If you want to get that youthful glow back to your skin, there is one step you need in your skincare routine, and you don’t have to spend a ton of money or time on this step.
In this article, I will give you affordable product recommendations to get a youthful glow, and am telling you exactly how to incorporate them into your routine.
With the step, you can see improvement overnight, let’s talk about your dull skin it doesn’t look like it used to, by why. The truth is tho is happening to all of us as we age I have so many people who come into my exam room and complain about dull skin, they think they need to come to see a dermatologist and buy super expensive products and procedures.
Do you know why your skin looks dull, as the skin ages the turnover of skin cells slows down. You see what normally happens is that new skin cell form and migrate up to the very top layer of the skin called the stratum corneum. This forms the outer layer of the skin barrier and this is where the skin cells stay at the end of their life cycle for some time.
When you are young it stays for a super short time and then sloughs away revealing new glowing skin underneath, but as you age, this process slows down so those dead skin cells just sit on the outer layer for longer and longer instead of coughing away more quickly.
Why is this a problem, well this extra thickened layer of your startup corneum traps light instead of allowing it to reflect or bounce off the skin.
When light is reflected off the skin it gives off a luminous and youthful glow and that is what you lose as you age now that you know what the problem is can you guess how to fix it you add a product to your skincare routine to help gently exfoliate this outermost layer of skin.
The key ingredient in this product is topical acid either a beta hydroxy acid or an alpha hydroxy acid like glycolic acid or lactic acid. These acids work by loosening up the skin cell connections of breaking their bonds so they are not so sticky to each other.
The major mistake that people make sure exfoliation is that they choose a physical exfoliant instead of a chemical exfoliant, when I say physical exfoliant I want you to think of those products that are scrub, something with a gritty texture to it. This texture is meant to manually scrub away the skin layer.
A chemical exfoliant on the other hand will use topical acids to dissolve it without scrubbing.
4 Ways To Incorporate A Topical Acid
There are four main ways that you can incorporate a topical acid into your routine, depending on your skin type and situation, you can take one of my four approaches here
- Use An Exfoliating Cleanser: choose this option if you have sensitive, dry, or rosacea-prone skin. Or if you have never tried an exfoliant before, this is a great place to start.
- Use a leave-on topical acid
- Use an exfoliating pad: Choose this if you have dry skin or rough texture skin, this is borderline a physical exfoliant in my opinion because you can overdo it if you use this pad to scrub or run the skin too harshly.
- Use an exfoliating mask: choose this if you want to exfoliate less often but still get similar results as you would with the other products I mentioned earlier.
So now you are convinced that you need a topical acid and you are excited to try one of my four approaches, but how do you use it in your routine, will everyone’s routine will look a little different.
Skincare Routine
- Use an exfoliating product in the morning if you have a retinoid in your routine like retinol or tretinoin.
- Use the retinol at night instead of moving it with an acid you will use the acid in the morning.
- Use on alternate nights with the exfoliating product and the retinoid.
