Categories

• De-Stress
• Health and Wellness
• Skincare

REDUCE BUT AMPLIFY: Embracing Skin Minimalism the GoSkin+ve way!

Beauty influencers and media have been bombarding our minds and skin with the use of multi-layered skin products in our regular routine with the promise of better, glowing skin.

But this outlook is fast changing, hopefully for the best! Simple, Sustainable and Trendy are the right descriptions for this trend. This trend is called Skinimalism aka Skin minimalism!

What is Skin minimalism?

Embracing skinimalism means reducing steps you have in your skincare, or even make-up, routine. 

With skincare, less can be more. Just because you reduce the amount of products you use daily, doesn’t mean your skincare will be less effective at giving you that hydrated glow. It can mean incorporating more multitasking products into your routine – for example, a moisturizer that has SPF, instead of separate creams that contain either SPF protection or hydration. When it comes to make-up, you can do this by, for example, using a nourishing BB cream instead of a thicker foundation.

Thus multitasking skincare products are the way to go and skin minimalism advocates the use of fewer but better products to create a simplistic skincare routine that compliments our life-styles and not complicates it!

Why Skin Minimalism?

The obsession with perfect-looking skin and many skincare and beauty products to achieve perfect results is a social media trap we’ve all fallen prey to at some point or the other. From the elaborate am to pm skincare tips and routines to decoding the chronology of the skincare products used, skincare has become an unavoidable hassle. 

Skincare should not have to be a full-time job. It should be manageable, affordable and most importantly, easily understandable. This is where the concept of skin minimalism comes in, and the chase for airbrushed skin ends.

Why is this so good? At the very least, skin minimalism is:

• more sustainable for the Earth

• easier on your wallet

• lower maintenance, and

• better for your skin (the most vital point)

As a dermatologist, I have been following this mantra my entire adult life, and now that is trending, means the world to me! Finally, I am heard (may not be my voice, but does that matter?)

At GoSkin+ve, my endeavor is to create a skincare line based on the same matra, Skin minimalism with a multi-tasking range of skincare products. The goal is to create products that also nurture:

• environmental awareness

• the ongoing issues of sustainability

• deep love and acceptance for who we are

• clean beauty

• a simple/slow/scientific approach to skincare.

How do we embrace Skin Minimalism?

The point of this is to commit to a sustainable beauty routine, and nourish your skin with exactly what it needs, when it needs it, instead of overloading it with products and creating a dependency on them for your skin.

You can make your skin shine with a natural glow by using high-quality ingredients and actives without having to pack your skin full of them through eight or more different products. 

Let’s understand the process of choosing what’s best for your skin:

1. Know Your Skin Type

No two skin types are alike, then why should everyone follow the same multi-step routines? Also, skin type changes with seasons and your mental health. For example, suppose you’ve got oily skin. In that case, the oil cleanse method that many celebs rave about could potentially result in bad breakouts for you. 

Similarly, too many skincare steps or exfoliating rituals could cause severe rashes if you have sensitive skin. 

Also, you may notice excess oil production in summers than winters, so why should the products/skin type be the same for all seasons? 

Therefore, it’s crucial to spend some time discovering how your skin behaves and what it likes, to invest time in developing a skincare routine best suited for yourself.

2.  Identify Your Skincare Concerns

Skin minimalism is about matching your products to the concerns that your skin has. This is why it is essential to pick and choose products which target specific concerns such as; aging, pigmentation, acne, dull skin, dryness etc.

3. Choose Products With Actives that multitask

Active ingredients offer more for less money. What is the point of spending thousands of rupees on skincare products that look great, smell divine and well, don’t do much beyond hydrating and moisturizing your skin? 

It’s, therefore, a fruitful effort to look for products with actives like retinol, hyaluronic acid, and vitamin C/E that are proven to act on specific skin concerns like aging skin and help better your skin health, with just one product, like The Ultimate Serum from our range.

4. Stick to one active a night 

This step benefits everyone, even if you're not a skin care minimalist. Limiting yourself to one active treatment step a night, be it exfoliation or retinol, will encourage better results with less irritation. 

As a dermatologist, I encourage patients to use “alternate day active regimen”, thereby reducing the side effects of the strong actives, but not the efficacy.

On the nights you use retinol, skip the exfoliants. If you want, you may even add a recovery night with only hydrating products to give your skin a break. This process is also known as skin cycling.

5. Do not forget Sun Protection

While we all are looking to treat the skin concerns, a major part of our routine should        include protection which ultimately leads to prevention. There is no place to begin adoption of this virtue than to start with sun protection.

Skin Care is Self Care and Self Care is Self Love:

Self-care isn’t meant to be a quick fix to make all our skin/health issues disappear, and it won’t replace the difficult recovery processes we must go through when we endure trauma, experience extreme loss/disease, or just feel not beautiful/acceptable.

It can, however, help us take the pain we feel and soften it, or channel it into strength or something beautiful.

Take some time out of your regular routine and think about skin care, mindfully. Use this opportunity of “me time” and apply your skin care creams with care, feeling the warmth with every stroke, gently massaging and helping the actives spread evenly throughout the skin. Try and choose skin care products that are preferably plant based, hypoallergenic and fragrance free. Use this time to rejuvenate not only your skin but yourself too!!