Those are five things that you must do for your skincare routine. It doesn’t matter if you’re young, old, female, male, you have to do all of these things.
Doesn’t matter what skin type you have, you still need a basic skincare routine, every morning and every night. And it’s not only cleanse, tone, and moisturize.
Cleansing, toning, and moisturizing is pretty much like breathing. But the most basic is really cleansing, exfoliating, toning, moisturizing, and protection.
5 basic rules of your skincare routine
Cleansing (morning and nighttime skincare)
There are many types of cleansers on the market. You have foam cleanser, gel cleanser, milk cleanser, lotion cleanser. You have to determine what type of cleanser you need for your skincare routine depending on what skin type you have. If you have really dry skin, avoid using foaming cleansers, because that would dry out your skin more. If you have really oily skin, avoid using milk cleansers, because you wouldn’t feel cleansed after.
So try to find a good cleanser that best matches your skin. Use it in both morning and nighttime skincare routine. Lather really well, make sure every part of your face is covered, including your neck as well, and then rinse it off completely.
Here’re the best drugstore gentle and hydrating cleansers for all skin types:
- Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser for all skin types,
- CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser for normal to dry skin,
- Neutrogena Hydro Boost hydrating cleansing gel.
Exfoliating (1-3 times a week)
It doesn’t matter if you have dry, normal, combination, oily skin, you need an exfoliator in your skincare routine. The skin cycle renewals, cells come up, and then fall off, new cells come up, and then fall off. The way to really make sure that you have removed all the dead skin cells on the surface of your skin, is to exfoliate. Because excess dead skin cells on the surface layers can cause your pores to be blocked, and therefore in turn causes breakouts, pimples, blackheads, congestion in generals.
Exfoliate at least once a week, better 3 times a week. If your T-zone is especially oily, make sure that your nose, your chin, and your forehead are exfoliated.
Avoid harsh exfoliants, scrubs, and peels in your skincare routine. Harshly scrubbing is trauma, and your skin can react badly to this trauma. Choose some gentle face exfoliants with acids.
Here’re some good options:
- Paula’s Choice Skin Perfecting 2% BHA Liquid Exfoliant,
- Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant,
- Kate Somerville ExfoliKate Intensive Exfoliating Treatment.
Toning (morning and nighttime skincare)
Our skin has a thin, protective layer on its surface, referred to as the acid mantle. This acid mantle is made up of sebum (free fatty acids) excreted from the skin’s sebaceous glands, which mixes with lactic and amino acids from sweat to create the skin’s pH, which ideally should be slightly acidic – at about 5.5. However sometimes the cleansers throw off that balance, so whether your skin becomes more acidic, or more basic, depending on the cleanser. What the toners do in the skincare routine, is bring your pH back to normal.
Toners also remove any makeup and cleanser residue, they also prepare your skin for the moisturizer to go on later, and they also sometimes detoxify the skin.
Avoid any toners with alcohol, because alcohol does dry skin, and it gives your skin no benefit at all.
Here’re are some alcohol-free refreshing toners:
- Dermalogica Multi-Active Toner,
- Neutrogena Alcohol-Free Toner,
- Mario Badescu Witch Hazel & Rosewater Toner.
Moisturizing (morning and nighttime skincare)
This part of the basic skincare routine is extremely important, and it’s huge, because depending on what type of skin you have, you can find moisturizers from high-end to drugstore, and you could even use baby lotion.
There are serums, hydrating lotions, emulsions, creams. Which one to put first? The easiest way to remember how to put on moisturizer, what first, is going by the texture. Think of your skin as a sponge. What does your skin absorbs first? So here is the order of moisturizers in skincare routine:
- Liquid texture: low density.
- Creamy texture: medium density.
- Paste texture: high density.
If you have really dry skin, then you might would put on a hydrating serum first, and then your moisturizer. Apply the cream after the serum, because you’re allowing your skin to absorb the liquids first, before applying on any thicker, heavier stuff.
Here’re the best drugstore oil-free moisturizers and hydrating serums:
- Neutrogena Hydro Boost water gel,
- Neutrogena Hydro Boost hydrating serum,
- CeraVe Facial Moisturizing Lotion PM,
- CeraVe Hydrating Hyaluronic Acid Serum.
If you have oily skin and breakouts, include something like acne control into your daily skincare routine. Apply it all over your face skin, and then use a moisturizer on top of that.
Here’re some effective acne serums:
- DRMTLGY 24 Hour Acne Serum,
- La Roche-Posay Effaclar Duo Dual Action Acne Treatment.
Never ever forget your eyes in your basic skincare routine. When moisturizing use any products for the area around your eyes, depending on what type of concern that you might have.
And here’re some drugstore eye creams for various concerns:
- CeraVe Eye Repair Cream,
- Neutrogena Hydro Boost gel-cream,
- Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair eye cream.
Protection (morning)
Last, but not least, in the basic skincare routine is protection. Without protection the whole your skincare routine is out the door, because what you’ve done to protect your skin will be wasted, if you don’t protect it with the sunblock. Use it each time when your are going out in the daytime.
Be careful with anything more than SPF 55, because it does become really rich and oily, and it can cause problems, it can clog up your pores, if you don’t cleanse it off properly.
Here’re the best drugstore face moisturizers with sunscreen:
- CeraVe Facial Moisturizing Lotion AM with SPF 30,
- Cetaphil Oil Absorbing Moisturizer with Sunscreen SPF 30,
- Neutrogena Oil-Free Moisture facial moisturizer with SPF 35,
- Neutrogena Clear Face liquid-lotion sunscreen SPF 55.
So here are the five basic rules of your morning and nighttime skincare routine: use cleanser, exfoliator, toner, moisturizer, and sunblock. It doesn’t matter what brand you’re using, what products you are using, as long as you’re doing the five basic things, you’re set.