Life gets crazy, but that doesn’t mean your skincare routine should. A lot of people get overwhelmed when thinking of how to properly take care of skin, but we promise it’s really quite simple! Below we’ve outlined everything your skin needs over the course of one day for ultimate health.
FIRST THING IN THE MORNING
When you first wake up you’ll have last night’s products on your skin to wash off. Rinse skin with lukewarm water but do not wash it with a cleanser, since doing so will strip yourskin of all the healthy oils it created overnight, which are crucial in the dry weather of Colorado. After rinsing, you’ll want to hydrate and protect skin by applying first a hyaluronic acid filler like IMAGE’s Ageless Total Pure Hyaluronic Filler ($51), which locks in moisture, followed up by a moisturizer with SPF. Kill two birds with one stone and get a tinted moisturizer with SPF, which will streamline your morning routine and help you forego the makeup route all together.
AFTER A WORKOUT
Make sure to wash off any makeup you might be wearing before working out so it doesn’t seep into pores. If you workout in the afternoon, your SPF will have worn off by now, so make sure you re-apply it after your workout. There’s really no need to cleanse your face after your workout unless you didn’t wash off your makeup prior to your sweat sesh. If you go into your workout wearing only moisturizer and/or serum, you’ll want to again just rinse skin with water and forego cleansing until before bedtime.
LATE AFTERNOON
Any antioxidants from the moisturizer you applied early in the day break down once exposed to sunlight, so you’ll want to replenish them in the afternoon. An easy (and super affordable) way to do this is to simply fill a small spray bottle with green tea and spritz it on skin. This will add the powerful & good-for-you polyphenol antioxidant to your skin, helping slow down sings of aging. And if you chill the tea slightly it’ll feel like a refreshing treat! If you’d like, feel free to spritz skin with green tea throughout the day to give skin much needed moisture and a healthy glow. It’s also a great way to calm down any post-workout redness you may have since green tea has anti-inflammatory properties.
BEDTIME
Your skin works hard at creating new & healthy skin cells while you sleep, so evenings are the perfect time to give it a little help with a moisturizer containing retinol, peptides, and antioxidants. If you’re new to retinol, introduce it into your nighttime routine slowly, using it a couple of nights a week. Once your skin gets accustomed to it, apply it every other day. On the days when you don’t wear retinol, you’ll want to use a rich moisturizer with peptides and antioxidants like IMAGE’s the MAX Stem Cell Creme ($96). The peptides and antioxidants will work hard to fight free radicals (which cause premature aging), as well as help with cellular turnover.