No matter how busy you are, take care of that whole epidermis of yours, baby, but the skin on your face needs more than your usual lick and a promise.
Take care of one of your best assets with a morning and evening routine.
Clean
Whether your skin type is oily, dry, or combination, give it a good clean.
Daily dirt, sweat and natural oils gather on your skin, clogging pores, contributing to skin congestion and leaving you with an unnatural sheen. Choose the gentlest skin cleanser possible for your face.
The object isn’t to scrub the healthy skin away with the grime, it’s to gently wash away the nastiness from the surface so it doesn’t seep down into the pores.
If your skin is very dry, splash cool water on your face in the morning and use that gentle, non-comedogenic cleanser at night.
Exfoliate
Your skin is an amazing organ. It regenerates itself and grows new, healthy cells every day. But what’s left behind on the surface are thousands of dead skin cells — about 30,000 to 40,000 of them.
Cleaning alone won’t slough the cells fast enough, so exfoliating with a mild scrub twice a week at night keeps your skin looking and feeling healthy. Look for an exfoliant with alpha hydroxy acid, glycolic acid or tiny beads.
Much like cleaning, you don’t need to scrub away the healthy layers with the dead, you just need to lift the already dead cells and wash them away.
Moisturize
Your morning and night routines should include a moisturizer. A light hand will help your skin remain dewy, and a heavy hand will leave you a little dreary. When applying the right moisturizer for your skin, tap it around your face with your pinkie.
Tap the moisturizer into the driest parts of your face first, paying special attention to the delicate eye areas. Don’t tug, or those crows will fly onto your face, leaving their feet behind.
And if you’re already seeing those lines, use a moisturizer that contains retinol at night. The retinol helps minimize fine lines.
Moisturize Internally
While you’re taking care of your skin from the outside, don’t forget to take care of it from the inside. Getting enough rest, exercising several times a week, and drinking those glasses of water gives your skin a healthy glow.
Pour yourself a glass of water in the morning and drink it down while getting ready — you can follow it with your daily dose of caffeine if you must.
Drink water throughout the day and don’t forget that last glass about an hour or two before you go to bed.