I could spend hours helping people craft their skincare routine. Just a note for the future, on skincare you can ama. I will always tell you if I don't know, but I've done a deep dive on this for the past two years and have an excess of information.

Here's an unsolicited piece of that information that you might not know but can change your life: there is a difference between your skin type and your skin concern. These things work together, but they are not the same.

More: don't use physical exfoliators, preferably ever, but as little as possible. Chemical exfoliation is both gentler and significantly more effective. But it can be confusing! This isn't perfect, but keep in mind:

AHAs are for encouraging new cell growth.
BHAs are for acne.

So if you have acne-prone skin, BHAs are going to help a lot. But if you have oily skin and you overuse an AHA, your skin might react by pumping out even more oil to try and over correct.

You also want to start very mild with either an AHA or BHA. Try something in a toner or even in a cleaners for a first round of a few weeks and save leave on treatments for use only once a week at first. You can work up your tolerance, but you want to go slow here.

This is of course IN ADDITION to your core routine which must always be:

Morning: Cleanser (? this actually does depend), [Actives Can Go Here], Moisturizer, Sunscreen

Evening: Cleanser, [Actives Can Go Here], Moisturizer

My routine varies between 4 and 12 steps every day, it just depends. Don't feel like you have to do that. Cleaners, Moisturizer, Sunscreen. That's the essential.

Let’s unpack some terms.

Cleanser: typically oil or water-based.

Double cleanse: when you cleanse first with an oil based cleanser and then follow with a water based.

Let’s discuss how and why.

How: first by applying the oil-based cleanser to your face with no water. These come either as liquids or balms. You do this to loosen dirt or makeup. Now rinse with water. Follow this with the water-based cleanser. This is what really lifts all the grime. Rinse.

Why this?

Double cleansing ensures you get all the things off your face you need to without stripping your skin. Sunscreen, makeup, dirt, excess sebum. This is the solution.

Do you need to double cleanse every time? No. Depending on your skin type, you may only double cleanse once a day.

You may need to twice. But that is rare and is sometimes a gimmick to get you to buy more.

In the morning, if you do need a cleanser, you would use a mild water based. Normal skin can get away with this. Us oily have to be more careful. We would want to do this only when we

applied a very heavy product the night before that we can still feel on our skin and need to rinse off.

You may encounter out there in the wild something called micellar water.

Micellar water is a replacement for an oil based cleanser. I really enjoy them especially as a stand-alone cleaner in the morning. Light and effective, but don’t cleanse as much dirt as an oil-based.

It’s a great choice for normal or dry skin, or as a replacement cleansing step for a morning routine where you’re concerned about stripping your skin with over cleansing.

M’kay. More later.

Let us now turn in our hymnals to the lament of Toners.

Toners are confusing. Let's start there. They are confusing. Do you need them? Probably not. Or maybe you do.

Here's what I mean: toners are indirect goods, not direct goods. They are either carrying a benefit to your skin or they're just making your face wet. That rose mist?

Probably not doing a hell of a lot. That aloe liquid with an active BHA? Definitely doing something, like getting your skin used to handing a stronger active in the future. So when do I tone?

1. When you are using a toner with an active ingredient.

and

2. When you are using the toner to dampen skin to help it better take in an active you are about to apply.

To the second point, some examples: powdered vitamin c that you need a liquid to mix; you are about to use a low pH active and you are prepping your skin to absorb it.

But if you think you need a toner to keep your skin hydrated, this is a waste of time and money. You can get more results for the money by using an essence or serum or a moisturizer. So toner is one of those products that can be good, but you need to be intentional with it.

A big, perhaps not obvious exception: persons with facial hair who shave. Using a mild hydrating toner after shaving is a huge help to calm down your skin after irritation from shaving. That is an immediate good. I also shave exclusively now with aloe gel instead of shaving cream

and this decision changed my life for the better.

That's all on toner, at least for now. Back in a bit to slowly start working through chemical exfoliants.

Before we get to chemical exfoliants, quick PSA on essential oils: NO.

Do not put these on your face. If they are in your wash off cleansers, fine, they are going down the drain, but do not put products on your face that you will leave on with essential oils in them.*

*This can be a hard rule to follow.

Here's the thing: EOs can be really irritating and studies have shown that EOs and other fragrance carriers can become irritating to you even after years of use without previous issue. But it can be hard to find a product without them.

So balance. Be critical of what you use and how often. If you start to have irritation, always consider fragrance as a possible issue.

Okay, we'll do exfoliators here in a bit.

One more quick myth bust: having a good skincare routine DOES NOT MEAN you will be always 100% blemish free.

It means you will be able to treat, heal, and move on from blemishes.

This is a true story and it is the story of my life.

Okay, seriously, taking a break now. See y'all tonight when my eyes uncross.

So let’s take some time today to talk about actives. This is going to take a bit and I will update as I go. For our purposes, actives is a broad category. But think of them like this: actives do something. They have an active ingredient that is going to work on your skin.

Actives include AHAs, BHAs, PHAs, vitamin c, vitamin a (retinol), niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, peptides ... this can be a long list. If you think about your core routine of cleanser, moisturizer, SPF, actives and their complimentary friends fit between cleanser and moisturizer.

So we can be here awhile. In theory, some k beauty would have you do 10 steps—as we have said, you can but you don’t have to—so that’s a lot. We’ll first discuss each kind of active and then layering and spacing them out. We don’t want to shock the skin.

So this is the big thing, before we go further: always introduce a new product slowly. Use ONE new product for at least a week before adding something else new, because you want to see if you’ll have a reaction. If you do, you want to know what to stop.

We’ll unpack identifying purging later, but that’s a good general rule. Stay tuned, we’ll start with AHAs later today.

Okay, as a reminder, we'll start my talking about the different kinds of acids and then how you might incorporate or combine them.

We begin with AHAs, alpha hydroxy acids.

Some kinds of AHAs include: glycolic acid, lactic acid, (most common in American skincare),

citric, malic, tartaric acids (most common in Korean skincare in addition to glycolic and lactic).

Research into these indicate that glycolic and lactic are the most promising, but all of these have shown effectiveness.

What do they do? They are chemical exfoliators. They

encourage increased rates of cell growth, which helps you shed dead skin more quickly. This is a benefit to wrinkles, to brightening (age spots, hyperpigmentation, etc), and somewhat acne. I say somewhat because acne can be caused by a lack of quick cell turnover, but an AHA

alone will not solve this. AHAs plus BHAs are the power team you need. More on this soon.

AHAs also help your other products absorb into your skin. Because they aid with cell turnover, it “opens" your skin to be able to receive the benefits of other treatments.

So what do you look for?

The more kinds of alpha hydroxy acids in a product, the more benefit. This is not about strength, but variety. A variety of AHAs work together to benefit you. As for strength, you usually want to stay around 10% or under to not over irritate your skin.

(Or just above. Youth to the People has an 11% that is pretty awesome, so there are exceptions.)

You want to use an AHA only once a week to start. You want to let your skin get very used to it and then begin to use it more. Depending on the strength, you might use it two or

three times a week or you might have a low enough concentration that you can use it daily (that's usually a 2% formulation).

Some AHAs I love:

Krave Beauty, Kale-Lalu-YAHA

Youth to the People, Kombucha + 11% AHA

Ren Clean Skincare, Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Toner

Biossance, Squalane + 10% Lactic Acid Resurfacing Night Serum

The Ordinary, Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution

Drunk Elephant, TLC Framboos Glycolic Resurfacting Night Serum

(These are all under the more intense chemical peel AHAs with BHAs. We'll talk about those in a bit.)

What do you look for in reaction to a AHA?

Redness; flaking; intense, cystic breakouts.* If you have these, stop using the AHA as frequently and see if spacing it out helps your skin reset.

*Let's talk about breakouts vs. purging. The lifecycle of acne is weeks and in some

cases months before it appears visibly on the skin. So sometimes your AHA or other actives are just pushing an existing blemish to the surface faster. You're not reacting, your skin is doing what it should be. So how do you know?

Usually, purging is not cystic, painful blemishes

and resolves within a few weeks. Repeated, cystic reactions that do not improve in a few weeks are a sign that your skin does not like a product and likely it's because you're using something too strong or too frequently. If all you have done is add an AHA to your routine, it's

likely that you're over exfoliating and your skin just went into hyperdrive with oil production to try and save you from yourself.

Whew. Okay. We'll do BHAs next and then AHA and BHA combos.

Alright, let's talk about BHAs.

BHAs are beta hydroxy acids. What do they do? What are they? Well, generally, we're just talking about salicylic acid, but in Korean skincare you will also see a milder cousin called willow bark extract.

Willow bark extract contains salicin, so

it does have properties, like anti-inflammatory agents, that are similar but not identical to salicylic acid.

To that end, when I speak of BHAs, I really mean something that relies on salicylic acid to be efficacious.

So what are they for?

Like AHAs, BHAs are a chemical exfoliant, but with different purposes.

BHAs work deep in our pores to unclog them as BHAs are lipophilic, so they move to the oil. But because of this they do not have humectant (water-retaining) qualities and can be drying.

They are ideal for

people with acne prone skin and an oily skin type, but others can find benefits from them as well as they do have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.

Like AHAs, we would want to take them slow, but unlike AHAs, how we do that is a little more lenient.

You can find cleansers with BHAs in them. This is a great first step. A cleanser is something you wash off, so you can help your skin get used to a BHA without overwhelming it. First by washing it off right away, then by leaving it on for up to a minute as you build tolerance.

If your skin handles this, you can move on to a dedicated BHA treatment. You would use it like an AHA in your routine, with similar frequency. We'll talk about layering later, but for now, you wouldn't want to overwhelm your skin and should opt for only a BHA or an AHA in one

routine. When we get to layering, we'll discuss how more can be added and paired.

BHAs I like in cleanser form:

COSRX Salicylic Acid Daily Gentle Cleanser

CeraVe Salicylic Acid Renewing Cleanser

The INKEY List Salicylic Acid Cleanser

Hanskin Pore Cleansing Oil BHA*

*This would be your first step in a double cleanse as it is not a water based cleanser.

BHAs I like as leave on chemical exfoliators:

Benton, Aloe BHA Toner

COSRX, BHA Blackhead Power Liquid

Paula’s Choice, Skin Perfecting 2% BHA Liquid

As you build up tolerance, you may

consider using a BHA daily in your routine. However, go slow. You can really dry yourself out with a BHA if you're not cautious, depending on your sensitivity.

Okay. Back in a bit to do a very brief note on the growing interest in PHAs.

Let's quickly discuss PHAs, or polyhydroxy acids. They've had a lot of recent press and are becoming a bit of a darling. PHAs have larger molecules than AHAs or BHAs, meaning they don't penetrate as deeply, making them milder on your skin.

PHAs are good for sensitive skin but

absolutely can be used by anyone. They are ideal for those with dry, itchy skin like eczema or atopic rosacea, though, because they can accomplish some of the hydrating work of an AHA in a much gentler form.

Common PHAs are gluconolactone, galactose, and lactobionic acid.

You'll usually find them in cleansers or sometimes in leave on products in combination with a AHA or BHA or sometimes all three.

Because they are milder, you can use PHAs more frequently and more quickly than you would introduce an AHA and BHAs.

Some PHAs I like:

Hanskin, Pore Cleansing Oil (and the Balm, too)

Benton, PHA Peeling Gel

Skinfood, Black Sugar Perfect Splash Mask

Back in a bit to talk about products that combine these.

I'm going to move all of this discussion over to some newsletter entries, which you'll be able to find or sign up for here: https://iayfys.substack.com/