It’s sweater weather time! A change in weather means it just might be time your routine needs a couple updates. We’re not huge fans of nuking your entire routine you’ve worked so hard to build every season - but a few mini tweaks here and there can help make that transition into cooler weather a little easier. So read on for some of our chemists’ recommended things to work on this fall.
Moisturizer Check-In: Enhance & Fortify!
This is the right season to stay on top of your skin barrier health. Other than occlusives to shield your skin from the elements, it’s a great idea to make sure your moisturizer has soothing, barrier helping ingredients such as ceramides, bisabolol, colloidal oatmeal, etc. If you have a go-to winter moisturizer, great! If not, this is a great category to simply enhance with just a few meaningful layering pieces (our general ethos behind our moisturizer line).
- Humectants: One thing we’ve noticed is that heavier creams tend to lack this category. Think water-grabbing ingredients such as glycerin and hyaluronic acid featured in hydrating serums and essences. This is a great layering piece for those experiencing dehydrated skin - which can happen to people of all skin types in fall and winter.
- Emollients: These lightweight oils smooth and nourish the skin. The most notable emollient-forward product is a simple face oil. Though face oils are lousy standalone moisturizers, they can be a great way to give that extra oomph to your favorite summer, lightweight moisturizer. For those with oily, comedone-prone skin looking for a bit more nourishment without heaviness, lightweight oils such as squalane, seabuckthorn seed oil, rosehip oils are great.
- Occlusives: Petrolatum, waxes, and butters that REALLY seal in the moisture. This is a must-have in the colder months for dry skin types. Spot treating dry prone areas is a great preventative measure to prevent chapped skin. Consider adding a balm to your arsenal to nip pesky dry spots in the bud if you have dry skin or combo skin prone to flakey patches.
Prime Time to experiment with actives!*
Once your moisturizing game is in check, let’s talk actives! With less sun exposure, this is the perfect time to experiment with more aggressive active ingredients. This is the perfect time to work on incorporating “Tier 1” ingredients such as high levels of glycolic acid and retinol. Many of these active ingredients can make your skin more sensitive to the sun, which makes fall the ideal time to ramp up your actives game. Additionally, fall is the perfect time to work on all the accumulated hyperpigmentation (shopping and routine guide here!) that the summer sun has exacerbated.
Stay on course with your daily cleanse and SPF
As it gets colder, you can keep calm and carry on with your holy grail cleanser and favorite daily SPF. There isn’t a lot of reasons to make too many changes to your daily cleanser and SPF step. Although you’re getting less sun, daily sunscreen still plays an important role in your anti-aging skincare game. For oily skin types, if you’ve been fighting your sunscreen texture, this can be a good time to dial down that super-high SPF value sunscreen to a more texture-friendly SPF 30.
In Summary
We often encounter many users that end up nuking their routine when skin has done a 180. And a popular time that happens is with changes in season. The goal is to prevent resetting your routine. Think of all that history, work, time, and money lost! Instead of resetting, make your routine adapt with just a few changes here and there.
What we’re doing this winter!
[Gloria] Other than drowning my face in Balm Voyage to keep that dry skin from creeping up, fall is the season when I embrace “ritual” products like a nice smelling mask and a face massage tool.
[Victoria] I don’t know if it’s necessarily fun, but I’m leveling up my retinol game into the 1% territory. Ready to tackle some of these little forehead wrinkles!
