Skincare Lovin'
I had plans to go to the beach with my friends tomorrow, but it got canceled. One of the girls tested positive for COVID and has to quarantine. Surprisingly this is her 4th or 5th time getting COVID. Anyway to lighten the mood and to steer away from my more depressing posts, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about something I really like. SKINCARE! I guess for some, you’d think of this post as an anime “filler episode”. There’s really nothing new in this post other than reading about how much I like skincare and the steps of putting it on so you guys can just skip this post if you want to. (I have no licenses or degrees in anything, so take EVERYTHING I have to say with a grain of salt)
Oil Cleansing: Okay so to start off there’s oil cleansing. This is something you should do in your night routine. This first step will usually help take off makeup thats been worn all day. If you don’t wear makeup, doing this will also help lift all the oils and grime off your face to get it ready for step 2. There’s usually 2 versions, one that comes in a balm form and one that seems like literal oil on your hands. So for both, you need to take an appropriate amount and start to massage and warm the product up in your hands. After it’s warmed, apply it to your DRY face and massage it in all the nooks and crannies. Then take just a tiny bit of water, and apply it to your face as well. Mix the oil and the water on your face together to emulsify the product. After that, you can wash off the mixture with some warm water. You might feel as if there’s some oil left on your face but that is okay because it just means now you’re ready for step 2.
Gel/Water-Based Cleansing: Some of you might skip step one and that’s fine, but if you do step 1 PLEASE do step 2 as well. If not, some oil might be left on your face and that may make you breakout. So for this it’s simple, just take a bean size amount in your hand, lather it up with some water, and once it’s lathered up, use the solution to wash your face. Again try to massage it in your face for a while before washing it off. The purpose of the oil cleanser was to bring all the dirt and grime to the surface of your face, and the gel cleanser’s purpose was to wash it all away.
Exfoliation: There are 2 types of exfoliants, physical or chemical. A physical exfoliant is like your typical sugar scrubs where you actively have to work it into your face. A chemical exfoliant might be like a chemical peel mask you’d need to wash off after 10 minutes or some type of watery solution (typically an AHA or BHA) you can apply on your face and leave on. There are too many different types of exfoliants that different brands put out so I can’t really tell you what to do. The best course of action for this is to just read the directions on the labels. BUT! I can tell you its purpose is to remove dead skin. Just like how there are loofahs to remove the dead skin on your body in the shower, we need to take the dead skin off our face. This way, it may reduce breakouts (since our pores won’t be so clogged) and will aid in better absorption of the skincare products. Although, pleas only exfoliate once or twice a week. If done too much, you may irritate your normal skin from too much abrasions.
Toner: I’ve seen mixed reviews around toners. Some say it’s necessary to balance out your face’s PH levels and other say it’s a hoax that skincare companies put out to get more consumers to buy their products. I’ll try to explain both sides. Think of the feeling of when you step out of a hot shower and the skin around your face feels really tight and dry. So the first side argues that after the first 3 steps, your face has been washed so many times and the skin is absolutely stripped of all its moistures. A toner is needed to replenish all that moisture and to balance out your skin’s PH level. Some oil or water cleansers might have a strong alkaline or acidic base, and applying a toner after can bring that level back to normal. On the other side, if you clean with cleansers and exfoliants that claim to be “PH balanced”, then a toner isn’t necessary. Using one won’t do much rather than just hydrating your face, which can be done with a regular moisturizer and would therefore be considered a waste of money.
Honestly, after toner, it’s just a series of steps that are just meant to hydrate your face over and over again. You probably won’t need each one of these products, but I do recommend steps 1-4 and at least some of the one’s I’ll state after.
Face Masks: Apply these once or twice a week. You can apply it everyday but that’s kind of a waste and unnecessary. Your skin can only absorb so much. Also, that means don’t keep the mask on for over the recommended time. I know it’s tempting, but it may do more harm than good. Just like the exfoliators, there are different types of face masks (usually sheet masks or some type of cream that you spread across your face and then wash off later) so just apply as the directions tell you. (There’s a lot of controversy about when you should apply a face mask in your routine, but I think after toner works the best for me!)
Essence/Face Mist: It’s a light watery substance that’s supposed to hydrate your face. Some essences are put into a spray bottle (that’s called a face mist) so you can carry it around you the whole day. You can spray it on your face any time your skin is feeling a bit dry and applying it in a spray-form won’t mess up your makeup.
Serum/Ampoule: Serums are where your customization can start. Its purpose is again to bring hydration like an essence, but now it can vary a little more. Maybe you want your skin to brighten? Maybe you need some anti-aging power? Or maybe you want your skin to firm up a bit? This is where you can start to target those problems (plus some hydration). Since everyone’s skin is different for this, I don’t have much to say. I do know that serums tend to be a thicker consistency. Whereas essence flows like water, serums might be a bit slimier. An ampoule is like a very concentrated version of a serum. You definitely don’t need to apply too much, and if you do, you might overwhelm your skin. Some may come in tiny glass tubes where you can break it off and use it like it’s a shot glass for your skin. I personally don’t use one since my skin was always pretty nice and never needed that much treatment, so I don’t have the best say in using ampoules. (This is also where your spot treatment would go if you have specific skincare products for acne).
Eye Cream: The skin around your eyes is very thin and sensitive. When you’re tired, your eyebags start to sag, and when you begin to get old your eyes are sunken and wrinkly. This is why there is a specific separate step just for your eyes. Usually it’s some type of collagen eye cream to lightly tap into your skin (like your playing a piano around your eyes).
Emulsions/Moisturizer: Emulsions are a lightweight moisturizer. They tend to have the consistency and color of (being honest) thick jizz. The color will probably be some type of off-white and is easily spreadable. A moisturizer on the other hand, is very thick. You can scoop it up and it will hold its shape by itself. An emulsion is like a moisturizer mixed with water (so it’s water-based). You don’t really need both. If you have oily skin, an emulsion might be better as it won’t make your face feel too heavy with thick creams or too greasy. If your skin is more dry, a nice thick layer of moisturizer will be better for you (not too thick, any skincare that doesn’t get absorbed will just sit on your face and may attract debris to your pores).
Sunscreen: This is the very last step. Please always put on some type of sunscreen. The sun is your biggest enemy. It will speed up the aging process on your face without any proper protection. You really don’t need anything stronger than an SPF 50. An SPF 15 is honestly good enough too. Compared to an SPF 30, some people think that an SPF 30 has twice as much protection than an SPF 15, but that’s not true. A sunscreen with an SPF 15 protects you from the sun’s rays by 93%, while SPF 30 protects you by 97%. The higher the SPF, the closer it will get to trying to block 100% of the UV rays, but 100% protection isn’t possible. SPF 50 hits 98% and SPF 100 will protect you by 99%. If you’re really careful then you can get a sunscreen with SPF 100, but stopping at SPF 50 is good enough. Also the price difference between SPF 50 vs. anything above, is extremely high, so it’s not really worth your money for just that tiny difference.
Okay this was a lot of typing. If you’ve made it this far, congrats. Again, I really have no credentials whatsoever and if I made any mistakes in this then please call me out. I hope you all have a great day!
TLDR: My plans got canceled so I’m here to tell you what to put on your face.