In my post on seasonal skincare tweaks (you can read that in full here) I talked about some of the things I change in my routine when autumn gets into full swing. Swapping lighter moisturisers for richer ones, for example, to counteract the drying effects of colder weather and central heating.
Arguably the most important tip in that post was the one that advised stepping back from very potent, powerful active ingredients if your skin is feeling on the irritable side. Strong vitamin C serums, intense acid peels, advanced retinoids – shelve them for a bit until your face feels robust enough to use them again. Which might be a week later, or a month later, or might be never. My general thinking being that if your skin barrier is compromised and your face is feeling sensitive and dry and tight, then why – for want of a better phrase – would you rub salt in the wound? Why put harsh exfoliants onto skin that might already be over-exfoliated? Why force your skin into emergency repair mode when it’s already struggling to protect itself?
It would be like having terrible flu and thinking, I know what I need: a session in the ice bath followed by eight double gin and tonics and a Boxercise class.
Or something.
I do have some fleeting and not-so-fleeting concerns that things have gone a bit over the top in terms of skincare strengths. I think it’s great that we have hugely effective products at our fingertips – products we don’t need a prescription for and that don’t cost hundreds and hundreds of pounds – but there’s a downside to this new level of accessibility. And that is the fact that there’s nobody standing over the person buying it all saying “DO NOT USE ALL OF THIS IN ONE ROUTINE OR YOUR FACE WILL LITERALLY CATCH FIRE AND THEN FALL OFF AND YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO WEAR MAKEUP FOR A YEAR”.
Alright, so I’m being relatively dramatic here but it would be quite easy to gather up a handful of readily available skincare products – acid peel pads, a pokey vitamin c, retinol in a particularly user-unfriendly formula – and use them as weapons of face destruction. I feel as though certain active ingredient concentrations have increased noticeably over the years that I’ve been writing about beauty and I definitely have to be more careful now, when I’m testing products, than I had to be back at the start.
(I mean yes, the fact that my face is older could have something to do with it – it’s probably sick of my shit by now, the daily tinkering around and the constant “let’s try something new!” – but let’s ignore that for the moment.)
So: what if you want mega-effective products but not the potential irritation? What if you want to step back from your paint-stripper peel pads but still want something that’ll give you a good glow? Or what if your skin is permanently just a little bit on the sensitive side? Doesn’t do well with retinoids or Vitamin C? What if – and this is most of my non-beauty-industry friends – you’re simply not bothered about using the absolute strongest stuff you can possibly get your hands on, you just want to keep your skin on an even keel but still want to be safe in the knowledge that you have a highly effective skincare routine? Box ticked?
I have some suggestions for you. I’ve tried and tested the following products to the nth degree and feel that they are all nicely gentle on skin that’s more delicate, yet don’t sacrifice potency or effectiveness. They’re all products I regularly use in my own routine, whether my skin is feeling delicate or not – I don’t really subscribe to the “blast your face off” skincare method, preferring to keep things balanced, these days – and they are br…
