what's actually happening
Your face gets more attention than the rest of you combined, and most of it is unnecessary. Ten steps. Four serums. An exfoliant on top of an exfoliant.
Here's the part nobody selling you the fourth serum mentions: a lot of what makes skin angry is in the products sold to calm it. Sulfates in the cleanser. Denatured alcohol in the toner. Synthetic fragrance in the one labelled gentle.
And fragrance is a single word on a label that can stand for a long list of ingredients nobody has to name. It's protected as a trade secret. So a product can be mostly fine and partly unknowable, and there's no way to tell which part is which.
Skin does most of the work itself. It makes its own oil. It replaces itself. The job isn't to fix it — it's to stop handing it things it has to recover from.
Cleanse. Tone. Moisturize. SPF in the morning. And read the back of all four.
the routine
Three steps. Stop there.
Smooth Sali
salicylic acid and green tea cleansing g
The only exfoliant you need. Once, in the evening.
Routine Skincare Set
all three, together
$117.00 bought separately. Add the kit below and it comes down again.
things worth doing
-
Read the back of something you already own. Start with your cleanser.
-
Give your skin a night off now and then. Water, moisturizer, done.
-
When your skin changes, look at what else changed first. It's usually a product.
things you can stop
-
Washing twice a day with something that strips your skin. Once, in the evening, with a gentle cleanser is usually enough.
-
Buying something new every time your skin does something. Give it four weeks first.
-
Exfoliating on top of exfoliating. Check whether your cleanser is already doing it.
