20 minutes read
You probably think that I’m sounding like the proverbial broken record talking about your Morning and Evening Skincare Routine… there she goes again! That’s because, “skin care” is not just about caring for your skin, but also caring for yourself. Below are 5 Reasons why you need to develop your Skincare Routine and 5 Key Steps n each of these Skincare Routines.
5 Good Reasons to develop Your own Skincare Routine
- Skincare Routines are habit-forming and with time they become second nature.
- Taking time to look after your skin benefits your most precious asset, your skin, as well as benefiting you.
- Self-care time is great for your Mind-Body Connection, allowing your body to relax, your mind to rest and your soul to quieten, all because you are consciously making time for yourself.
- As you let go of the day’s business, your stress levels decrease, you are more likely to relax and this contributes to a better night sleep, so you feel refreshed in the morning.
- With less stress, better sleep and a conscious Mind-Body Connection you will feel at ease, be more productive and naturally more cheerful and self-confident.
Not bad for applying some products to your skin... regardless of your skin type!
5 Different Skin Types
Understanding whether you have dry, oily, combination, sensitive, or normal skin helps you to choose the right products for your specific needs.
Normal or Combination
- This refers to a skin that is problem-free with an even texture, neither too oily nor dry because it is hydrated and balanced, feeling supple to touch with no visible sign of acne. It is also not sensitive to products.
- However, if this skin exhibits some degree of oiliness in parts of the face, such as the forehead, nose and chin (T-zone) while the rest of the face could feel dry or normal. This is known as Combination Skin.
Dry
- This skin type tends to feel “rough” to the touch, exhibits flaky and sometimes itchy patches, and shows fine lines and wrinkles easily.
Oily
- The skin might feel oily to the touch, and have an oily look on the surface. Sometimes it is defined by large pores, break outs, white heads and black heads, all associated with acne.
Sensitive
- This is a skin type that can be either Oily or Dry, and very sensitive to the elements, contact with skin products, food, and stress. It may show signs of redness, scaly, itchy patches and sometimes get a burning sensation when products are used.
- In general, the sensitivity is due to skin barrier issues, such as a decrease in the thickness of the skin layers that can lead to compromising the protective barrier that the skin provides.
Mature
- As we mature and our sebaceous gland production decreases, our skin tends to become less hydrated (we loose water more easily and do not hydrate as often as we need), the skin thickness decreases and looks duller, its function as a barrier is compromised with increased moisture loss and lines, and wrinkles become more pronounced.
- Occasionally, we can still have breakouts, especially under stressful conditions, whether physical, psychological, or environmental.
5 Key Steps in Your Morning Skincare Routine
As previously mentioned in the Absolutely Essential Daily Skin Care Routine discussion, a skincare routine does not have to be onerous, in fact in can be achieved in 5 minutes.
Since there are commonalities in the morning and evening routines, you can easily skip a step or 2, though make sure that in a 24 hours cycle you still have 5 daily steps.
Follow the Guide Table below to identify which steps can be left out in the Morning and Evening Skincare Routines.
Also, don't just focus on your face, consider hydrating and moisturising also your neck, and if you still have products that you would like to spread further apply it to your shoulders, elbows or legs. Waste nothing!
5 Key Steps in Your Morning Skincare Routine
- Cleansing
- Start your day with a gentle cleanser to invigorate and refresh after a night's sleep.
- Avoid any products that strip oils as you need to maintain a healthy skin barrier. Ensure that the products are alcohol-free.
- For dry skin you need more hydrating oil or emulsion-based products as well as some glycerine.
- For oily skin, argan oil and a small amount of tea-tree oil are useful to help control breakouts.
- Choose products that are free of harsh chemicals, synthetic fragrances, and synthetic additives. Consider sulphate-free cleansers.
- Use lukewarm water, as hot water can be harsh on the skin.
- Toning
- After cleansing, use a toner to balance your skin's pH levels and prepare it for the next steps.
- Toners can also help to provide additional hydration, soothe or have some astringent properties, remove any remaining traces of debris while also being refreshing with a burst of moisture.
- Nourishing Serum
- Serum products can help with specific skin concerns while improving the benefits of your skincare routine.
- Select Serum products with a wide range of ingredients serum products that contain vitamin C and licorice for brightening, hyaluronic acid for hydration, and niacinamide for improving texture and pore size, or mixture of these.
- Protective Moisturising
- Use a moisturizer appropriate for your skin type to lock in the moisture that keeps your skin soft. Also, contrary to urban myth, oily skin needs just as much moisturizing to maintain a healthy skin barrier.
- Besides, often by not applying enough oils to the skin, essentially the skin increases sebaceous production to protect the skin. Hence, even oily skin needs a good balance of hydration and moisturising to retain a healthy balance.
- Remember that it is necessary to adjust the amount of moisturiser used. In fact, it is critical to apply small amounts at a time and test how quickly the product is absorbed.
- Only re-apply if the skin feels “dry”.
Our Day Moisturisers are rich sources of nourishment suitable for all skin types, particularly mature skin, and has been designed to lock in hydration and keep your skin soft and supple.
Even if you have oily skin, don't skip this step, just use less.
We always recommend to start with a small amount of the products, say equivalent to an orange pip amount.
- Protective Sunscreen
- In the morning, finish your routine with a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of at least SPF10 – SPF 30. Sunscreen is essential to protect your skin from the harmful effects of UV rays and prevent premature ageing.
- Be aware that for effective protection, sunscreen needs to be applied throughout the day, especially if you're spending time outdoors. Besides, the difference between SPF 10 and SPF 30 is not in the number of hours that protection is afforded, but rather on the shielding from the UV ray intensity.
- This means that SPF 30 protects against more intense UV, BUT in order for this protection to be maintained, the sunscreen needs to be applied approximately every 2 hours.
At Azurlis™ we developed the Daily Moisturising Cream Gel, SPF-10, with zinc oxide, the only truly natural broad spectrum sunscreen agent.
This product provides a low level protection for those that do not want the heavy feel of high percentage of zinc oxide content, however we always advocate wearing a hat. Besides, regular application of the product (every 1 – 2 hours) is recommended.
- Only a small amount will be required, since your skin will already be moisturised.
- If your skin is very fair, a higher SPF protection is always a must, and there are many other choices in the market.
- Sunscreen is crucial to protect your skin from the harmful effects of UV rays and prevent premature aging.
- Re-apply sunscreen throughout the day, especially if you're spending time outdoors and, remember… where possible wear a hat.
5 Key Steps in your Evening Skincare Routine
- Cleansing
- Use a gentle cleanser to remove dirt, oil, make-up and impurities from your skin accumulated during the day.
- Just as in the morning routine avoid any products that strip oils as you need to maintain a healthy skin barrier. Ensure that the products are alcohol-free, as well as free of harsh chemicals, synthetic fragrances, and synthetic additives, such as a sulphate-free cleanser to efficiently remove dirt, oil, and makeup.
- For dry skin you need more hydrating oil or emulsion-based products as well as some glycerin.
- For oily skin, argan oil and a small amount of tea-tree oil are useful to help control breakouts.
- Use lukewarm water, as hot water can be harsh on the skin.
Our Cleansers are suitable for all skin types, whether it's dry, oily, combination, or sensitive.
- Toning
- After cleansing, use a toner to balance your skin's pH levels and prepare for a nourishing serum and or an evening moisturiser.
- Toners can also help to provide additional hydration, soothe or have some astringent properties, remove any remaining traces of debris while refreshing with a burst of moisture.
Our Toners are simple and refreshing, but spritzing your face with water is sometimes all you need.
- Nourishing Serum
- Although you may feel that you do not need a Serum during the day, this is definitely a key step in an evening skincare routine.
- In particular, nourishing products with hydrating ingredients such as hyaluronic acid and repair-rich ingredients such as rosehip oil, shea butter, camellia oil are highly recommended to diminish the signs of ageing and improve the skin barrier function.
Our Serum Products are ideal to deeply nourish the skin, improve the skin barrier function and soften/plump fine lines, that contribute to a wonderful youthful glow. Apply before the evening moisturiser.
- Deep Moisturising
- Evening moisturising should be carried out with products that complement your daily morning skincare routine to rehydrate, stimulate cell repair and to delay the appearance of fine lines, while reducing the visibility of existing ones, and even out skin tone.
- Evening moisturisers need to be a source of hyaluronic acid and glycerine for hydration, as well as shea butter, rosehip, grape seed oil, borage oil, vitamin E and Co-enzyme Q10 for repair, as well as their antioxidant benefits.
- For oily skin, the night cream should be non-comedogenic.
Our Night Moisturiser meets these criteria leaving your skin soft, supple and deeply nourished.
- Special Treat
- The skin around your eyes is proportionally more fragile and deserves special attention. Of course, you can use an Eye Cream during the day, but its effectiveness in the evening skincare routine is especially beneficial, as you are relaxed in your sleep.
- At Azurlis we have the superb Balancing Eye Cream, an extremely light yet deeply nourishing and protective daily treat.
- Alternatively, you can use our Soothing Eye Serum that is gentle and extremely soothing, while providing all the nourishment required.
For those of you that are using medicated acne treatments, this is an ideal time to include your medicated products in your Skincare Routine, as invariably these medications can lead to skin sensitivity when exposed to sunlight.
Want to simplify your Morning and Evening Skincare Routine to just 5 steps in a 24 hour cycle?
Below is a Guide of how you can do this. Steps containing an * can be Optional.
This is useful if you want to reduce the number of steps, for instance as Cleansing is done in the shower. So, customise routine to your lifestyle, but understand the steps that need to be retained in the skincare routine.
The products selected in the Guide are my preferred options, but there will be no issues by selecting a product that you fancy, even if this is assigned to a skin type that is not yours.
Abbreviations refer to the first letter of the product name:
RFCC = Refreshing Facial Cream Cleanser
All abbreviations are hyperlinked to the respective products in Azurlis, however you can use your equivalent products.
Morning Skincare Routine
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Normal |
Dry |
Oily |
Sensitive |
Mature |
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Cleansing* |
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Toning |
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Nourishing Serum* |
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Protective Moisturising |
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Sun Protection |
Evening Skincare Routine
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Normal |
Dry |
Oily |
Sensitive |
Mature |
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Cleansing |
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Toning* |
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Nourishing Serum* |
TLCSS |
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Deep Moisturising |
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Special Treat* |
Take Home Message
A Skincare Routine is absolutely essential for healthy skin by keeping it clean, hydrated, moisturised and nourished. This will contribute to protecting your most precious asset, and your biggest organ, from environmental exposure, while maintaining its healthy barrier function.
Your skincare routines also need to suit you and your lifestyle. So, don't sweat the small stuff. Adapt the skincare routines and be selective with the products you use. You don't have to do every step every time, but understand which are really critical for healthy skin.
If a skin issue persists, contact your health professional to find the correct solution that may be beyond what a skincare routine is able to provide.
But, whatever you do, relax, make special time for yourself and treasure these moments.
