What does a skin care routine include?

The core of the regular skin care process is the three necessary steps of cleansing, moisturizing, and sun protection. The remaining functional steps are optional and can be flexibly adjusted according to skin type and skin care needs. There is no such thing as the saying on the Internet that "you must do a few steps to achieve effective skin care."

To put it bluntly, these three steps are to lay the foundation for the skin. Cleansing is to remove the dust on the face, excess oil secretion, and sunscreen makeup residue remaining on the skin surface, so as to avoid clogging the pores and causing closed acne.； Moisturizing is to replenish the needed moisture to the skin while locking it in, maintaining the sebum film on the surface of the skin like a "protective suit" to prevent external stimulation from getting in easily. ； Not to mention sun protection, 90% of skin photoaging problems are related to insufficient sun protection, such as sun spots, dry lines, and sagging skin. In many cases, the anti-aging essences you spend a lot of money on are not as effective as applying sunscreen every day.

Having said this, someone must want to ask, are the facial serums, essences, eye creams, facial masks, etc. that are popular on the Internet all IQ taxes? Of course not, it’s just that these are all bonus points, it depends on whether your skin needs it or not. For example, if you stay up late recently and your face looks dull and yellow, and you want to brighten it up, you can apply a toner on your face after washing your face and then add a whitening essence. ； If you are a student aged 17 or 18, and your skin is so stable that you can squeeze out water, if you insist on applying an anti-aging essence, it will put unnecessary burden on your skin.

Nowadays, everyone is arguing fiercely about "should I use cleansing in the morning?" In fact, there is really no unified answer. It all depends on the skin type and season. I have combination skin. When I wake up in the morning in summer, my T-zone is so oily that I can make an omelette. I don’t need to use a gentle amino acid cleanser to cleanse it, and I can rub it into streaks after applying sunscreen. ； In autumn and winter, my face becomes dry and tight. In the morning, I just splash warm water around 35 degrees Celsius twice, apply facial cream and go out, and I don’t feel any discomfort. A friend of mine with dry and sensitive skin is even more exaggerated. In addition to using a cleanser to remove sunscreen makeup at night, and washing her face with warm water in the morning all year round, her skin condition is extremely stable, and even redness rarely occurs during seasonal changes.

Oh, by the way, don’t blindly follow the trend and pile up skin care steps. A sister who has been following me for a long time left me a message and said that she was frugal and spent most of her salary on expensive skin care products every month. She followed the seven or even ten steps of skin care procedures online every day, and went to a beauty salon twice a week for deep skin care. After cleansing, my face became red and stinging at every turn, and even the slightest breeze made it itch. I went to a dermatologist and found out that the barrier was damaged due to excessive skin care. Later, I reduced the process to only three steps: amino acid cleansing, repairing cream, and hard sunscreen. After less than a month, my skin condition slowly returned to normal.

After all, there is really no standard answer to the skin care process. The more steps and the more expensive the product, the better. The best process is the one that suits your skin type and can keep your skin in a stable and comfortable state.