Skincare: how to establish a beauty routine?

Taking care of your skin is essential not only to maintain its radiance and freshness, but also to prevent the signs of aging and keep your skin healthy. The key to achieving this lies in establishing a tailored beauty routine, incorporating products targeted to your skin type, whether dry, oily, combination, sensitive or normal. Here's a step-by-step guide to creating an effective, personalized facial care routine.

Step 1: It's essential to cleanse your skin

The first step in any beauty routine is cleansing. Using a cleansing gel or micellar water adapted to your skin type helps remove impurities, excess sebum and dead cells accumulated throughout the day.

Oily skin will benefit from a cleanser that helps regulate sebum production, while dry skin will prefer a more moisturizing formula such as a cleansing milk or cleansing oil that won't dry out the epidermis. For sensitive skin, choose gentle cleansers without alcohol or fragrance to avoid irritation.

Adaptive cosmetics are interesting because they can adapt to your skin, whatever its type at the time the product is applied.

In terms of ingredients, oily, combination and normal skin types may prefer cleansers based on salicylic acid. Sensitive skin should look for moisturizing agents such as apricot kernel oil and gluconolactone. Dry skin, meanwhile, will benefit from moisturizing formulas with probiotics and prebiotics.

Step 2: Use a toner

Using a toner in your beauty routine can offer several benefits for the skin. Here are just a few reasons:

1. Balancing skin pH: After cleansing, skin pH can be disturbed. Toners help restore the skin's pH balance, which is essential for healthy skin.

2. Deep cleansing: Toners can remove remaining impurities and make-up residues that initial cleansing failed to remove.

3. Moisturize: Some toners contain moisturizing ingredients that help keep skin hydrated, especially if you use a toner based on ingredients such as hyaluronic acid or glycerine.

4. Prepare skin for subsequent products: Applying a toner before other skincare products can help prepare the skin to more effectively absorb the active ingredients in serums, creams and lotions that will be applied later.

5. Soothe and refresh skin: Some toners contain soothing ingredients, such as aloe vera or rosewater, which can calm irritated skin and leave it feeling refreshed.

 

Step 3: Nourish and treat

Depending on your specific needs, you can incorporate targeted serums or treatment creams into your routine. This can include anti-aging skincare to combat wrinkles and aging, mattifying products for oily skin, or soothing treatments enriched with aloe-vera or chamomile to calm the redness and irritation of sensitive skin. Don't neglect the delicate eye contour area, which often requires special care to reduce fine lines and dehydration.

Step 4: Moisturize

Moisturization is crucial for all skin types. It helps maintain the skin barrier and prevent dehydration. A good moisturizing cream or serum enriched with hyaluronic acid can help maintain moisture at the heart of epidermal cells.

Dry skin will appreciate rich, creamy textures, while light formulas such as gels or emulsions are ideal for oily or combination skin.

Step 5: Exfoliate regularly

Exfoliating the skin as part of your beauty routine has several important advantages:

1. Removing dead skin cells: Over time, skin cells can build up on the surface, making skin dull and clogging pores. Exfoliation helps remove these dead cells, revealing brighter, more radiant skin.

2. Improved skin texture: By removing dead skin cells, exfoliation can help smooth skin texture, reducing the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and imperfections.

3. Unclogging pores: Exfoliation helps dislodge impurities and sebum that clog pores, which can reduce the appearance of blackheads, pimples and enlarged pores.

4. Stimulation of cell regeneration: exfoliation stimulates the skin's natural cell renewal, promoting healthier, younger-looking skin.

5. Improved effectiveness of other skin care products: By removing dead skin cells, exfoliation enables other skin care products, such as serums and creams, to penetrate the skin more effectively, maximizing their benefits.

Step 6: Sun protection

Protecting your skin from the sun's rays with UV protection is essential for maintaining skin health and preventing damage caused by UV exposure. Here are some important reasons why:

1. Skin cancer prevention: Excessive exposure to UV rays can damage the DNA of skin cells, increasing the risk of developing skin cancer, including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma.

2. Preventing premature skin aging: UV rays can cause damage to the skin's structure, including the breakdown of collagen and elastin, leading to the appearance of wrinkles, fine lines, age spots and sagging skin.

3. Reduced risk of sunburn: Excessive exposure to UV rays can cause sunburn, which can be painful and damaging to the skin in the short term, as well as contributing to long-term damage.

4. Prevention of pigmentation spots: Exposure to the sun can lead to hyperpigmentation of the skin, manifested by the appearance of brown spots or freckles. The use of sun protection can help prevent the formation of these pigmentation spots.

5. Maintaining overall skin health: Protecting the skin from UV rays helps maintain its integrity and overall health, contributing to more beautiful, healthier, younger-looking skin in the long term.

It's important to use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an appropriate SPF (sun protection factor) every day, even on cloudy days or in winter, as UV rays can penetrate clouds and glass. In addition, it's advisable to reapply sunscreen every two hours, or more frequently after swimming, excessive perspiration or wiping with a towel.

Your beauty routine should be adapted not only to your skin type, but also to your environment and lifestyle. For people living in urban environments, it may be a good idea to incorporate anti-pollution products. On the other hand, those who spend a lot of time outdoors should opt for products with a higher level of sun protection. Finally, always remove your make-up every evening before going to bed, to let your skin breathe and regenerate during the night.

With these steps, your skin will be better protected, hydrated and glowing with health. However, it's important to remain attentive to your skin's reactions and adjust your routine if necessary. Sometimes, a simple product adjustment can make all the difference to your skin's comfort and theradiance of your complexion.