM. Essentially you want to apply your skincare from thinest consistency to the thickest consistency. Apply serums over your moisturizer, and your serums won’t work. Use your toner after serums and you’ll make your skincare less effective. Apply your items correctly and you’ll get great results.
scrub me secret: It’s also important to use certain items in the morning and others in the evening. Vitamin C should always be used in the morning because of its protective properties. Exfoliants and retinol should be used in the evening to treat your skin overnight. AM is for protection and PM is for correction.
I understand with so many different skincare products and different information out there it's hard to know you’re picking the best or correct skincare items. It’s literally impossible to know about every single different brand and item but we do have some resources that are helpful to guide us toward good skincare items. The EWG Skin Deep site is a site I love for checking products to see if they have any harmful ingredients in them. I also have a few blog posts highlighting products I approve of as an esthetician and a blog post with helpful tips for reading your skincare ingredient label.
Here are those links for you!