THE BEST ROUTINE FOR ACNE-PRONE SKIN

A basic skincare routine has four steps, performed twice a day (once in the morning and once at night without the sunscreen component). Keeping your skin clean will help it stay blemish-free. Personal hygiene aside, it’s also essential to wash your face because most treatment products penetrate the best when applied to clean, bare skin. :

Cleanse

1. REMOVE MAKEUP If you wear makeup start by removing makeup with an oil-based cleanser, breaking down and melting away all traces of cosmetics and impurities. 

2. WASH FACE WITH A GENTLY, PH BALANCED CLEANSER A light cleanse in the morning will remove any sweat, oily build-up, dead skin cells, and pillow grunge from the night before. It’ll also give you a fresh palette for makeup application the next day. Keep in mind that any cleanser you use should not be overly drying or stripping. If a cleanser makes your skin feel tight after washing, it is too harsh and you should find something gentler. 
Look for a gentle cleanser made of natural ingredients.

3. EVENING SHOWER A lot of people take a shower in the morning. For acne-prone skin shower in the evening is much more important because it removes all grime in your hair you’ve accumulated from the day. Hair is the biggest collector of pollution and dirt from the environment. And all of it goes on your pillow and then on the face. Also, an evening shower will thoroughly clean skin and provide better penetration and efficiency of your evening acne products. Skin healing and repairing are higher overnight. During the day you are limited on products with translucent color, during the night you can use whatever you want. 

4. TONING Toner is a post-cleanse must. Japanese lotion toners help rebalance skin’s natural moisture level, making it more receptive to the hydrating ingredients in your moisturizer.

Treat

Treatments products are used to “treat” certain conditions of your skin. For example, if you get acne, then you’ll want to include a BHA or other acne treatment of some sort. If wrinkles are your main concern, you may want to include Vitamin C products or retinoids. Treatment products vary according to what “problem” you want to fix. They should also be the first thing applied to clean skin in order to ensure maximum effectiveness and skin penetration.

Moisturize

Using moisturizers can help boost your skin’s overall performance. Moisturizers seal in your skin’s natural moisture while adding extra hydration so your skin can function at its best. Moisturizers also ease the discomfort of dry or taut skin and can be an additional layer of protection against everyday wear and tear.

PROTECT (SUNSCREEN):

Sun protection is a must. The sun emits harmful UV rays that cause photoaging (wrinkles, hyperpigmentation) and even skin cancer. It’s been said that 80% of sun damage is accumulated before the age of 20, so children need to wear sunscreen too! Wearing a photostable, broad-spectrum sunscreen will help prevent premature aging and guard you against other dangers of the sun.

However, these four steps are just general guidelines. If your skin is oily and moisturizer makes it even oilier, then you can skip that part of your routine. If you don’t use any treatment products, then it’s okay to just follow cleansing with moisturizer. There are no strict rules for a good skincare routine. It all depends on your skin type and what your skin likes.

Often, people like to include toners, scrubs, or masks in their daily regimen. In my opinion, these steps are optional because your routine will be fine without them. While toners can help remove anything your cleanser fails to clean, they are just an extra dent in my wallet.

I also tend to think of masks as just something fun to use, but lots of people like using them to keep their skin balanced. Scrubs, on the other hand, can usually be skipped because treatment products often contain acids and other chemical exfoliants that do the job. With that being said, manually exfoliating your skin can make it look better because you are actually scrubbing away the surface layer (which is mostly sebum and dead skin cells). However, if you exfoliate too much or too harshly, you could end up making things much worse. And you definitely don’t want a skincare routine that makes your skin worse. A skincare routine should make your skin better!

Therefore, although all skincare routines are customized to individual needs, cleansing, moisturizing, treating (if you have anything to treat), and protecting are the crucial steps. Figuring out how to get your perfect skincare routine and choosing the right products is the next thing to do.