Essential Skincare Guide for Beginners
Skin, being the largest organ of your body calls for your attention, and if you have just diverted towards caring for it, you might want to start with the basics. In this beginner’s guide to essential skincare, you can uncover the fundamental skincare components valuable at the foundation.
Aiding to combat environmental aggressors, healthy skin contributes to your holistic well-being. In spite of that, constancy is the core.
A vast array of products are available in the market, from serums to AHA and BHA solutions, SPFs, and toners, making it hard to choose. Moreover, the information is overblown.
But informed decision-making is crucial. Seeking reliable resources of information, conducting thorough research, and taking expert advice should be on one’s checklist before diving in. As a beginner, it’s genuine and common to find oneself stuck!
In this blog, we will explore the fundamentals of skincare and break down the associated myths.
Cleanser
Cleansing counts as the initial step towards achieving healthy-glowing skin.
Your skin is exposed to multiple damaging factors, including sunlight, heat, dust, dirt, and harmful pollutants. Make-up and sweat particles may clog the skin pores leading to breakouts, aging, dehydration, and other well-known skin issues.
A quick swipe of a face wipe or splashing your face with water during bathing is never enough. Why?
Skin produces sebum to protect it from environmental damage. The sebum surely protects the outer layer but stays on the skin, and sometimes gets mixed with the oil on the skin’s surface to clog the pores. While sebum is trapped in the pores, allowing bacteria to penetrate the skin, it can make your skin blotchy and reduces its natural shine.
Adding a consistent routine of cleansing helps to stimulate the internal processes of the skin. You can fight wrinkles, lack of tone, hyperpigmentation, and dullness through one simple basic essential skincare element - cleanser.
A suitable cleanser will help you with other skincare products by welcoming them on the clean skin surface and allowing them to get absorbed healthily. Try DRSQ’s cleansers to get yourself a deep pore-cleaning.
Different skin types need different kinds of cleansers, including micellar water, foaming, creamy, or oil-based ones. You must know yours! Ensure to choose the one with hydrating properties not making your skin too tight, or simply cleanse without moisturizing it.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A, also recognised as Retinol, is a potent anti-aging skincare ingredient, that refines skin texture and corrects uneven skin tone.
Vitamin A may help with reprogramming the cellular function of the skin. The ingredient is helpful in various skin concerns, and suitable for many skin types.
It helps with the prevention of collagen tissue loss and also stimulates its production along with another tissue, elastin. That further thickens the skin’s deeper layers.
Vitamin A speeds up the turnover of dead skin cells and regulate the sebaceous glands, making itself an active ingredient in treating acne and congestion. It is also a good exfoliant.
Choosing the right Vitamin A product is itself a challenge! Massive ranges are available. Don’t go random, and ask your dermatologist to recommend you if you’re still confused after research.
Apart from the type of Vitamin A, its strength also matters! Use the right concentration to help yourself get the maximum of it and minimize the after-effects.
The Starter Vitamin A serum with 0.25% Retinaldehyde may benefit your concerns, including dermatitis-prone sensitive skin.
According to the experts, you may start with the lower concentrations and then move up slowly. A higher-strength product may help oily-skinned people.
Vitamin B
Vitamin B carries a lot of healing properties in its different forms. It’s a multi-tasker.
Vitamin B3, Niacinamide, or Nicotinamide is a widely popular skincare remedy for so many issues. It's involved in various cellular functions of the skin. When it comes to benefits. Niacinamide has a lengthy list.
It gives a soothing effect, repairs the barrier function, and strengthens the keratin levels of the skin.
If you are struggling with skin vascularity and dullness, Radiance 3D serum may prove beneficial for you. The long-term usage of Niacinamide may facilitate less inflammatory skin and reduced redness.
Being a water-soluble vitamin, niacinamide can reap a lot of skincare benefits for one dealing with oily skin. It controls the hyperactiveness of sebaceous glands to regulate oil production and promotes balance.
Other advantages of Niacinamide include brightness and less pigmentation. You may find it in various cosmetics and brightening skincare products. How does it do that? Niacinamide has the ability to inhibit pigment-producing enzymes.
The value-added-advantage of Niacinamide is that it works well with other ingredients and that makes it pretty easy to incorporate with other products in your routine.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is touted as one of the core skincare ingredients to provide you with pro-aging assistance and brightens the skin tone.
You may have heard of healthcare professionals asking people to eat kiwis and oranges to obtain an adequate amount of Vitamin C. That’s because it promotes collagen production in your skin, and is safe for almost all skin types.
Thus, you will find vitamin C in various skincare products. From its anti-aging benefits to helping with dark circles, it may soothe sunburns, and protect you from severe sun damage.
Vitamin C also reduces redness and irritation on the skin, provides hydration, and maybe serve as your strong support in healing wounds.
How does it do it all?
Vitamin C or L-Ascorbic acid has the ability to inhibit the overactivity of melanin production to help you with hyperpigmentation issues. It prevents discolouration and uneven skin tone too. It strengthens the collagen molecules that prevent skin wrinkling, and aging effects, and promotes the youthful appearance of your skin.
In most skincare products, you probably find its concentration somewhere between 10%-20%, as the above 20% may cause irritation.
Moisturiser
Moisturiser - A product specifically designed to hydrate your skin. It doesn’t only provide hydration but also prevents water to leave the skin. They practically seal your skin to lock the nutrition and moisture. But this seal is temporary.
Moisturisers have 4 classes of ingredients;
- Humectants: They pull water from the atmosphere or deeper layers of the skin.
- Occlusives: They create a protective seal on the skin’s surface.
- Barrier-skin ingredients: They assist the barrier of the skin to operate in an optimal way.
- Emollients: To help the skin fight roughness, and promotes smooth skin.
Everyone needs hydration as their primary skin care practice. But, an oily-skinned person will have to choose another moisturiser than the dry-skinned one.
Another factor that is essential to know before buying the right product is your skin concern. You are required to pay attention to your moisturiser’s ingredients.
Moisturisers protect the skin from multiple environmental factors, and make it smooth and soft to maintain optimal skin health. You may choose from DRSQ’s moisturiser range, providing illuminating, collagen-boosting, and anti-aging benefits.
Sunscreen
If you believe that sunscreen should be applied only while stepping out, it’s a myth. Let us tell you why.
The UVA rays can reach you indoors too. Their wavelength is much longer than the UVB rays. They can penetrate deep into your skin to break down the collagen, causing premature aging and other concerns.
Being a photoprotective tropical product, sunscreen or sunblock helps in blocking the ultraviolet radiation from the sun and protects your skin.
UV radiations are strong to seep through the clouds and your windows and are harmful to the extent that it can even cause skin cancer.
Ensure to apply two fingers of sunscreen - often known as the two-finger rule for sunscreen. Simply squeeze the two strips of sunscreen from the base to the tips of your index and middle finger. Some experts suggest that even this much is not enough.
That’s why it’s always said for sunscreens, “The more is less.”
Many types of sunblocks are available in the market, including gels, lotions, creams, etc. Choose what suits you, and don’t forget to be specific with your SPF.
The DRSQ’s SKIN PROTECT illuminating moisturiser with sunscreen comes with 30+ SPF. It hydrates your skin actively and protects against UVA and UVB rays. Its anti-oxidant enriched sheer complex formula gives a luxurious nonsticky or greasy feel and helps you with wrinkles, pigments, and inflammation on the skin.
The Endnote
Before hopping into skincare, it would be a smart move to get your fundamentals clear. Use less concentrated products as your skin may not be ready for those applications, and move slightly to higher concentrations as suggested by skincare advisors.
We would advise you to have an expert by your side to help you with recommending the best-suited products for your skin concerns and type.
It’s never late to start! Even if you’re completely unknown to the skincare regime, start now, and be consistent.