Adopting a new skincare routine

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Every so often, I will receive a request for skincare advice from a reader.

Please meet Ms. Popcorn-Marshall (Popcorn-M)

Quick skin analysis

Popcorn-M is in her late twenties and is wearing foundation and sunscreen under the unforgiving glaze of an iPhone 11 lens. She has relatively good skin for someone who gets 4-5 hours of sleep a day. My main areas of concern are:

Small eruptions across her face that have the potential to become full-blown zits. This needs to be managed.
Enlarged pores coupled with quite clogged pores on her nose. This indicates excessive sebum production.
Appears to have combination/oily skin. See my previous blog (Which skin type am I?)

Current regime

am: Avene cleanser followed by sunscreen and a Chanel foundation.

pm: Avene cleanser.

There is no additional moisturiser or serum or toner. And you can simply forget about facials or a humble face mask.

What do I think?

Her skin is not being helped by two factors: first, she has a propensity to get acne that she manages through her diet. Given her lack of acne, the Avene facewash is causing her skin to dry out. This means that there is excessive trans epidermal water loss and each time she washes her face, her skin is responding to the induced dryness by releasing more sebum. It’s counter-intuitive but that is exactly what is happening.

Second, she is not exfoliating and therefore her skin is quite thick textured for someone so young.

Her oily dead skin is causing small eruptions and importantly enlarging and clogging her pores.

What do I suggest

Beauty products can only go so far. Therefore, its imperative that she makes the additional dietary changes:

Have at least 2-3 litres of straight water per day. This will help regulate sebum production and close her pores
Have one or both of the following fresh juices will help brighten her skin (which she believes is dull). Its not dull, its thick.
1. Juice One: one tomato, half a beetroot, one carrot and one small orange
2. Juice Two: handful of green leafy salad leaves/kale/spinach, 1/2 a green apple, one amla and 1/2 a glass of coconut water

Changes to her skin routine

What Popcorn-M needs is not expensive treatments, but quite the opposite. She needs a routine. Therefore, I have given her an option between a budget and high-end option.

BUDGET OPTION

The am routine

Cleanser: either (1) Kama Ayurveda’s Rose Jasmine Face cleanser (₹ 850 for 100ml) or (2) Forest Essential’s Mashobra Honey (₹1,250 for 200ml) are mild. The (3) Kama Neem option is anti-bacterial and will keep her eruptions at bay

Toner: (3) Kama Ayurveda’s Rosewater (₹1,150 for 100ml) or (4) Juicy Chemistry’s tea tree option (₹850 for 110ml) work. She did want to use FE’s hyaluronic acid. Kindly note that there is a real danger that as her skin has a propensity to become dry (thank you Avene), all hyaluronic acid would do is draw out water from within deeper layers of her skin. This would be a disaster

Micellar water: (5) Bioderma Sensibio H2O make up remover works the best

Sunscreen: an (6) SPF 50 with sensible UVA protection from innisfree (about INR 1,250 for 50ml). A mineral sunscreen is out of the question as it would be too drying.

Moisturiser: (7) Kama’s Kama’s eladi hydrating cream (INR 1,495 for 50ml)

The pm routine

Serum: (8) Kumkumadi beauty fluid (₹ 2,550 for 12ml) or Juicy Chemistry’s plum and pomegranate oil (INR 1,155 for 30ml) would help. My preference is certainly the Kama product.

Weekly

Popcorn-M needs to regularly exfoliate. The options I have given her again (1) Kama’s brightening exfoliator (₹1,450 for 50gm) OR FE’s cleansing paste (₹2,950 for 50gm).

Facial massage using FE’s Tejasvi Emulsion (₹2,175 for 50gm). This will help her unclog the pores on her nose. I suggest massaging her face for 5 – 10 minutes and then removing all the product with a muslin cloth dipped in hot water. As she does have a history of acne, I would not leave this product on.

Face masks: Popcorn M should use face masks regularly. I would suggest FE’s sheet masks (₹995 for 3 masks) , fresh’s Vitamin Vibrancy Mask (US$25 for 30ml) or Forest Essentials’ Sandalwood & Nagkesar mask (₹1,795 for 50g). The clay mask should be used with yogurt and honey and not be allowed to dry out.

NON-BUDGET VERSION

Cleansers, toners and moisturisers are the same.

The major difference is around sunscreen and face masks, of which I would prioritise face masks because innisfree at SPF 50 PA++++ works just fine.

I’d add (1) Vitamin C by Clinique (US$ 79 for one month supply) and (2) Prickly Pear Oil (£130 for 50ml). The Vitamin C will help with brightening and the prickly pear oil will even out her complexion and manage sebum production. Regular use will shrink her pores.

There are so many face masks that she could use, including these:

(3) Tata’s resurfacing face mask (US$ 65 for 30ml)
(4) Guerlain’s Abeile Royal honey mask (US$ 150 for 50ml)
(5) Farmacy’s honey potion mask (US$ 38 for 40ml)
(6) Sarah Chapman’s instant miracle mask (£46 for 4 masks)

Floral mist: Tata Harper’s hydrating floral essence (US$ 72 for 50ml) will keep her skin hydrated throughout the day. I find it useful to refresh make-up as well.