Beginner’s Guide to Skincare

How to get started?

Whether you simply never cared much about skincare or whether you try products from ads here and there but they just don’t work, and now you decided to dive deeper into the fascinating and yes, also intimidating ocean of skincare – this post is for you! If you are already a well-read skincare enthusiast, you might want to check out some other posts or take it as a back-to-basics-read. In this post, you will learn about the marketing trap surrounding skincare, how to maintain realistic expectations and where to start with your personal skincare routine.

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MAIN POINTS

• If you want to customize the right skincare routine for you, you need to look past pretty packaging and sometimes misleading marketing strategies. Focus on the actual ingredients of the product instead.
• There is no magic cure for your skincare concerns. The key is patience and consistency.
• Assess your skin condition and its concerns before you start with building a routine.
• Don’t overwhelm yourself or your skin – stick to the basics and go from there!
• The core steps are: CLEANSE – HYDRATE – PROTECT.

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Too much stuff, not enough information

There are plenty of products and routine styles out there, and it can be really overwhelming. This often results in an overload of options, yet a rather limited understanding what is actually suitable for your skin concerns and your lifestyle. On top of that, marketing strategies can be misleading and prevent you from discovering potential skincare gems. It’s great to have a good selection and I love aesthetically pleasing packaging on my vanity. But what really matters is often hidden in small printed and cluttered bulks of texts, preferably in chemical terms: the ingredients.

Marketing trap

To unlock the full potential of skincare you need to look past targeted packaging and labels. This applies for most gender and age targeted skincare. Skin type marketing should also be checked critically. The product that works best for you might be hidden in sections you usually don’t reach for. Products advertised as sensitive-skin-friendly might still contain irritating ingredients and “anti-aging products” can turn out to be simple hydrators. I had many bad encounters with products promising to battle pimples. Instead of solving my acne problems they just increased irritation and I just ended up with even more unwanted bumps on my face.

Realistic expecations

There is no magic cure-it-all product and even with more carefully selected skincare you will still have to be patient and no amount of good reviews will guarantee a similar outcome for your skin. Patience and consistency will get you through hits and misses though and you will achieve significant results.

Where to start?

Assess your skin condition and its concerns. Do you have dry, oily or combination skin? Do you struggle with acne, blackheads or aging skin? Depending on your individual needs the ingredients and types of products will vary. My skin is combination skin, as I tend to get oily in the T-zone, which is the area inlcuding the forehead, nose and mouth area, but my cheek area is rather dry and can get patchy if I don’t take care of it properly. I also struggle with acne prone skin, and due to that with hyperpigmentation that takes ages to fade. As I’m 27 years old, preventing premature skin aging is also a concern for me. My blog will mainly be about my personal experiences with routines, products and treatments, so the majority of my posts will be about these topics.
But there are also universal guidelines everyone should follow. So I highly suggest to start with the core of skincare basics.

Guidelines to follow now

Be gentle on your skin. Starting from right now avoid tugging or rubbing your skin, apply skincare gently by patting it in. The mission is to avoid all kinds of irritation. Starting from how you handle your skin up to what products you put on it.

Never go to bed without taking care of your skin. No matter how tired you are, always take the time to remove make-up, dirt and any other things that might have collected on your skin during the day. Ideally you will go through your routine, but if you just can’t handle it, at least apply any moisturizing layer.

Protect your skin from the sun. Ideally you will join the daily sunscreen club with at least SPF35 to prevent premature skin aging and more importantly dangerous skin cancer. Here you can find some of my favorite affordable sunscreen. If daily sunsreen sounds crazy to you or you simply disagree, at least be careful and avoid sun burns. Each sun burn is harmful to your skin and increases the risk of skin cancer. If you go to tanning salons regularly, please reconsider and do some research on the risks. Try using tanning products instead that give you a similar effect without the downsides.

It all comes down to this – Build a routine on the core steps:

1. CLEANSE 2.HYDRATE 3.PROTECT

All skin types and every skin concern will benefit from these basic steps. Each category can be expanded and you can add different layers or additional steps as works best for you, but every routine comes down to these 3 steps. Even the hyped 10 step Korean skincare routine is just a more elaborated version of it and if you want to learn even more about it, you have come to the right place.

Conclusion

Don’t get overwhelmed by the skincare jungle. By reading this article, you have already taken the first steps towards achieving your skincare goals. So, stick to the guidelines and enjoy – after all, skincare is also relaxing and a form of selfcare.

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