A lot of us just wake up in the morning, wash our faces with soap and then proceed to slap on our layers and layers of makeup without first giving our skin the TLC it deserves. For most people their whole beauty routine doesn’t last up to five minutes, and the excuse is often that there is no time for that. Well if you can spare almost an hour contouring and strobing before going to work, you can spare 15 minutes to indulge in a proper skin care routine.
Try this for a month and you’ll probably not need all those layers of concealer.
Step 1 – You need to open up your pores, this doesn’t involve anything fancy just splash your face with cold water. If you take warm/hot showers remember to do this before jumping in the shower.
Step 2 – Wash. No not with your normal soap, buy a wash or facial soap it’s cheaper than one of your tubes of foundation. If you are worried about chemical products, you can use black soap.
Step 3 – Exfoliate. Believe it or not, this is a more effective way of getting rid of your blackheads than just popping them with your nails (which is really damaging by the way). Biore Pore Unclogging scrub is a pretty good scrub and is suitable for most skin types. If you don’t want to buy one you can make one with some pretty basic household items. We have a whole post dedicated to that scheduled so remember to check back.
Step 4 – Tone. Remember all that pore opening you did in step 1, well it’s time to close those babies back up with a good toner. Leaving your pores open lets dirt get into them meaning all the hard work you put in washing and exfoliating will be in vain. Toners are sort of like cleansers but not as harsh, they remove the residual products from step 1 and step 2 while maintaining the pH balance of your face (that’s just a fancy way of saying your face still has all the necessary oils and vitamins it needs).
Step 5 – Moisturize. Yes we know Lagos is hot and moisturizing tends to make you sweat but a little moisturizer never killed anybody. Chances are you are using the wrong moisturizer for your face. You can’t be using the same Jergens you are using for the rest of your body on your face as it is way too heavy for your face. Buy a good face moisturizer, Aveeno makes a pretty good one. Remember to get one with sunscreen, black can crack.