5 Ways To Take Your Bedtime Skincare To The Next Level
Are you looking to give your skin more than the basic (but vital) nighttime cleanse and moisturize? Goody, then you’ve come to the right place.
Picture the scene: you’re getting ready to turn in for the night and going through your pre-bedtime motions. PJs are on, teeth are cleaned, hair is brushed (just us then?) and your face and neck have been cleansed and moisturized. All good stuff. But is a basic cleanse and moisturize really enough to encourage great skin? Or can you do more?
Nighttime is actually a super important time for your skin because while the rest of your body is at rest your skin gets crazy busy trying to heal itself from the pressures of daily life. Day after day things like pollution, stress, a less-than-ideal diet and UV radiation produce damaging free radicals in your skin which, if left to their own devices, attack collagen and elastin and ruin your skin’s youthful mojo. Of course, topical antioxidants like vitamin C plus that all-important sunscreen are great ways to ward off free radicals but still, some of them are going to get through, and your skin needs time to recuperate.
The good news is that all of this rejuvenation and reparation happens overnight when you’re sleeping. When your body rests, blood flow to your skin increases, collagen production accelerates, your natural antioxidant system kicks in and your skin’s barrier function restores itself ready to fight another day. If you miss out on your valuable sleep, therefore, your skin is starved of enough time to get all of this important work done. And your skin will suffer because of it. Studies show that people who get between seven and nine hours of sleep each night generally have way healthier skin than those who sleep for five hours or less.
There is no one perfect nighttime skincare routine that suits all, but you can definitely do more for your skin than wash your face and slap moisturizer on before you hit the sack. Don’t get us wrong, cleansing and moisturizing morning and night is great – and extremely important – but why stop there when just a couple of extra minutes could result in so much more for your skin?
Read on for five ways to up the ante in your nighttime skincare routine… and enjoy way better skin as a result.
1. Give Double Cleansing A Go
Let’s get one thing straight: double cleansing isn’t always necessary and can actually be too stimulating if you use harsh, overly drying products. However, if you choose your products wisely and like to wear a good amount of makeup during the day or are prone to particularly oily skin that feels pretty grimy by the evening, double cleansing can be a very effective way to give your skin the clean slate it deserves before bed.
What is double cleansing? Well, it simply means cleansing your skin twice. First, you use an oil-based cleanser to remove makeup and sunscreen, then you followed this with a water-based formulation to wash away other surface debris and help target your skin type or concerns.
Being gentle is always the preferred way to cleanse and it’s even more important when you’re doing the job twice. So avoid harsh ingredients like sulfates and parabens because these can really over-do it, leading to excessive dryness, irritation and even breakouts. All of our cleansers are free of such nasties, so don’t worry, we’ve got your back.
Also, don’t forget your neck. It’s just as important as the rest of your face and often goes unloved. That’s a mistake you don’t want to make.
2. Try An Exfoliating Treatment
Most people exfoliate in the morning in a bid to freshen up and brighten their skin ready for the day. And this is great. However, exfoliating in the evening is also a fabulous way to help lift away any impurities from your skin to allow the rest of your nighttime skincare routine to penetrate your skin more effectively. It’ll also kick-start the regeneration process which happens overnight, encouraging cell turnover and boosting collagen production. Nice touch.
After cleansing, try our new 6% AHA, BHA + PHA Liquid Exfoliant which is totally non-abrasive and specifically formulated with sensitive skin types in mind. It combines three of the best exfoliating acids for brightening skin tone, unclogging your pores and creating a more even, smoother texture. What’s not to love?
Apply it two or three times a week, but remember not to use it on evenings when you’re applying a retinol product – that combo can be way too stimulating for your delicate skin!
3. Target Your Biggest Skin Concerns
OK, now it's over to you to think about what your skin really needs. And this is where targeted facial serums come into their own. Do you want to nix pesky breakouts? There’s a serum for that. Maybe you have some pigmentation you’d like to get to grips with? Yeah, there’s a serum for that, too. Basically, whatever your needs, a facial serum has you covered.
Serums are an incredible way to incorporate potent, active ingredients into your skincare routine because they’re thinner and more lightweight than regular moisturizers. This means they’re able to deliver ingredients way more effectively, targeting your specific issues by getting underneath the surface where all the good stuff happens.
We have plant-powered, science-backed serums to cater for all tastes, skin types and concerns. From our awesome Peptide Facial Serum which is perfect for hydrating the skin and targeting premature aging through to our Tea Tree Super Serum+ for brightening and clearing out your pores, rest assured, we’re here for you.
4. Show Your Eyes Some Love
The skin around your eyes is thinner and far more fragile than the rest of your face. It also contains fewer sebaceous glands so it can feel and look pretty dry without due care. This is why eye creams are such a great choice for helping to nourish and hydrate the skin while warding off fine lines in this delicate area. And applying one at night is very wise.
Tapping eye cream around your eyes before bed gives your skin something to help kickstart the regeneration and rejuvenation process. Big thumbs up for that. Not only that, but if you apply it in the morning, it can interfere with your under eye concealer and makeup, whereas there’s no chance of that at bedtime.
Sure, you’re welcome to apply an eye cream both morning and night – as long as you give it a good few minutes in the morning to sink in before applying makeup – but if you prefer one or the other, nighttime is your best bet.
Try our new Depuffing Longevity Eye Cream to target aging and help reduce dark circles and pesky under eye baggage.
5. Moisturize Your Lips & Hands
Taking care of the skin on your face and neck is obviously vital before bed. But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, nighttime is an incredible time to give your hands, lips and even your feet a little extra attention. They’re going to be still (for the most part) as you sleep, plus they're totally surplus to requirement for at least the next seven hours, so what better time to lavish them with moisture?
Apply a rich, buttery cream or lotion to cleansed hands and feet just before you jump into bed, and smear your favorite lip balm over your lips. Make sure to apply it just over the edges of your lips as this area can often feel the driest.
And we're done here.
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![Why Your Morning & Bedtime Skincare Routines Should Be Different]()
Knowing how to switch things up to get your skin ready for the day as opposed to ready for bed? Life-changing. Well, skin-changing at the very least.
There’s something to be said for nailing a consistent skincare routine. However, it’s not always easy to find your perfect product match. In fact, it requires much nurturing and tweaking – often over many years – to get your routine exactly where you want it. Whether you prefer to keep things basic or like to go all-out with every potion you can get your hands on, skincare is a very personal thing. But there are some fundamentals that every successful regime should abide by.
One of these is the importance of variation. And by this we don’t mean owning 75 moisturizers and just as many facial serums that you switch out more often than your underwear. Because, frankly, this is not the kind of consistency skin strives for. No, by variation we mean having a few different products in your arsenal that are tailored to your skin’s needs as they change from AM to PM.
Often brushed off as marketing hype, morning and night time skincare is, in fact, quite different. Do you really need separate cleansers, toners, eye treatments and exfoliators for morning and night? Absolutely not. These products are important, for sure, but they can definitely remain the same, no matter what time of day they’re being used. However, other products require a little thoughtful adjustment so they’re able to offer exactly what your skin needs as it transitions from day to night.
Never quite sure how to approach your morning and bedtime skincare routines? Then read on for the three most important products you need for each of these skinfluential times of day.
Your Morning Skincare Routine
Life often gets in the way of awesome skin. Things like emotional stress, pollution, the sun, your diet, they all have their own ways of upsetting the health of your skin and throwing things way off whack. This means your morning skincare routine must, most important of all, set your skin up for a daily battle against everything life throws at you.
Morning Skincare Musts
1. Environmental Protection
So, life. As awesome as it is, it batters your skin with daily aggressors that encourage the formation of free radicals. Free radicals are few and far between at night when you’re asleep, but during daylight hours, they can overrun your skin, compromising your collagen supplies, screwing up your elastin and even messing with your DNA. This is seriously bad news for the health of your skin as it can accelerate fine lines and wrinkles as well as other skin peskies like dark spots, sagging, dullness and poor texture and tone.
Keeping your skin protected from free radicals, therefore, should be an absolute priority for your morning routine. And the best way to do this? With an antioxidant facial serum. Unlike other skincare ingredients, antioxidants work hard to neutralize free radicals, allowing your skin to go about its business without the risk of damage from things like the sun and environmental pollution.
Topical antioxidants include the likes of vitamin E, niacinamide and green tea but the real biggie is vitamin C – something we know rather a lot about, here at TruSkin HQ! Universally loved and clinically-proven to nix free radicals in the bud while also brightening the skin, we think of it as a non-negotiable morning essential. You should, too. So try our fan-favorite Vitamin C Facial Serum and get on that, this second.
2. Hydration
As well as to protect itself from the outside world, your skin’s other main job is to keep itself hydrated and moisturised all day so that its barrier function remains in optimum condition. Your skin’s barrier function is what keeps toxins and pollution out and moisture in so it’s vital to moisturize daily to keep it strong and in great working order. Otherwise, you’re asking for trouble in the way of dehydration, dryness, breakouts and potential irritation.
We believe daily moisturizing should be about lightweight formulations that you can layer without overloading your skin. Look out for serums that harness ingredients like hyaluronic acid and aloe vera which help to draw moisture into the skin’s top layers. Then follow with a light lotion that locks all that moisture in. We love the winning combination of Niacinamide Facial Serum followed by Firming Collagen Day Lotion which is deeply moisturizing but light enough for everyday wear.
3. And The Most Important Product Of All: SPF
Of course, sunscreen is futile before bed, but your morning skincare routine is nothing without SPF. You just can’t ignore the fact that the sun is the biggest skin ager and responsible for somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of external skin aging.
If you want to ward off fine lines, wrinkles, dark spots and sagging skin for as long as humanly possible you need to apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen every morning – rain or shine. Broad-spectrum formulations protect your skin from both UVA and UVB so that’s important to look out for on your product labels. Also, make sure to go with nothing below SPF 30 and stick with mineral formulations that are much kinder to your skin. Our SPF 30 Mineral Sunscreen with Vitamin C checks all those boxes, so no probs there.
Your Bedtime Skincare Routine
As your body and brain go into rest mode, your skin goes into reset mode. Your environment has completely changed and gone are all the elements that have been going at your skin all day long. This makes night time the best time for your skin to heal and rejuvenate itself, ready to do it again tomorrow.
Bedtime Skincare Musts
1. Thorough Cleansing
Cleansing your skin is essential, morning and night, but at night time, after subjecting your skin to a whole day of sweat, makeup, oil, sunscreen, dirt, pollution and, well you get the picture, cleansing is everything.
Your product choices are down to you and your skin type, but always stick with gentle formulations that are free of harsh ingredients like sulfates and parabens. Sure, effective cleansing is important, but you don’t want to strip your skin completely dry or irritate your delicate barrier function. Our current favorite is our Soothing Cleansing Milk but, like we said, the ball is in your court.
When cleansing, take your time to thoroughly massage your skin to remove all traces of daily grime, and use lukewarm (never hot!) water to rinse well.
Double cleansing can also be a good idea before bed – especially if you like to wear a good amount of makeup during the day or are prone to oily skin that feels pretty dirty by the evening. And double cleansing is exactly what it sounds like. First, you use an oil-based cleanser to remove makeup and sunscreen, then you followed this with a water-based formulation to wash away other surface debris and help target your skin type or concerns.
2. Rejuvenation & Repair
Unlike the rest of your body which takes a well-deserved break as you sleep, night time is when your skin gets busy. All the excitement from the day shifts your skin into regeneration mode, repairing damage and preparing it for the next day. During this time blood flow increases, collagen production accelerates, cell turnover doubles and your skin’s natural antioxidant system amps up. It’s like a well-oiled machine that really kicks into gear as the rest of you catches your zzzs.
The products you choose to help all this move along seamlessly are endless, so it’s really a matter of choice. Do you want to help target fine lines and wrinkles as you sleep? Then Retinol Facial Serum might be the one for you. Perhaps you want to concentrate on looking after your collagen? In which case, Smoothing Collagen Serum has your name on it. Then there’s Peptide Facial Serum which strengthens and protects your barrier function to help your skin rejuvenate.
We know they all sound amazing (and that’s because they are!) but try to resist applying more than one at a time. Helping your skin during the overnight regeneration process is great. Overloading it with too many actives? Not so much.
3. Deep Moisturization
Did you know, your skin produces less sebum while you’re asleep? Well, now you do. And hopefully this also makes you better understand the importance of deeper, more intense moisturizing at night.
You might, like us, hate the feeling of heavy creams during the daytime but there’s no better feeling than slathering your face (and neck, of course!) in a beautifully intense moisturizing cream that will nourish your skin and have you waking up with a soft, plump complexion.
Our Vitamin C Deep Hydration Night Cream is perfect for the job. It has that extra sprinkling of vitamin C to add a bit of antioxidant prowess to the party. Plus, it contains aloe to hydrate and our favorite beautifying compound, MSM to soothe, strengthen, firm and revitalize your skin. No effort required.
We love that for you.
Why Your Morning & Bedtime Skincare Routines Should Be Different
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