How to clean and protect your skin at home
Skin in balance is skin that thrives, and a glowing complexion relies entirely on your skin care habits. To get the most out of your routine, follow these three important rules for the ultimate at home daily care: use products specifically formulated for your skin type, use them correctly and consistently, and apply them in the right order. Doing this each day and night will ease troubled skin into a state of balance, that perfect state where your oil and water levels are in harmony and your skin feels and looks radiant and healthy.
Proper use of products. If you are unsure which products are best, please ask one of our aestheticians and we will be happy to help you determine the right ones to optimize results.
Repair your barrier. The barrier is the outermost layer of your skin. It helps it to retain water and protects it from external aggressors such as bacteria and environmental invaders like free radicals. Your barrier holds the lipids that bind your skin cells together. An intact barrier will keep your skin looking smooth and feeling soft. Estheticians can link most skin concerns (think dehydration, dryness, rosacea, acne and more) to a damaged skin barrier. The vital first step to healing any damage is the right cleansing routine for your skin type.
Easy Exfoliation. You may be scrubbing your skin into premature aging with cleansing brushes, facial scrubs, exfoliating pads (or an overkill combination of all of these) that will strip your barrier. Even worse, scrubs can create micro-tears in the skin. This results in chronic moisture loss and a cycle of inflammation (tightness, dryness, redness) known as “inflammaging” that contributes to skin aging. Work with your esthetician to determine the best kind of exfoliation and the right frequency for your skin type.
Here’s The Right Order to Apply Products:
At Night – The double cleanse. If you’ve had a facial at Spada, you know that our estheticians start your treatment with a double cleanse. The face is the one of the dirtiest places on the body. We touch it all day, transferring dirt and bacteria to our skin. Add Floridians’s number one accessory of sunscreen, plus makeup, dirt, and debris from the skin itself, and it all adds up. We encourage you to follow the double cleanse practice at home in the evening with an appropriate product for your skin type.
The first cleanse. Apply the cleanser directly to your dry skin and massage in circular motions for 30 seconds. By massaging it onto dry skin first, the emulsifiers in the cleanser will more actively break down any oils and other debris from your makeup and sunscreen. Next, wet your fingertips and massage through again, then rinse thoroughly with warm water. Gently wipe your face with a baby washcloth to lift any stubborn (and potentially pore clogging) makeup and sunscreen that remains. For sensitive skin, a first cleanse with a gentle oil like Sensiderm Cleansing Oil is effective. Light in texture and formulated to emulsify with a little water, cleansing oil provides a soothing way to remove stubborn sunscreen, makeup, and surface dirt.
The second cleanse. If your skin is oily or acne prone and experiencing breakouts, use a foam cleanser like Puractive Cleansing Foam to penetrate your pores. For normal and dry skin types, cleansing with the same lotion is effective.
Pro tip: Yes, we hear you. You love using cleansing wipes. Sure, they are convenient, but they won’t clean your skin. They smear bacteria and dirt across the skin’s surface, but they don’t remove it. Simply put, wipes are like applying a layer of soap to the dirt and oils on your face and not rinsing any of it off.
In the morning – the single cleanse. Clients often ask why they need to clean their skin in the morning if they’ve double cleansed at night. Here’s why: it’s important to remove residue from active ingredients formulated for nighttime skin repair like prescription retinoids, retinol, or exfoliating acids like glycolic. You want to be sure that all traces of these are rinsed away so your protective daytime products like Vitamin C serum and sunscreen aren’t inhibited, allowing them to work at full strength. You also need to cleanse away any oil and toxins your skin naturally secretes while you sleep in addition to the oils in your night cream. These oils can leave a light barrier that may block the absorption of your daytime moisturizer.
Use a gentle cleanser with active ingredients targeted for your skin type like Hydramucine Cleansing Milk for dehydration, Sensiderm Cleansing Milk for sensitivity, or Pureactive Cleansing Gel for oilier skins.
Morning and night – mist. Follow your morning and evening cleanses with a treating mist. Moist skin is approximately 10 times more permeable than dry skin, making a treating mist for instant hydration an essential step in your skin care routine. Unlike the toner most teens use that is alcohol based, oil stripping, and applied with a cotton pad, treating mists provide a barrier boost from essential amino acids and soothers like aloe vera. These ingredients balance your skin’s PH by removing the chlorine, salt, and mineral residue found in tap water. The very things that make water safe for bathing and drinking can leave a nasty film on your skin. Think of your treating mist as a rinse cycle after washing. The formulation of your mist will match your skin type just as your cleanser does.
Pro Tip: Letting the skin dry down after any step in your cleansing routine leads to moisture loss. Apply your mist immediately after cleansing is complete. Apply your next product, either serum or moisturizer, immediately after misting while the skin is still damp.
Hydrate and protect. Moisturizer and SPF are essential, and an esthetician can help guide you to a product with the right texture and cocktail of active ingredients for your unique skin concerns. If you opt for a moisturizer with sunscreen, be sure the formulation is at least SPF 25 or higher and broad spectrum to block UVA and UVB rays along with environmental blue light from device screens. Remember, it is a moisturizer first and an SPF second, so be on top of reapplying as needed. Another approach, for normal to dry skin that needs hydration, is to first apply the right moisturizer for your skin type by gently pressing it into your face, neck and decolletage. Once absorbed, apply mineral sunscreen to your fingertips and gently press it into the same areas until fully absorbed.
Start with these care basics to establish a routine that nourishes your barrier and watch the transformation in your skin’s tone, texture, and radiance. A change of season is the perfect time to schedule a consult with your esthetician to find the best cleanser, treating mist, and moisturizer for your skin type.
Kendall Farr is a Licensed Esthetician with the Spada skin team.