Rituals: My 7-step nighttime skincare routine
I'm sharing my 7-step nighttime skincare regimen that’s easier than it sounds
Oh my gawd remember when you were young and you’d go out all night and party and then come home and crash and be too lazy and tired to wash the makeup off your face and then you’d wake up in the morning with immediate regret because your face felt like plaster and your eyes were crusted over with dried mascara…
Well, a lot has changed since my party days and now I actually bother to take care of my skin – including what some might consider a tedious but totally worth it 7-step beauty nighttime ritual.
Once you get into the habit of adopting a routine and learning how certain products benefit your skin, you’ll be more inclined to dedicate time to pamper yourself.
After a long, hard day, isn’t your skin worth it?
Beauty trends and standards have evolved for the better
Beauty technology, science, and formulas have come a long way since “Oriental Pearl Cream.”
What the what? Why.
I actually do remember watching this commercial as a young girl, and even wanting to try it.🤔
As “an oriental woman” I assure you neither my mother nor her Taiwanese friends ever tried this cream. It’s also funny how the once socially-acceptable “Oriental” moniker is now passé for describing humans and should only ever be applied when describing objects and things.
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As for Pearl Cream, I think the goal was to imply that women could achieve the same lustre and radiance emitted by pearls for their own skin, hence pulverizing pearls down and bottling into a cream.🤦🏻♀️
Alas, there’s no miracle in a single bottle. So skincare, depending on your goals, can take multiple steps.
Now, you may think 2 or even 3 steps is already too many, but in my quest to maintain my skin’s health and preserve its youthful properties, I’m doing all I can today to ensure it looks and feels its best as possible today and tomorrow, pretty much in line with my anti-aging goals in general.
If you’re into skincare and beauty then you’ve already heard about multi-step skincare, popularized by 8- and even 10-step K-beauty skincare routines.
I follow a similar protocol, swapping out only certain products from time to time. I’ve used all these products myself; I’m not being compensated by mentioning them.
My 7-step nighttime beauty ritual
1. Wash
I wash my face with an oil-based cleanser like these from Shu Uemura’s facial cleanser line. (Shu Uemura has a bigger footpoint in the east than in the west; their products are mostly only available direct from their website. They used to sell them at Selfridges in London but even stopped selling there!).
I alternate between the porefinist (pink bottle) and the anti-oxi+ pollutant & dullness (green bottle) clarifying cleansing oil.
I know what you’re thinking … cleansers with oil? Aren’t they counterintuitive when it comes to washing your face? No.
We've been programmed by beauty marketing that our faces are oily, oil is bad, and oil clogs our pores.
While that may be true to a certain extent and everyone has a skin type, I think so much of Western beauty is “one size fits all” with a heavy focus on acne reduction. The marketing promotes stripping your skin of its natural moisture barriers with harsh acids and chemicals. But over-washing and over-cleaning the skin leaves it irritated; it then overcompensates by reacting with even more oil production. Given I haven’t had adult acne since adopting this routine, I think I’m on to something.
When I’m on the road, if I don’t have a sachet of this oil, then I travel with a small Eve Lom oil-based cleanser.
I don’t even wash my face with a cleanser in the morning – there’s no need. All it really requires is a cold water rinse.
2. Tone / Remove makeup
After washing, I tone with a micellar water like this one from Avène. It does a good job of softly cleaning up any leftover makeup and dirt. It’s also gentle enough to go over your eyes with a cotton ball and remove any lingering eye makeup.
A note on makeup remover: If I’m wearing heavier than usual eye make up, then I’ll use Christian Dior’s Le Lait Démaquillant Cleansing Milk for eye makeup removal, or the just-as-good budget dupe, Pond’s Cold Cream.
3. Treatment essence
There's no other product quite like SK-II’s Pitera Facial Treatment Essence, so it's in a class and step of its own.
It boasts a cult following, probably because it’s fairly unique and you kind of have to go out of your way to apply it.
The legend goes that skin scientists were amazed at how Japanese sake brewer’s hands looked decades younger. They attributed this to the brewers’ hands being immersed in fermented sake “mash” for hours a day.
The essence is essentially this bottled up fermented sake yeast; I use it every day before applying makeup and at night. A couple of splashes of the clear liquid on your face quickly sinks in and primes your skin to better absorb serums and moisturizers, too.
Note: some people may find the smell a little off-putting, like the way rice smells after it's been left out for too long (which makes sense given the essence is derived from fermented rice yeast). But it's subtle and dissipates quickly, and you get used to it.
4. Serum and targeted creams
I use any assortment of serums and targeting treatment creams with any of the following: hyaluronic acid, Vitamin C, retinol, lactic acid, peptides — you name it I’ve adopted it in my skin regime.
To avoid skin irritation, I try to use only one kind of serum/treatment at a time rather than overexpose my skin to too many actions at once.
Bonus points if the nighttime skin cream I’m using is infused with a serum/treatment (see steps 6 and 7).
5. Eye serums and cream
The skin around your eyes above and below is some of the most delicate on your body. I avoid tugging pulling and rubbing in my eyes as much as possible because I know that doing so will only impact the elasticity of the area and result in wrinkles, possibly. I mix up eye creams and have rotated between Kiehl’s Powerful-Strength Dark Circle Reducing Vitamin C Eye Serum to more the Oil of Olay Regenerist Collagen Peptide 24 Eye Cream.
6. (and 7.) 2x Moisturizers
Here's where I have the most fun with my beauty routine.
I stack moisturizers because I feel like my skin simply cannot have enough moisturizer. Gimme. More. moisture.
I apply one, wait for it to dry, then apply the second on top. If one moisturizer is doing double duty, say, it’s infused with a serum, then I’ll apply it first, followed by the general cream second.
I alternate moisturizers but I generally opt for ones that are unscented or only lightly scented. Here are my faves.
1st layer: Kiehl's Super Multi-Corrective Anti-Aging Face and Neck Cream, which I slather onto my face and neck in an upward motion.
2nd layer: Josie Maran Whipped Argan Oil Face Butter, Tatcha The Dewy Skin Cream Plumping & Hydrating Moisturizer,
Drunk Elephant Protini™ Polypeptide Firming Refillable Moisturizer, and Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin™ Skin Barrier Moisturizing Cream.
For a moisture boost, or when I’m on an overnight or long international flight, I usually slater on La Neige Water Sleeping Mask and leave it on the duration of the flight so my skin doesn’t dry out and I wake up on the other side with my skin looking and feeling hydrated.
Do you have a nighttime skincare ritual? If so, I’d love to hear all about it!
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Until next time,
Shindy
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Rituals is a section where on the first Friday of every month, I’ll cover a regular daily, weekly, or monthly personal habit. It may be a lifestyle, wellness, or work practice that has become a valuable and beneficial part of my life. Enjoy!
