For beginners: The secret to young, clear and bright skin

Recently, I spoke to a young girl in her late teens who was envious of her friend who had, according to her, 'young and smooth skin'. I thought, 'Wow, really? But both of you are of the same age!'

I have seen her before, but not her friend and I think she looks young (well, she IS young) and her skin is not bad. Maybe not perfect (Whose is? In this day of photoshop and make-up magicians, it is sometimes hard to tell.), but definitely not as bad as she had made out to be.

I am relating this incident because of the recent social experiement by Dove in which a FBI-trained scientist drew women twice, first based on their own descriptions, then the second based on the description of a person who knows them. And in many cases, the latter was found to be more pleasant and more close to the woman's actual appearance. Now, this 'social experiment' has received a lot of flake for how it tries to appear scientific when it is not. For example, the artist knew the aim of the experiment. Apparently, to avoid bias, it should not be the case. In addition, no backtracking was allowed to ascertain if the artist had interpreted the verbal descrptions according to what was actually meant. However, based on the anecdote I related in the beginning, I am inclined to think that sometimes we are just too harsh on ourselves. How many of us are like that, thinking the worst of ourselves when others see us in a much better light?

One of my best friends has really good skin. So good until you cannot tell if she has foundation on (or not)! Really envy her! And today, I am going to share with everyone her basic routine. The word to take note of is, basic. The foundation is always the most important. Get it wrong, and everything becomes shaky like this!

 

 

So before aiming to look younger, start looking your age. Before aiming for pimple-free skin, aim for clean skin. Then the rest will fall into place and good skin will come naturally.

 

How to get it right? I suggest this friend's routine as a good base, which is to cleanse, tone and moisturise.

 

I hear you saying: I know this already! or What? Are you kidding me?

 

But  this routine is not as simple as it sounds. There is an art to this routine. First, are you able to answer all the following questions? What is your skin type? What is your budget? Do you have any skin allergies? If you can, you probably shouldn't be reading this post and you should proceed immediately to the post for advanced readers (which has not been written yet and may never be written). If you can't, you are at the right place and your next goal should be to get hold of the answers. Finding out the answers to these questions takes time (and sometimes a lot of trial and errors, research, visiting of beauty counters, talking to friends). This step is important as you have to select the cleanser, toner and moisturise that are JUST RIGHT for you. That's right, no more, no less. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  And if you think about the zillions of products out there, suddenly, it does not seem so simple anymore.

 

So I suggest to all who read this, if you want young, clear and bright skin, get the basics right before piling on the serums and creams, or exfoliators. For those who are curious, the girl I spoke to just used cleanser and I suggested that she should add on toner and moisturise to her routine. I hope she does so as I truly believe that the three-step routine is essential.