Are you overcomplicating your skincare routine? Now there’s a lot of great information and products out there about skincare, but at a certain point this starts to make things really confusing and may create anxiety, and we start to overcomplicate the process of skin care. So today at Sphere Medium, I’ll share with you 5 tips to avoid overcomplicating your skincare routine. If you want a little bit more clarity and simplicity with your skincare, then keep reading:
5 tips to avoid overcomplicating your skincare routine
stay Focused on why?
You don’t know your reason why? This seems really simple, but it is so common for people to forget the reason why they’re doing skincare and why they’ve built a routine; what are the goals they’re trying to achieve? With all the skincare products and information out there, we can get excited about general skincare, but if you don’t stay close to the reason why you are doing it in the first place, you’re going to end up with a routine that is really made for somebody else’s skin and not for your goals.
So it’s super helpful to narrow down on one to two things you want to transform (acne, spots)? It’s also important to pick one to two additional goals that you want to work on long-term (fine lines, wrinkles). Understanding that skincare is a long-term game and some of the benefits and the results we want to see on our skin do take time. As much as marketing and influencers want to promise us that a product will work within 7 days or within a month, they show up results after two to three months or even a few years down the road, so you really have to understand that patience and consistency are a part of skin care.
So the best way to avoid overcomplicating your skin care routine is by knowing why. This way, you’ll be able to create a more mindful and a very focused skincare routine that gets to your skin goals faster.
Don’t Duplicate Products
You are duplicating your skin care products with the same active ingredients. There might be the same ingredient in different steps of your skincare routine, like in essence, serums, toner, and moisturizer.
Do you know Doubling up active ingredients can cause skin irritation? It does lead to a lot of confusion if you don’t know what ingredients actually do for your skin. I’m not saying that you need to get a degree in cosmetic chemistry and become an expert in formulation efficacy. But I think that we complicate things by taking in too much knowledge. I believe it is important to have some basic knowledge about what some of the most common active ingredients do. Just learn to read the ingredient list at the products, once you know what certain ingredients are for. You’ll be able to understand what a product is able to do for you.
It’s important to understand that marketing lies to us all the time. They want us to buy their products. If you take up their advice, then you might end up with an overcomplicated skincare routine. A routine that isn’t really serving your skin, and that’s when you end up with multiple serums and products.
Don’t get caught up in viral marketing
As I’ve mentioned before, marketing is not there to help you out. Marketing is there to sell you more skin care products. You may have noticed that in the last couple of years skincare has become immensely popular. Skincare is a huge industry, yet new brands and new products are coming out every single day, and to really stand out, they need to do something different. Understand how marketing works, so always having a little bit of that cynicism is important.
One must be able to take a step back and think before purchasing any product. Take a moment to look at the viral marketing claim and decide if that product is in alignment with your focused goal, and then number two, does that product feel something missing in your skincare routine or is it going to become a duplicate product or a duplicate benefit or ingredient? If you already have vitamin C, why are you looking at buying another one when that bottle’s not empty?
More is not more
If you think more is more, then you need to know it’s not. Most people have this mindset that if they put all the aging products in one routine, then they’ll see the results faster!
Using vitamin C in a routine along with retinol and peptides, ceramides, and all together in one go is not going to help with their goals. This mindset leads people into pushing their skin too far with aggressive activities. They might end up with some ingredients that don’t actually complement each other, ending up with skin irritation, so this mindset of more is more when you want to pack your routine with all of these potent actives, usually backfires on the skin barrier, which is the root of a healthy skin. It gets weakened or compromised. And when skin barrier is damaged, achieving results becomes impossible.
In fact, you are actually putting your progress backwards instead of speeding up.
Tap into Your Joy
You may not be tapping into what makes you happy about skincare. Most of us are drawn into skin care because we want to transform our skin. But skincare is actually self-care. I know sometimes one might feel lazy and skip out the whole process. But take it as a moment to unwind your day, wash away stress and anxiety. Do more of what excites you about skincare; it could be a mask or message, whatever makes you happy and makes the process enjoyable.
so don’t overcomplicate your skincare routine. Focus on your goal; don’t duplicate your products. Try to resist the marketing hype. Don’t try to put it all on your face at once, and make sure you remember what makes you happy about skincare in the first place.
If you enjoyed reading this article, then do check out ‘Achieving Glass Skin: A Step-by-Step Guide to a Flawless, Radiant Complexion” at Spheremedium.and I will really appreciate if you could drop in the comments your favorite tips for simplifying your skincare routine and not feeling too complicated about it. Thanks
FAQs
When does a skincare routine get overcomplicated?
When there are more than necessary products and skin starts to breakup rather than improving, it’s a sign one needs to simplify their skincare routine.
What does a basic skincare routine look like?
A basic skin care routine consists of cleanser, serum (for targeted skin issues), moisturizer, and sunscreen.
Is a 10-step skincare routine complicated?
Yes and no. It depends on what the person wants to achieve with a 10-step skincare routine. But for most people, adding too many products can cause skin irritation.
Useful Links
I am a dentist, baker, and fitness and health enthusiast with a passion for living life to the fullest. I am foodie and explorer, always seeking new adventures and flavors. Currently working on my own skincare brand.
