Essential Skincare Products For a Glowing Skin
Have you ever met someone with glowing and beautiful skin and wished your skin could be just as healthy and good-looking as theirs? Maybe in person, on TV, or in magazines.
We all want healthy and glowing skin, but until recently most people didn’t have the understanding that having great skin is not simply a matter of DNA. Yes, genes play a huge role in our physiology and what we look like, but you have to nourish and nurture your skin. You need to develop and maintain daily habits that will keep your skin in the best condition possible.
And to sustain these habits, you need the right products. But there are so many products out there that knowing what’s right for you can be confusing. In this article, we’ll break down the essential skincare products you need to take adequate care of your skin to get the results you want.
This article isn’t a review nor is it about brands, it’s about the tools you need to better take care of your skin. Without further ado, let’s get into the meat and balls of this article and introduce the essential intensive skincare products (in Canada and the USA) you need for glowing skin.
Three Main Skincare Routine Steps
An effective skincare routine that will guarantee results starts with three simple steps, and it is in these three steps that all the products we’ll be talking about are housed.
The three steps are listed below:
- Cleanse
- Treat
- Moisturize
Cleansing and moisturizing are pretty straightforward and clear, but the treating section can be a little bit confusing and intimidating, especially for people who are new to skincare.
But it shouldn’t be, treating simply refers to everything you do aside from cleansing and moisturizing to target problem areas and introduce beneficial skincare ingredients to your skin.
Treating involves using serums, toners, and other skincare products with ingredients like vitamin C, retinol, hyaluronic acid, and others.
Now that we understand the basic steps of an effective skincare routine, let’s discuss the essential products you’ll need to cater to all three steps.
Choosing the best skincare products for your skin is important
Essential Skincare Products for Glowing
1. Cleanser
The first step in any skincare routine is cleansing your face. A daily cleansing routine helps the skin get rid of impurities and excess oil to avoid clogged pores and dull skin.
A cleanser is a skincare product specifically designed and formulated for this purpose. A good cleanser should be free of sulfates and soap, it should be gentle and cleanse the face without stripping it of essential oils.
The type of cleanser you’ll opt for depends on your skin type. When shopping for a cleanser, you can follow the guide below:
- Oily skin: A foaming or gel cleanser will effectively get rid of excess oil and dirt from oily skin. You should look out for ingredients like salicylic acid and niacinamide, they are both great at regulating and removing excess oil from the skin.
- Acne-prone skin: If your skin is prone to acne, you should opt for a gentle foaming cleanser with ingredients like salicylic acid and glycolic acid. They are known to be active acne-fighting ingredients.
- Dry skin: A cream or balm formula with hyaluronic acid, glycerin, and ceramides (all hydrating ingredients)
- Sensitive skin: Use a very gentle cleanser that won’t dry your skin.
2. Toner
Next on our list of essential products is toner. The toner is a product that is used right after cleansing the face. It falls under the treat category that we mentioned earlier. Toners give instant hydration and remove dead skin cells from the surface of the skin.
The job of the toner is to moisturize and rebalance the pH balance of your skin after cleansing. You can read this article about toning we published a while ago to learn more about toners.
Intensive Care Products Canada - Hyaluronic Acid Hydrating Toner
3. Eye Cream
The skin around the eyes is delicate and requires extra care. But most people don’t give it as much care and hydration as it needs. The delicacy of the skin around the eyes makes the regular moisturizer used on the rest of the face too heavy, which can lead to puffiness and other issues.
Signs of aging also appear first most of the time around the eyes in the form of fine lines. It is very important to take care of the skin around the eyes, and the best way to do this is to use an eye cream or eye gel designed specifically for the eyes.
Eye creams help to prevent and reduce the appearance of under-eye circles, puffiness, and fine lines, so it's a good idea to add an eye cream to your skincare routine.
4. Retinol
Retinol also falls under the treat category, it is not an absolute essential. You can get by with just cleansing and moisturizing and then a toner and serum. But if you want to take things a step further beyond the basics and target issues like acne and signs of aging like wrinkles and fine lines, you can introduce retinol to your skincare routine.
Retinol is also known as Vitamin A. You have to be careful when you start using it though because your skin might need some time to get used to it. You can contact a dermatologist for expert advice. It is advisable to start with using retinol only 1 to 2 times a week and start observing how your skin reacts to it from there.
5. Serum
Serums also fall under the treat category, so they are featured somewhere between cleansing and moisturizing. Serums are a great way to help your skin in the regeneration process and the mitigation of various skin issues like dark spots and wrinkles.
You can refer to serums as delivery mechanisms through which ingredients and antioxidants are delivered to the skin. Since the main purpose of the serum is to target problem areas, you must pay attention to the ingredients in the serum you choose.
Listed below are some important and powerful ingredients you should look out for in your serums:
- Hyaluronic acid: Great for sealing in moisture so your skin remains hydrated.
- Vitamin C: Great for dull skin and dark spots. Vitamin C brightens up dull skin and reduces the appearance of dark spots.
- Niacinamide: With its antimicrobial properties, it decreases inflammation thereby reducing irritation and redness.
6. Moisturizer + SPF
This is a very important basic element that must be featured in every skincare routine for one reason; the skin needs constant and adequate hydration. A moisturizer is often used after the face has been washed with a cleanser and products for treatment for toners and serums have been applied.
The main purpose of the moisturizer is to keep your skin hydrated. Moisturizers are made with varying degrees of texture, and the texture that will be ideal for you is based on your skin type.
There are gel moisturizers for dry skin, lotion for normal or combination skin, cream and soft cream for dry skin, and balm for inflamed or sensitive skin.
7. Sunscreen
This is an often-overlooked but very important product that must, according to skin care experts and dermatologists, be featured in your skincare routine.
The purpose of sunscreen, as the name implies, is to protect the skin against the damaging effects of exposure to the sun's UV rays. Using sunscreen consistently can help to prevent the development of fine lines, wrinkles, and textural imperfections.
More importantly, using sunscreen daily has been found to help prevent certain types of cancers that are caused or triggered by prolonged exposure to the sun's UV rays.