Skincare - Dry Skin type

Routine for Dry Skin:
(the other types: Oily, Normal/Combination, Sensitive Skin)

- A gentle rich cleanser for dry skin to use every morning, after school, and/or before bed. Wash your face twice daily followed by a hydrating toner.

- Use alcohol-free hydrating toner immediately after each time you cleanse and twice daily. Apply toner to a cotton pad and gently wipe entire face. By using the cotton pad, you wipe away some of the dead skin and debris that remains on the surface of your skin after cleansing.

- Depending on the severity of your dry skin, you can include a night serum which are rich and are designed to help restore nutrients into your skin. Apply serums before your moisturizer.

- Apply a moisturizer immediately after every wash even if you didn’t use a cleanser/toner beforehand. You need a moisturizer that’s richer and targeted towards dry skin. Day/Night moisturizers with SPF might work well too.

- Use a day moisturizer with SPF protection. You can try an oil-free makeup base with SPF, but it doesn’t do much in terms of giving your skin nutrients.

Products:

- Cleanser/Toner – Drugstore brands are good to start with if you’re just getting into skin care. They are priced affordably and can work just as well for you as over the counter brands. If a certain brand doesn’t work, it’s less money wasted to switch to another. You might come across 2-in-1 cleanser/toner combinations, but I recommend you get them as separates unless there’s something a 2-in-1 combo out there that boasts super hydration. If you have trouble finding a hydrating milk or cream cleanser, search for counter brands like Origins, Biotherm, Shiseido or popular Japanese brands like Shu Uemura, IPSA or Korean brand Skin Food.

- Moisturizer – I recommend trying drugstore brands to start. If there are testers, take some and put it on your hand, then spread it over a slightly larger area. Wait 15-20 minutes and see if the moisturized surface is smooth, hydrated and slightly rich (“sticky”) then you can try to use this one.

- Day Moisturizer with SPF – Drugstore! Lol Seriously, it’s a money-saving way to start with those brands. SPF products are more oily, but not by toooo much! If there are testers, do the same as you did with the moisturizer. You also don’t need moisturizers with 30+ SPF protection unless you burn or darken very easily. You might think oily is good, but not really. Even if you have dry skin, you can still have an oily t-zone. Save the high protection stuff for when you’re outdoors lots.

- Eye Cream - If the area around your eye feels dry (sure sign is when it feels tight), use an eye cream twice daily that provides basic hydration and nutrients or fights signs of aging. There are eye creams that claim to do both so treat this eye cream as you would when trying your moisturizer. The cream need not be rich, because if it's too rich for you, you could develop bumpy white spots around the eyes.



- Cotton Pads – a dozen different brands of cotton pads and the best ones are those that hardly absorb any product!!! The less it absorbs, the less you need to put on the pad the more product you save. The extra dollars for cotton pads pay off well.
Here’s the type I use. I ripped this one up, because first, the original size is too big for it's purpose so rather than throwing all that unused pad, I ripped them up into four pieces to use and second, I wanted to show you guys the texture. It's a bit different from regular cotton pads.

- Oil Blotting Paper – For those with dry skin with an only t-zone, quick fix to get rid of some of that excess oil is using oil absorbing paper to blot over trouble regions on your face. There a ton of brands out there and most of them work regardless of price. The thing you should be careful of when blotting oil is don’t blot non-oily areas! And you have acne problems blot sparingly, use even 2-3 sheets pick a fresh spot on the sheet for different parts of the face, or don’t do it, because you risk transferring the bacteria from one part of your face to another and that’s BAD. This is supposed to help you, not give you more problems!