Who would say such a small thing can make such a huge difference for your skin?!
As someone who is in the beauty industry for quite a while now, over the years I’ve learned many important skincare lessons and gathered many valuable advice.
I know how to protect my skin from bad environmental influences. I’ve learned how to choose the right products. I know all the tricks for instant-glow. I’ve witnessed amazing transformations from faces full of acne to completely clear skin.
Sometimes it feels like there is nothing new left for me to discover. But, every now and then, I run into something that completely changes my perspective on how a skincare routine should look like.
The advice I’m talking about is so simple and so make sense, it feels like I should have known that before. I found it on Renée Rouleau’s blog (she is a famous esthetician that has her own skincare line). She said:
“After cleansing, never leave the skin bare for more than 60 seconds to prevent moisture evaporation. You must immediately apply your next products (moisturizing toner, serum, and moisturizer).”
This surprised me, because I clearly remember when I was a teen, all magazines and skincare professionals were saying that it is very important to completely dry out your skin before applying a moisturizer. And that’s what I used to do, not questioning it for a second! No wonder so many face creams never worked for me.
Anyway, just to try it out, I started applying my face cream right after washing my face, while my skin was still slightly damp. And it completely changed my skin – the texture, the complexion, the overall quality – everything! I’ve been using this advice for almost 2 years now and I couldn’t be any happier with what it did for my face. My skin is now plump and supple, I look younger and healthier and I finally got rid of the dull looking, greyish skin.
So, I dug deeper, to fully understand why this seemingly trivial step makes such a big difference for my skin. Turned out – thinking that hydrating and moisturizing are one and the same thing is a huge misconception.
Hydration means supplying your skin with water. Hydrators usually contain humectants (like glycerin and hyaluronic acid). Humectants hydrate your skin by attracting water molecules to your skin from the surrounding air. Your skin also gets hydrated during washing or shower.
The problem is – water evaporates from your skin pretty fast. Only a couple of minutes after you're out of the shower and the good part is already gone. And that’s where moisturizers come into picture. Moisturizers stay on the surface of your skin, creating the protective barrier that keeps the moisture in. But, moisturizers don’t actually supply your skin with water, only lock in what’s already there.
Basically, using just one out of these two is pointless.
(You can read on my blog more on all the differences between hydration and moisturizing and how to use them to your advantage.)
I still remember - I was practicing this advice for only three weeks when, at some family gathering, I run into some cousins I don’t get to see often. They told me I looked amazing, much younger and glowing, and asked me how I managed to do that. My sister wanted to make a joke and told them: “Oh, she’s just been to this new skincare treatment that costs $500.” And they completely believed it!
Now, that’s what I call a great advice.