Skin Care Tips for the Absolute Beginner

If you’ve always neglected skin care, it’s never too late to change whether you are 24, 44, or 64. Good skin is really the foundation of beauty. Everyone’s skin is different, so a big part of developing a routine is experimenting and figuring out what works for you. It’s important as well to keep in mind that your skin changes over time as well as across climates and seasons, so don’t be afraid to mix it up if something that always worked for you stops doing so. The tips below can help you with the basics of developing a routine.

Your Skin Care Budget

The cost of skincare products can be eye wateringly expensive. It’s not a good idea to go all in buying the priciest things on the market when you’re starting out, and you may never need to spend a significant amount of money. But learning your way around skin care is a lot less fun if you don’t have any cash at all to spend. If you’re already on a fairly tight budget, you could look at ways to cut your spending in other areas. Maybe give up a happy hour night with friends–alcohol isn’t great for your skin anyway–or look at ways to cut back on your bills. You might be able to get a lower interest rate on your credit card or you could check out student loan refinancing. Refinancing a current student loan into a new loan might lower your monthly payments.

First Steps

The first thing you should do is figure out whether you have oily or dry skin. You might also have oily patches, or you might have skin that is somewhere in the middle, which means that you probably don’t have to worry much about irritation from any products. If makeup tends to get greasy on your skin or your face gets shiny after a few hours, you probably have oily skin. If your skin is itchy or flaky, it’s probably dry. Knowing this can help you figure out which products you need to balance out that dryness or oiliness.

Basic Routine

Skincare can get incredibly complicated, but at its most basic, you need to clean it, moisturize it, and apply sunscreen. Find a cleanser that works for you and use that in the morning, followed by moisturizer and sunscreen. At night, clean it again, apply any products that you want to use such as toner and follow with a moisturizer. Those are the basics for building a routine, and it really is as easy as that.

More Complex Issues

Skin care can become something of a hobby for some people, and you may find yourself collecting products to try out. However, even if you don’t get that into it, there may be specific problems that you want to address, such as acne or aging. It can help when choosing the right skincare products to read up on the ingredients that are in skin care products so that you know what is and is not beneficial to your skin. Products labeled non-comedogenic are helpful for acne because they are less likely to clog your pores.