My Current Streamlined Skincare Routine

My skin and I haven’t got on for the last two years. Really ever since I moved back down to Brighton it’s just been getting congested, my chin and nose were a sea of blackheads and I feel like I’ve been looking distinctively older. YAY. I thought it was the contraceptive pill that I was on, but even after swapping it around I was still getting spot after spot on my chin. Now I know I can’t complain because it was extremely manageable and all things I could easily cover up but boy was it painful. I would find myself rushing back home just so I could squeeze a spot and relieve the pressure. Nice.

The peeps at La Roche Posay got in touch and asked if I’d like to go and see a dermatologist. Never having been to go and see one before and hoping that maybe they could hold all the answers that I was looking for I said yes and it wasn’t long before I was knocking at the door of the Eudelo Clinic to meet Dr Stefanie Williams. I spent a good hour in there being asked about what I currently used, having my skin poked and prodded at and then having one of those terrifying photos where it shows the UV damage and other measurements of your skin (side note: my results were awful – I’m never not wearing SPF again!). At the end Dr Stefanie suggested a routine for me (another side note: although the meeting was arranged by La Roche Posay, Dr Stefanie acts as a free-agent and recommends whatever brands and products she feels like your skin needs) and my jaw hit the floor when I realised that it consisted of just three products in the morning and three or four – depending on the day – in the evening. SAY WHUT?! 

Dr Stefanie identified my skin as being pretty in the middle when it comes to oiliness and dryness and although I felt like the texture of my skin was pretty horrendous, she seemed to think that it was doing alright. Redness was a bit of a concern too and so she’s added in a product to address that. From the photographs she took, it was clear to see that UV damage was my main concern and so her recommendations focused around amping up my UV protection and seeing was damage we could claw back through the use of products high in Vitamin C and retinol.

I’ve been using the below routine for around two months now and the changes that I’ve seen in my skin have really been quite incredible. Aside from the fact that my skincare routine now just takes a matter of minutes and I no longer have so many products out in my bathroom that it looks like a small branch of Space NK, my spots have only ever made a return whenever I’ve gone off-piste, my skin is smoother than it has been in years and I feel like my complexion looks more even. I’m so darn chuffed with it. Of course I am a skincare junkie so I’m itching to try new things and I will in the future for sure. It’s just nice to have a base routine that I know that my skin agrees with so whenever I add in anything new I can survey things more easily. It’s also made me realise that right now my skin doesn’t need a million and one products, nor do they need to be extremely expensive (the majority of what I’m using is under the £20 mark. Here’s how it shapes up…

MORNING. Three products – that’s it! I start with the Avene Extremely Gentle Cleansing Lotion which is nowhere near as fun to use as the OSKIA Renassiance Cleansing Gel. There’s nothing luxe about it, but it’s gentle and it seems to be agreeing with me at the moment. In the future I hope to return to the OSKIA because I really do miss it (lame, but true). Then I apply a dollop of the La Roche Posay Redermic C10. I’d never really used a product like this before. It contains 10% Vitamin C in its most soluble and effective form and apparently evens out the complexion and gives luminosity. I’m all in for that. Given my horrendous UV-damage results, it’s been advised that I go heavy with the SPF everyday, no excuses so I’ve been using the Heliocare Advanced SPF 50 Gel and I love it. It’s so light on the skin and just feels like a really gorgeous moisturiser. I’ve added it to my list of ‘SPFs that don’t feel grim‘.

EVENING. It’s a similarly simple routine that I’ve been cracking out in the evening. I use the Clarins Instant Eye Makeup Remover first to take off my makeup, because although the Avene Extremely Gentle Cleansing Lotion is good, I really don’t feel like it does much in the mascara removal stakes. By using both I feel like all my makeup is waved goodbye to, plus I get a good cleanse too. The rest of my routine is alternated on a two-day basis; so one night using one routine, the next night using the other – then I repeat. The more ‘hardcore’ out of the two is when I use the La Roche Posay Redermic R and then the La Roche Posay Redermic R Eyes followed by the Skinceuticals Redness Neutraliser to finish it off. The hope is that by using these products that both contain retinol that my lines that have been appearing on my face will look a little more ironed out and it will help correct and fade my dark spots. It’s strong stuff, so it’s taken me a month or so to be able to use it every other night – at first I felt a little dry the morning after using it – but now we get along fine. The Skinceuticals does what it says on the tin and should help to reduce my redness. In-between these nights, I keep things simple and gentle and just use the Skinceuticals Redness Neutraliser with the La Roche Posay Toleriane Ultra Eyes under and around the eye area and I’m done. How simple is that, right?

Photos by Lauren Shipley

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