Must-Have Skin Care Steps in Every Beginner’s Routine

By now, you probably know why having a skin care routine is so important. It’s essential to consistently good skin and a healthy attitude towards skin care.

Each and every product plays an essential role in keeping your skin on track towards your goals. So you can’t just throw any old combination of products in! They need to be planned out so each step complements the next.

Hopefully you agree it’s about time to think about the steps you’ll need when you’re building your own routine for the first time.

What makes some skin care routines better than others?

The best routine is something you will stick to every day. For many beginners, this means that simpler is better. If it’s daunting and expensive you’ll feel unmotivated and stressed – which is the opposite of what we’re going for! So don’t add in any unnecessary steps.

The only basic skin care steps you need are cleansing, treating, moisturising and sunscreen.

Let’s jump into the breakdown of what these means and why you need each of these steps in your routine.

The best beginner’s routine step-by-step

Cleansing Step

Cleansing is the base for the rest of your routine. It removes dirt, grime and oils form the day so your skin is ready to receive treatment and moisturisation. It comes first so that everything you put on your skin afterwards goes onto a clean fresh face. Your cleanser can be creamy, foaming or even a micellar water like I use. It shouldn’t be expensive and full of active ingredients that will just get washed down the drain, nor should it be highly foaming and make your skin feel squeaky clean. Just the most basic, creamy cleanser works best for most people.

Treatment/Actives Step

Treating means adding something to your routine to solve a problem that you have. It’s a targeted choice to suit your personal skin concerns. This might be anything from acne to ageing and can change over time.

‘Actives’ refers to the active nature of the ingredients that interact with your skin. To choose the right products, you first must determine what your major concerns are.

Common treatment steps include:

• Exfoliation
• Acne fighting
• Redness reducing
• Pigmentation lightening
• Antioxidants

If you’re one of the lucky few who don’t have any particular skin issues, you won’t need a treatment step!

Moisturising Step

Moisturiser restores hydration, surface elasticity and the natural protective abilities of your skin. Properly moisturised skin heals better, looks better and feels better! Moisturising should always follow cleansing and actives as those steps can sometimes remove your natural protective oils.

When choosing a moisturiser, it’s important understand the three different kinds of moisturising ingredients.

Sunscreen Step

Sunscreen often falls by the wayside, but it is single handedly the best thing you can do for your skin long term. Everything else you do will be for nothing if you don’t protect your skin from the sun each and every day.

Many people feel as though the incidental sunshine they get popping outdoors, or the overcast light of winter won’t damage their skin (spoiler alert: it does). But by making sunscreen the final step of your routine, you can rest assured that no matter what happens that day, you’ll be protected from premature ageing and skin cancer.

I have done a ton of sunscreen reviews, so go check some of those out and read more about sun care here.

That’s it – everything you need to include in your own routine in just four steps. See, skin care’s not so hard is it! When it comes to choosing what exact products you’ll use, that comes down to how your individual skin behaves and what you’d like to achieve – and it starts by finding out your skin type.