The Dry Skin Series - Hello Again!
Updated: Sep 4, 2020
This Dry Skin Series has been a work in progress inside my mind for a long time. I attempted it before, and if you saw it at the time you probably thought that the products I was using were making my situation worse (shout out to Arlene for calling me out on it!)
They were, I was looking for products that would make my skin ‘squeak’ as I thought that meant my skin was clean, I thought the tightness meant that my pores were ‘closed’. More fool me.
I follow so many salons and skin specialists on Instagram and quickly realised that they weren’t promoting tight, matte skin – they were celebrating oils and masks that left skin looking dewy and supple.
So I began to change my approach towards what I put on my face, I still like a good exfoliator but I don’t try to remove layers of epidermis now.
The turning point for me was picking up Skincare by Caroline Hirons, again, I’ve followed her for a while and really liked how accessible she made skincare – sure there was a lot of chat about acids and I still don’t know what on earth ‘Tret’ is, but I realised that I could understand this stuff in layman's terms and ultimately end up with skin that felt comfortable at least.
I’ll post a bit of a disclaimer now; I don’t have problematic skin in that I’ve never had acne or been really bothered by spots, my main concern is that I have dry skin and I’m prone to blackheads. Also, obviously I don’t know the first thing about skincare formulations, this is just what has worked for me.
If you’re a total skincare novice I would seriously recommend Caroline’s book, it isn’t something I’ve binged on, I’m working through it steadily and like a pure nerd have pages marked so I know that if I need a reminder of what order I put things on, or whether some things shouldn’t go together I can get it at a glance.
In the month or so since I got the book, I have had a major breakout due to an incident with niacinamde which I’ll get on to – but I also cleared it up in record time with another new product. So it’s definitely something you need to persevere with.
My skin has never felt better, granted I’m wearing less makeup but my skin is loving all the acids and masks I’ve taken to time to apply and the overall tone looks nicer and who knew I’d grow to love having a shine to my face!
I’ve broken down what I use by category, and again I can’t stress enough that this is just what works for me and hasn’t been suggested by anyone that knows my skin.
Keep a look out over the next week or so as I take you through what works for me and also what I think it worth spending money on if - like me - you struggle with dry skin.