Radical proposal: What if you left your face alone?
We're all probably doing too much skincare.
Here’s a startling idea: You’re likely using too many products on your face. You could get rid of nearly all of them and save money, time and mental bandwidth.
A core principle of design I learned from the tech world is that good design has nothing extraneous. In elegant design, everything serves an essential function. I consider a well-designed house machine to be similar: nothing extraneous. I’m therefore always interested in rooting out the unnecessary and enjoying the simple elegance of a more efficient home. As always, I share my discoveries here for consideration, not as a mandate.
After my last treatise about why you don’t really need to buy kids toys, I feel like I’m on a bit of a rant roll about unnecessary purchases. Me right now:
So buckle up for another category of stuff you don’t really need to buy.
Here’s how I got here: I read the book Beyond Soap about 5 years ago. The author, a dermatologist, deconstructs what is going on with the skin problems and sensitivities that land people in her office. In most cases, she says, the problem is all the products people use on their skin. Stop using the products, and usually the problem clears up.
Score! My favorite kind of advice is the advice to do less.
She goes through all the reasons why modern skincare is generally overkill, and shares recommendations for the few science-backed products that actually help skin (there are only a few).
The crux of it is it turns out your skin has a microbiome and most products out there disrupt it. Even the “natural” products made with only botanical ingredients can mess up our skin — in fact, these botanicals are often the worst offenders, the author explains. Plants exude irritants to protect themselves from being eaten by animals. So we should be careful about slathering them all over our sensitive faces or in our hair.
After reading this book, I replaced my expensive lotions and potions with really simple, drugstore brands dermatologically formulated to protect the skin’s microbiome (CeraVe and Cetaphil mostly). And my skin has been totally fine—even great—ever since.
Something else I’ve learned through experience and seems backed up by research is this: Most of the major improvements I’ve seen in my skin over my life have come from changes inside my body. Limiting inflammatory foods in my diet (for me, gluten, dairy, and sugar) and balancing my hormones (pregnancy helped, and later HRT for perimenopause) were transformative. It’s satisfyingly efficient to think that working on your health will also help out your skin. A two-for-one!
Jessica DeFino worked in the beauty industry for a decade and now writes about beauty industry trickery and scams. She wrote an article Your Skin Doesn’t Need Skin Care, the subheadings of which provide a nice summary of her message:
The Skin Moisturizes Itself
The Skin Exfoliates Itself
The Skin Protects Itself
The Skin Heals Itself
The Skin Even Cleanses Itself
Messing With the Skin Can Upset It
So much of what we believe about skincare comes from magazines (back in the day) and influencers who are trying to sell you stuff. And if you’re anything like me, it’s complete kryptonite to hear that some serum totally changed a woman’s life. All critical thinking goes out the window and I will immediately order that life-changing serum.
Getting off Instagram has helped me avoid hearing these seductive stories, after finding myself backsliding into magical thinking about the power of some random potion I didn’t know existed 5 minutes ago. I even recently unsubscribed from Jessica DeFino’s newsletter, and also Val Monroe’s How Not to F*ck Up Your Face, another good real-talk beauty newsletter. (Is it weird to recommend newsletters by way of telling you I unsubscribed from them?) I’m already converted so I don’t need to hear about the social media trends they’re deconstructing, even secondhand.
On that note, it might be beneficial to reflect on how much of your “must have” skincare beliefs came from influencers hawking stuff on social media…
Declutter your brain: How to get off social media and go news sober
There are a few scientifically proven things that do make a difference, so I limit my regimen to (cheap versions of) those things:
SPF every day no matter what even if it’s raining (I ask every dermatologist and aesthetician I encounter what I should do for my skin, and the unanimous #1 reply is to use SPF)
Retinol for cellular turnover (aging) and also for the occasional zit
Vitamin C
Moisturizer
Micellar water — acts as cleanser, makeup remover, and toner in one
All these items come from the drugstore and don’t cost much. I’m sure they’re not perfect and arguments exist against them, but they work for me. One can also skip all of the above and still be just fine. DeFino uses a combination of manuka honey and jojoba oil to care for her skin, so it’s possible to go even more minimalist if that’s your vibe.
When it comes to big skin goals, like treating sun damage, discoloration, wrinkles, or scars, I’ve become convinced the most expensive serum in the world is not going to do diddly-squat.
For these conditions, there are one-off treatments that work wonders, namely lasers. If I save a few hundred dollars a year buying simple drugstore skincare, I can put that money towards these highly effective treatments down the road…if I decide I need them (jury’s out for now).
To go deeper, this essay by Jessica DeFino sums it all up nicely.
As always, if you are doing something different that works for you, more power to you. This is a prompt to evaluate if you’re doing more than necessary in your skincare, and the answer for you might be nope.
But do tell….Are you feeling ready to let go of some products?
The other day a young neighbor complimented my skin and asked for my skin regime. She is 42, she said. I know it hurt to hear, but I was blunt in my response: there’s no magic wizard behind the marketing curtain.
Since that encounter I’ve thought of the many fruitless “regimes” I had embraced over the years - each with such hope! Like her, at 42 I started sweating (inevitable) signs of aging. I dove into Erno Laszlo. I embraced Obaji. A new serum? I was the first to order. I did organic and I did “cosmeceuticals.” I visited facialists, I slathered on masks, ingested “skin” vitamins. I slept on my back, slept on satin pillowcases, and bought specially shaped pillows. Yes, Botox, too, until an injection caused my eyebrows to go flat. I waited six months for that to wear off and still didn’t question the idiocy of my search.
I am nearly 72 now. It was the birth of my first grandchild that woke me up. I was 64. I was a granny! His birth was a gift for so many reasons, one being a personal freedom I’d never known before. I let go of two traps I’d created: I stopped coloring my hair. And I stopped seeking youth in a bottle.
This doesn’t mean I don’t focus on my appearance - I do. I’m vain, still. My silver hair gets an expert cut. I religiously use a sunscreen (Trader Joe’s). I wear hats and shades. I use a standard moisturizer (by Skinceuticals). I wear a bold lipstick. (I am aware of the efficacy of retinoids and vitamin C but both irritate my skin so I use neither.) I exercise regularly. I don’t eat processed foods. I sleep 8-9 hours each night. I thank the gods for my good genes.
I urge young women reading this to not waste time, like I did. I regret modeling youth-seeking behavior for the two women I raised. I hate how much money I spent, and how much shelf space I devoted to utter nonsense. I am beautiful today not because I finally found the right product but because I’m free and happy and content.
Xo Jane
This comment section is convincing me to do even less to my face! You all out-minimalist'd me, well done!