I grew up deep in the "you may be beautiful or smart, pick one" lie, which combined with the fact that forcefully-imposed femininity hurts, means that it toke a lot of maturity from me to get in peace with femininty in general. And I occasionally had the urge to do some research about what to do with my skin, but the answers tend to be overwhelming, and it is hard to know where does verifiable advice end and marketing begin. So, my question: for someone who only very rarely uses makeup, and wants to do a limited amount of skincare, what would be the basic package? I have ovaries too, if this makes a difference. Creams, as far as I understand, occupy spots in a scale between two extremes, oily and hydrating, and you must put the oily on dry skin and hidrating on oily skin, but what is the actual underlying physics here? hydra means water, but it isn't like you could put actual water instead. How do they work? How can one know what parts of the face need the oily cream and what parts the other? I remember you said that paradoxical reactions may occur, and you can get acne by too harsh creams, so I understand that this is complicated. I guess one must just try and see/feel? You also said that exfoliating is important, but plastic-beaded products suck. My mother sometimes uses coarse-ground corn (polenta flour), it's natural and scratchy enough, is it okay to use for exfoliating? (A friend uses (recycles) coffee ground, and says that it is oily, too... back to the basic alchemy question.) Then there are nose pores. I do some exfoliating sometimes, and do regularly push them out, and kinda know guiltily that ideally I should put my face over steaming water before the pushing-out, because that would open the pores and stuff could come out easier (and with less damage, I guess). It is very tempting to be a perfectionist about it, but one of the few times I ended up at a skincare specialist, she said that the rule is that I shouldn't push toohard... What is the mechanism here? Where might be the limit? If there is something absolutely basic I left out, please add. And after talking so much about how lost I am in skincare-land, I do feel kinda ashamed - an adult with internet access should be brave and cut trough the marketing and the sciency-sounding misinformation, until she finds the truth, conform what science know these days! So I hope I am not annoying you much by asking you for a shortcut. in case tagging works: @sirsparklepants
So not the person you are asking but here is what I've discovered/learned from going to a dermatologist. You mean the basic makeup package? So a lot of creams are kind of a scam. Ideally you only have 2. 1 that is gentle and made for delicate areas like the eyes and 1 that has sunscreen in it. They don't need to be super expensive ones. I usually pick up the Neutrogena or Cetaphil ones at the drug store. I also use the Cetaphil cleanser. It's very gentle on your skin and won't cause irritation (I switched after a trip to the dermatologist where she said my acne was caused by products that were too strong). Exfoliating is really optional. If you wash your face twice a day with a gentle cleanser you won't really need to exfoliate. It can be quite irritating and make dryness, pain, acne worse. If you want to use one there are several recipes for sugar scrubs but they're mostly 1 part fine sugar to 1/2 part plant oil (coconut or olive are common). You want to make sure that any scrubbers are very fine. Regular cleaning and moisturizing will actually clear out your pores in the long run. If you really like pushing you generally will want to stop when it starts getting red, swollen, or warmer than the spots around it. Definitely stop before you get to blood (continuing at this point can cause scarring).
Basic skincare package would be a face cleanser, toner, and moisturizer. you can add more steps if you want, like eye cream or wrinkle care or sheet masks, but these three steps are the most essential basic for healthy nice skin (also, wear sunscreen). Skin can be of four different types: Oily, combination, normal and dry. Oily skin is easy to spot: your face gets greasy, makeup melts, acne is more common, and it's super shiny. Combination skin has an oily T-zone (forehead, nose, sometimes chin) and normal or dry cheeks and jaw; normal doesn't get particularly greasy nor dry, and dry skin doesn't make enough oil, so it's dull, flaky and patchy - in really bad cases you can see the flakes of skin, like dandruff on your cheeks/nose. So you see which parts of your face get shiny, which get flaky, and wear the appropriate products there. Cleaning well is, of course, the first step. Then comes a toner that will prepare your skin for whatever you use next. For oily skin, they're usually adstringents. Because of the excessive oil production, oily skin loses water really fast, so they need hydrators - gel-like, oil free moisturizers, usually marketed to oily skin in specific. Dry skin, otoh, suck up moisture but does not make enough oil, so it needs products with it in the formula - like creams or actual moisturizing oils. I have combination skin in the summer/normal-to-dry in the winter, so I have a bunch of each in varying powers that i pick according to my needs. Clinique does a really good line of basic care for each kind of skin. I use their liquid facial soap, Clarifying Lotion #2, and the Dramatically Different Moisturizers - Gel in the summer, Cream during winter, before bed. In the morning I just wash my face and put on moisturizer, currently Benefit's Triple Perfection because it has a bit of SPF. Exfoliating is nice, although too much exfoliating isn't because it irritates the skin. I usually use a mild exfoliator for the face twice a month: one specific for acneic skin before Shark Week, and Tonymoly's Latte Art Capuccino Cream Scrub two weeks later. I might also use a bit mixed with my cleanser if i'm wearing a heavy-duty foundation, but it's rare. I think polenta is a bit too rough for the skin on the face, although it's great for body scrubs; i know someone with dry skin who scrubs with a mix of olive or grapeseed oil, honey and sugar. About nose pores/blackheads: I use a bunch of pore-tightening products to avoid having to deal with that, but about once every.. two months during hellseason i'll use nose stripes to get rid of them. You could also wash your face with a gentle, made-for-the-face brush and a very light hand.
The very basic package of skincare: a cleanser you like, and a moisturizer you like. I kind of generalized too much when I said exfoliating is good for everyone; in general people who wear makeup a lot (e.g. me, everyone I work with, most of the people I do skin consultations on irl; it's a habit, sorry) have more blockages/dead skin/etc and so exfoliating is more important. People with blackheads, same deal. You can also exfoliate only on your T-zone (forehead, nose, chin; the areas most likely to be oily on anyone's face). But yes, @siveambrai is totally right in that regular cleaning/moisturizing will help you out a lot to clean the pores out. And yes, a lot of creams are a scam. I honestly don't use any of them, even though I probably should use an eye cream, because I have the World's Most Sensitive Skin and can't tolerate any of them. Cleansers and moisturizers are all very different, because everyone's skin type is different, and some people are way more sensitive to some things. Budget is also an important factor! In general, what are your skin concerns? I know you mentioned nose pores, but do you have breakouts of any kind? Do you feel like your skin is dry, "tight" feeling, flaking, or has redness in any way? Do you just want a very basic skincare routine just to get established? As far as pushing goes, this video is essentially the technique most estheticians will use for extractions (i.e. getting out blockages). They mention scaling fluid, which you can make at home very easily (it softens the blockages for easier extractions). Recipe (and other thoughts from estheticians) here. And as far as the corn goes, the exfoliating product I use has that as a main ingredient. I wouldn't put it directly on the skin without some sort of liquid (ideally a food-grade oil) to keep it from being too harsh, though. (If you're wondering, people with estrogen in their bodies are more prone to breakouts around the chin/lip/jaw area, and those can be stubborn if they are hormonal, which is why I asked a previous poster.)
Not an expert, but I personally cleanse my face everyday (at least once, sometimes twice) and moisturise after cleansing. I don't use toner atm because I ran out and I can't be bothered to buy more, oops. I use a face mask once a week which is supposed to help remove blemishes and draw out ~impurities~ and stuff. I also have this stuff you can add to your moisturiser that basically turns it into sunscreen. The only makeup I really wear is tinted moisturiser with SPF30 sun protection in it, and I only wear that very occasionally. I would say cleansing and moisturising is the absolute bare minimum, but listen to the people above me, for they know of what they speak. Aaand that would explain why I always have bloody pimples under my chin and on my neck! Goddammit, biology.
Yuuuuuuup. I'm not prone to pimples but two of my medications mess with estrogen levels and the past 4 months have been a struggle with them alllllllll over my mouth and chin. (Thankfully they're finally starting to balance out.)
i screwed up my BC shedule and because of my PCOS (or POSO, as i'd like to call, for "piece of shit ovaries") my face nostril-down is looking like a fucking. moon made of pizza and i'm sort of hating everything so much.
thanks y'all! I've just skimmed trough right now, because I have to go to work, and I will definitely reread/take notes/go to the links. A bit of an answer to Sir Sparkle: my concerns are 1. I'd like to do what is possible to minimize the amounts of wrinkles I get, it's hard enough to accept aging without adding unnecessary problems to it via bad skincare 2. I still get pimples including on the sides of my face (outside that certain zone), especially before menstruation. But this second thing I can live with, if the answer is that it is a hormone thing and can't be influenced much externally. How do I recognize a good gentle cleanser? They write "gentle" on everything. Including Dove soap, and I vaguely remember that soaps on the face are to be avoided. Are there specific ingredients to look out for/avoid? Or the job they do is not that hard, so it is actually true that all those products are good? :)
soaps designed for the face are usually marked as such - the one i use says "mild facial soap". but usually, if you feel your skin tugging/tingling after cleansing, it's too harsh.
Ps from work while in standby: i am not from america, so recommanding concrete products is not useful for me. (but ofc might be for other users). And yeah, i also have flaky nose, and i actually did recently start to use a more oily cream on that (nivea).
oops, sorry! i just mentioned bc afaik that brand has stores all over - i'm not from america either. either way, a more accessible and faster alternative is to check a pharmacy - many have little 3-step kits that cover the basics and might get you used to the stuff. as for wrinkles... i havent started doing anything for them yet, besides wearing a bb cream that is supposedly anti aging, but you could get an eye cream specific for it, for example, and use it under your normal moisturizer.
Nivea is good stuff. If the cleanser is for "sensitive skin" its usually more gentle. Avoid things with a high degree of alcohol content or made for issues like blackheads because they tend to be stronger. For wrinkles/aging the best two options are drink plenty of water and stay out of the sun (or wear sun screen if you can't avoid it). If you choose to use a makeup product to help with the wrinkles I've found its better to avoid the areas where the fine lines appear first on women (forehead and eyes) because often my BB cream or foundation ends up gathering there and making the wrinkles more obvious rather than less. The colored creams can be useful on nose/cheeks/chin though to help deal with redness that you may develop.
thank you! I am thinking about prevention, not masking. (but I do use makeup on special occasions, and I will keep in mind this info.) And btw, thanks, everybody.
