My Skin Care Routine

I’ve been off on spring break for the past week (and freaking out about all this Final Fantasy XV news ahhh), but I wanted to do an entry anyway. Gotta keep the blog up! I’m actually pretty eager to get back to classes, because when I’m left to my own devices, I pretty much just sleep the entire day and am a zombie all night. Braaaaaaaaaaaains…?

ANYWAY!

I thought I’d ramble about my skin care routine today! I feel like it’s kind of in between – not so simple as ~wash and go~, but it’s not like a 10-Step Korean kind of routine. Now I shall talk about it!

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but my main concerns when it comes to my skin are acne and oil control. I probably have the most oily skin ever, or at least it feels that way sometimes. Pretty much everything I do is to try and contain acne, even though I’m close to 30 years old. Clearly my skin thinks it’s still a teenager.

These are all the products I use, and you’ll have to excuse the lame quality of the photos since my cat broke my (homemade) lightbox. Also it was around 4am when I took these, so that might be a contending factor…

Here’s the full list of these products:

Equate Blemish Control Scrub
Cetaphil Oil Control Moisturizer SPF 30
SHISEIDO Perfect Oil
Neutrogena Deep Clean Cream Cleanser
Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash
Clarisonic Mia 2
elf Acne Gel
ZapZyt Acne Treatment Gel
Neutrogena Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle Cream

Obviously, I don’t use all of this at once, because that would be madness. Like most people, I’ve got a morning routine and nighttime routine.

Morning:

The rule of thumb is that you’re not supposed to exfoliate more than 2 – 3 times a week. I’ve read this over and over for years and it’s even somewhere in one of my textbooks for class. Despite this, I use that scrub every morning and I love it.

Honestly, despite all my acne and oil, it’s hard to truly irritate my skin. I’ve been using this for years, though, so maybe I’ve just gotten used to it. My face just doesn’t feel clean in the mornings unless I scrub it, which I know is bad, but oh well. I actually prefer the St. Ives version, but my dad buys this for me (for whatever reason, but I’m not complaining) and he’s adamant that store brands are just as good. I have to agree, really. The Equate brand doesn’t really feel quite as gritty, but it works for me all the same.

I only put on the Cetaphil moisturizer if I’m leaving the house. I mostly just got it for the SPF factor, because my previous moisturizer only had SPF 15 and I am the palest in ALLLLL the land, so I wanted more protection. I really don’t think the ‘oil control’ part does much, at least for me. I still need fifty million blotting papers after a few hours. The moisturizer itself is fine; it rubs in nicely and doesn’t make my makeup pill or cake. No complaints!

Night:

I have two different night routines, at least when it comes to face washing. Your skin repairs itself as you sleep and your body temperature rises as well – which means anything you use on your face is going to be more effective when you’re asleep.

If I’m wearing makeup, first I wipe it off with a cleansing wipe (I like the elf ones, or I’ll just use baby wipes). Then comes the Perfect Oil – I found it because I was looking for a dupe for the DHC oil. This works pretty well for me and it’s way cheaper. The only bad thing is that it typically ships from Japan, so sometimes you’ll be waiting forever to receive it.

I use the Perfect Oil on a dry face. I take 1 -2 pumps of it and just gently go in circular motions all over my face, and even over my eyes to get rid of mascara. This is true of all the cleansers – you want to be very gentle when touching going through the motions and not scrub super hard.

After I rinse that off, I rub in the Cream Cleanser and use the Clarisonic with that. I actually didn’t get the Clarisonic until I started school – it came with all of our supplies. I’ve been wanting to use one for ages, but I couldn’t bring myself to drop the $150 on it. I’m glad I didn’t ;D

I’ve used a couple other facial brushes, but I really like the Clarisonic. I think if you’re willing to drop the cash, it’s worth it. My classmates saw a difference in my skin texture after only two days and my face does feel a lot smoother immediately after using it. The only thing that sucks is that you have to replace the brush heads every 3 months or so, and they can get expensive. I’ve gotta see if they’re cheaper somewhere…

If I didn’t wear makeup that day, I just use the Acne Wash. I switch through the non-makeup cleansers fairly regularly, just to try them out – I most recently got through the Biore Charcoal one. I tend to come back to Neutrogena, though, because all the commercials brainwashed me as a teen.

Honestly, as long as you’re using one right for your skin type, I don’t think a cleanser matters as much as you might think it would – its main job is basically to give you a blank slate for moisturizers and whatnot. Any active ingredients aren’t going to do much because they’re not sitting on your face for long enough. As long as it’s not making your skin worse, I feel like any cleanser you want to use, regardless of price, is totally fine.

Bedtime:

Like I’ve said, my main concerns are acne and oil. I’ve tried pretty much every acne cream under the sun, and for some reason, the combination of the elf gel and Zapzyt stuff actually works. I still get breakouts, but they seem to happen way less frequently, especially in the past year. I just roll the elf gel all over my face and use the Zapzyt cream on individual blemishes (or on places that always seem to break out, like my nose and chin)

I’ve only started using the Neutrogena Anti-Wrinkle cream in the past month or so. I’m not all that concerned about wrinkles (yet). I mostly got it for the retinol factor, since retinol is supposed to help reduce the appearance of your pores by speeding up cell turnover. If there is a difference yet, it’s very, very slight. I mostly just got this cream in particular because it was the only one I could find at that moment that didn’t cost $25+. It’s probably fairly obvious, but most of my products are on the cheaper side. I’m a broke student, what can I say 😛

When it comes to creams and whatnot, it’s always best to layer them on thinnest to thickest – a thick cream kind of helps seal everything in there. Of course, you don’t want to pile on too much stuff, either, or you risk a lot of irritation. If nothing else, at least use a basic moisturizer before going to bed, no matter what your skin type.

I haven’t really changed my routine at all since starting school, except for the addition of the Clarisonic. I know this works for me. It might not work for you, if you had a similar skin type. Who knows?

Everyone is different and everyone’s skin is different. It’ll be up to me to eventually see individuals and recommend the right products for them.

♥RS