Five things to stop doing to your face
Most advice adds a step. This one takes five away, and for a lot of people the subtraction is what finally works. Skin that looks irritated, tight and dull is very often skin that is having too much done to it.
Stop buying a routine, buy a habit
A nine step routine is a shopping list, not a plan. It survives about three weeks, then collapses into whichever two steps you actually liked. Start with the two, keep them nightly, and add only when the two are automatic. Consistency is what makes any of this show, and a short routine is the one that survives a late night.
Stop reading the front of the box
The headline is written by marketing and the ingredient list is written under rules. Turn it over. Five things you can read out loud is usually a better product than thirty you cannot, and the order matters because it runs from most to least.
Stop switching every fortnight
Nothing gets a fair test in two weeks except hydration. If you change product every time your skin has an ordinary bad week, you will never find out what actually suits you, and you will spend a great deal of money not finding out.
Stop treating tight as clean
Tight is stripped. It is the most misread signal in the whole category, because it feels like the product did something and it did: it took the surface down. A cleanser should leave your face comfortable, not squeaking.
Stop believing anything with a number on the outcome
Years younger, a percentage of wrinkles gone, a count of days to a result. Numbers about the product are fine and checkable, so four ampoules and ten millilitres are facts. Numbers about what will happen to your face are claims that need evidence, and the ones you see on packaging almost never have it.