All this washing hands is really not helping my skin.

I should probably have a skincare routine beyond rubbing Aquafor on my face when it feels dry, but I can't make myself do it.

A couple of years ago, after a lost some weight, I was persuaded* to try some kind of skin care regime.** I'm too lazy to keep it up regularly, or insufficiently motivated, so I do it for a while and then drift away and then remember 6 months later and start again. I was all ready to be a total skeptic, "Ah hah! It _is_ a waste of money!". There is, however, a visible difference. It's not super dramatic, but it is definitely noticeable.

* gentle nudging from my wife, but mostly, it was my own initiative. I was already persuaded re: the benefits of the right shaving products, as I'd gone from someone who would have horrific cuts, and bad shaving rashes all the time, to someone with no issues shaving.
** We aren't talking some elaborate 10 step regime here. Some kind of cleaning stuff (face wash, scrub, etc), and some kind of moisturiser, occasionally some sort of serum or oil from standard high street brands or inexpensive brands like The Ordinary.

Aging has taught me that taking care of yourself actually matters.

HG, are you going to share your specific, concrete instructions? I'm in the process of figuring out a routine but it's still pretty minimal.

(In my own experiments with changing the gestalt impression I make on other people, I've determined it all comes down to eyebrows.)

I am happy to share!

These are the original instructions:
Morning:
1. Aveda botanical kinetics - purifying creme cleanser (I like this a lot. Doesn't require much for a single use.)
2. Aveda botanical kinetics - exfoliant (can't tell if this does anything)
3. Trader Joe's hyaluronic moisture boost serum (I think I like this)
4. Some sort of sunscreen. I was already in the habit of using Elta MD broad spectrum spf 46.

Evening:
Same steps for 1-3.
4. Regenerist Retinol24 Night Face Moisturizer. (I love this moisturizer a lot. It feels very light and silky.)

Since then, I pinged Hydrobatidae for the rec of Lab Muffin, a chemist who does a deep dive on a lot of these things, and after reading some of her recommendations, I pared back the morning routine a lot, mostly out of laziness and to make the products last longer. Reliably just step 4 now. But I still do all the steps at night.

I want Gandalf-style eyebrows but it's not happening.

Oh, I also got a sugar scrub with the instructions to use it 1-2x/week, swapping it in for Step 2. It's Sugar Face Polish by Fresh.

Do they make one with nutrasweet?

lk, some thoughts that may be interesting and or helpful -

keep your cleanser as mild as possible, just enough to shift whatever you are trying to shift. in the morning, night sweat & accumulated dead skin so don't need much, a pleasant cream cleanser should do it. in the evening/at night, you are hopefully removing sunscreen & that is designed to stay on all day. & maybe makeup. an oil or balm cleanser is going to do the job most efficiently without distressing your skin, & don't hesitate to go in twice particularly of you've got on makeup. get a bunch of white washcloths from Ikea or something, use them damp with warm water to remove with some gentle rubs to exfoliate, *wash the wascloths regularly*. i avoid foaming products, but have dry skin. ymmv. inexpensive options - cerave hydrating cleanser, the ordinary squalane cleanser (my favorite at the moment), the inky list oat cleansing balm.

- sunscreen sunscreen sunscreen even when overcast or in the winter unless above the arctic curcle during winter. will make the biggest difference. I've gone all mineral but that pretty much commits you to some makeup to avoid the after the clown orgy look. if using mineral, avoid silicone as it will at some inconvenient point pill when you put on makeup over it, like when you have 5 minutes tops before having to be presentable. i use josie maran (if you are olive skinned the tinted version may well do it all for you - if pink undertoned like me, will be hideous), jurlique (lavender scented, may be irritating if your skin is picky), dr. jart (current favorite, but also has citrus scent, again may be irritating).

- spend the money you can afford on a retinol that you'll use regularly & doesn't irritate your skin. build up slowly. i'm currently using shani darden, works & is non irritating for me. second biggest difference. i use at night.

- spend the next chunk of money you can afford on vitamin c in a stable formulation. this is going to be expensive, sorry. but it is very effective at making a difference in a relatively short time. i'vee used drink elephant, am currently using an excellent murad product that includes a good exfoliant but it's $$$. i use in the morning.

- i vastly prefer chemical to physical exfoliants, paula's choice has good relatively inexpensive options. will make most immediate difference, nicely satisfying. ramp up slowly. i use in the morning.

- moisturize for comfort, i have dry skin & enjoy cerave's thick cream (look for the pump or tube, avoid pots that grimy fingers may get stuck into) particularly on my neck-collarbones & upper tits, can get irritated from salt water swimming, paula's choice has a "mask" in a red tube that my face loves, dr. jart has a ceramide cream that i also love. the cerave unglamorous thick thick cream is my standby tho.

general order of battle:

morning
1 wash
2 exfoliate
3 vit c
(4 moisturize - may not need a separate step for this if your sunscreen has enough emollients)
5 sunscreen

night
1 wash
2 retinol
3 moisturize

enjoy!!!

11: DQ - have you tried micellar water like bioderma in the morning?

My aunt, who has perfect but also oily skin, was a retin-a devotee but that's pricy if you're paying cash in the USA. Have you tried Differin or do you prefer a Retinol?

Also Neogen dermalogica Korean zinc oxide sunscreen is lovely with no white cast. I can wear it without makeup and look normal.

vitamin c in a stable formulation

Orange juice.

Thanks hg, dq!

Thanks BG for Korean sunscreen rec! I saw the earlier recs about the Japanese Biore stuff but all the warnings about fake products on Amazon stressed me out and I had to close the browser and go do something else.

not a fan of micellar water personally, can be drying but more important to me is i can't tolerate the waste - applying with a disposable cotton pad that goes straight to a landfill. not for me!

on vit a, i just look for over the counter in an effective formulation that doesn't irritate. going to be v personal ime.

Honestly, how bad can a disposable cotton pad be? It's basically like toilet paper if you used very high quality toilet paper with a high rag content.

14: I mangled the name. It's not Dermalogica, which is it's own thing, but dermalogy. If you google neogen, you'll find it. Sephora used to sell it. Youcan buy it directly from the company, but some glam also sells it.

I guess I could just grow a beard instead of caring for my skin, but the skin seems easier to care for than a beard.

17: I'm shocked that you would confuse one made-up not-a-word derivation of "dermatology" with another.

I use CeraVe moisturizer (SPF) and stronger sunscreen anytime I'm outdoors for any period of time. I usually use Coppertone's mineral sunscreen which has very little cast, at least for me who starts as a pale white girl.

Mostly though I think I'm skating by on good genes. Thanks, mom!

19: heh. Also it's soko glam. I just discovered that there's a brand new moisturizing lotion version of retin-a, which is like $100 and lasts 3 months. Prescription-only, but you can do $50 online video dermatologist consultation to get it.

I walked to Whole Foods for milk tonight. All staff wearing masks, though one guy had his below his nose. It looked like it was 100% of customers, but the.n a I saw a few teenagers and 2 other adults not masked.

I want to acknowledge that DQ has patiently written all that out for me, before! But somehow I really needed someone to take me from store to store or I was never going to properly adopt anything.

Also I feel like the routine my friend recommended and DQ's routine are basically compatible, which is pleasing! And I've been thinking about a vitamin C thing, so maybe I'll go add one in.

I'm kind of relieved to see that Botox doesn't make much of a difference. I occasionally have a pang of anxiety that everyone but me is having these mildly-invasive procedures (not a totally unfounded fear, where I live) and that in a few years I'll look around at all my peers' plump, unlined features and regret my choices.

My skincare routine:

Morning:
- Wash with water.
- Stupidly expensive Vitamin C serum. Usually SkinCeuticals CE Ferulic, but sometimes Ole Henriksen Truth Serum. (I tried the Vitamin C serums from The Ordinary, and the easy-to-use formulations (Ascorbic Glucoside, MAP) didn't do much, while the more intense formulations had a noticeable effect but using them was literally torture.)
- Sunscreen. Right now, IOPE. I'm not brand-loyal and I go through sunscreen really fast, so I just use whatever Korean sunscreen my mom or sister give me or the saleslady at the store wants me to try. Stay away from the tinted ones, because they tend to look like makeup. Most untinted ones these days dry pretty sheer and sink in fairly quickly. I also like Elta MD and Oil of Olay (the one in the narrow white bottle with the wider shoulders).

Evening:
- Wash with Neutrogena Ultra Gentle Daily Cleanser. If I've worn makeup or a waterproof sunscreen that day, I'll wash with DHC Oil Cleanser first.
- Exfoliant. Right now I'm using REN Beauty Daily AHA Tonic, but in the past I used Paula's Choice.

23: 💓💓💓 it's all pretty basic, routine stuff but can be impenetrable to those who haven't spent their years from 15-16 on with a stake in the amateur* competitive ranks. generally happy to spread basic knowledge!

24: dhc such a great oil cleanser, the gold standard really. there's another japanese brand i quite like, can't remember the name and am once again marooned in beverly fucking hills so cannot check. lighter texture, brand also has great range of over complicated hyaluronic potions. used to get it from the delightful little shop in the japantown center, scared it's not survived. 💔 if you wear sunscreen and or makeup folks, get yourself an oil cleanser, so satisfyingly effective!

*amateur = no needles, no rx, over the counter & topical only. so have never tried botox. idly fantisize on occasion about kristen scott thomas-level subtle surgery for eyes & jawline but even in fantasyland would require suspension of ocean swimming post surgery ¡horrors! so clearly insufficiently committed. amateur all the way down lol.

& just because i assume at least 2 lurkers extra warm shout out to all venturing out into the billowing swells of womanness, encompassing hg getting there thru the fog of extended maternal obligations & lk newly embarking on the whole damn show. we are a fucking complicated tribe but dammit i'm totally here for this one overly abstruse area. got questions? i've had them myself. let rip the frivolous!

I can't use any mineral sunscreens. I think it's one of those deceptive things where although I have white Scottish skin, I'm actually multiple shades darker than anyone that can wear mineral sunscreens without a cast. I bought a couple and my wife and son can both wear them with it basically being invisible on their skin, and I look like I am wearing clown makeup.

So, I use https://www.neutrogena.co.uk/face/moisturisers/hydro-boost-city-shield-moisturiser which has the advantage of being cheap, and invisible.

I ended up buying an The Ordinary vit C one, after getting overwhelmed by choices. I guess the good news is that vit C serums go bad so fast that I'll have the opportunity to buy a new one soon, if this one isn't good.

Personally I rub mine with a housebrick and slather on some engine oil:-)

I have heard the good news about sunscreen, but have failed to incorporate it into my life. Do you all put sunscreen on your forehead? When I do that, it ends up in my eyes by midmorning and stings like crazy. I've tried a bunch of different kinds and they all seem to migrate downward on me.

+1 for the Drunk Elephant vitamin C serum.

I don't wear sunscreen on my face because a hat is better protection. Except I don't wear the hat.

The problem with hats in town is that you look like an Incel longing for a return to the 50s so a woman would have to marry you in order to eat.

I guess with a stupid enough hat, you could look voluntarily celibate.

30: try checking out japanese and korean sunscreens for oily skin, look for gel rather than creamy formulations. they are formulated to stay put in high heat-humidity-sweating summers. i'm always looking to add grease, so can't make any specific recs, but i'd start there.

29: with you on the viscous oil, but really dislike physical exfoliants, vastly prefer to let a mild acid do the work.

Microdosing is big now.

My allergies prevent me from really enjoying skincare. My genes mean that I mostly get away with it. I wash at night with Bioderma micellar water and rinse with water, followed but Aveeno moisturizing lotion. Every couple of days, I use The Ordinary's lactic acid exfoliator and have to moisturize after or it breaks me out. I wear chemical sunscreen (Neutragena 45 or 60) when I'm working outside (1 day a week) and otherwise don't. I wash that off with Clinique Take The Day Off balm.

The exfoliator really made a different. Like others, I didn't believe before so tried it but I'm now a convert.

I love Japanese sunscreen (I have def had this conversation here before) but it's impossible to get locally so I'm stuck with Canadian. Mineral sunscreen makes me want to claw my face off and turns me into a ghost so I refuse. It's barely sunny here, especially this year. Also my parents are barely wrinkled in their late 70s so I'll prob be fine. In return my hair is a greasy, yet frizzy, mess.

If anyone can offer hair recommendations, please go for it. I'm probably allergic to whatever propels stuff so mousse and dry shampoo is mostly out (I have some Lush dry shampoo that's just like scented corn starch)

I still don't get the point of dry shampoo. Why not just not wash your hair?

The longer I go without washing my hair, the nicer it looks. Granted, I've never gone past eight days or so because it starts to smell and I get head pimples.

COVID was a learning opportunity.

After I was bald from chemo, I swore I'd never take my hair for granted again. I don't have any particular recommendations but I am dismayed to report that the expensive shampoos really do leave my hair looking nicer.

Taking the question seriously (prob a mistake), I think the starch binds with the grease and makes it less 'greasy' and shiny. It basically makes it more dirty but in a way that's fashionable.

Lush bar shampoos are pretty great but the best my hair has ever looked was in WI with the ungodly hard water. Otherwise I agree about expensive hair stuff and they smell better.

35. Last: have you tried only shampooing at your scalp, conditioning towards the tips, and using a curl tamer? Sorry, that's sort of an odd combination of suggestions. My sister has curly hair and does something sort of like that. The curl tamer seems kind of magical.

Oops, 36, obviously.

Is your hair curly? If so I can help.

but the best my hair has ever looked was in WI with the ungodly hard water

Huh. We have insanely hard water here - it wrecks your coffee maker in under a year, and your ice maker, and everything else, no matter how religious Jammies is about using the vinegar. (I believe it wrecked my poor last kitties too, although they lived good long lives before they started to have kidney failure.) We've been long planning on getting a water softener.