Simple Morning Skincare Routine for Busy Women

Effective skincare keeps thing simple

And despite so many tips and advice available, people still are confused about their morning skincare routine. Do I use a toner? Should I include a serum? What about sunscreen? Sunscreen first or moisturiser first? The questions are endless and if you are a busy woman, this level of complexity signals disaster.

Who can blame you? When you are trying to leave home early to avoid crazy traffic on a workday, confusion about a morning skincare routine is the last thing you need.

By the same token, even you had all the time in the world, surely you wouldn’t want to adopt a 20-step morning skincare routine. Just imagine the effort and money invested in those skincare products, not to mention the poor skin which no doubt would have struggled under layers and layers of products.

So let’s go back to the very basic. In this article, we will share a simple morning skincare routine that works for anyone and any skin type including women with a busy schedule.

Cleansing, hydrating and protecting, it’s that simple.

While you can build a skincare routine that consists of many products, at the end of the day, the basic morning routine that you need for your skin involves only 3 steps: cleansing, hydrating and protecting. Regardless of how many steps involved, all skincare routines start with these 3 fundamental principles.

Step 1: Cleansing

The morning skincare routine usually focuses on prevention and protection whereas the evening skincare routine focuses on repairing. So to kick off your morning, you want to start by cleansing your face with water. If you use any heavier skin treatment products on your face in the evening, you may want to choose a gentle facial cleanser to wash off any products from the previous night.

Cleansing is step 1, because none of the wonderful skincare products and their active ingredients will properly penetrate your skin if you have a dirty face.

Step 2: Hydrating

All skin types require a moisturiser even if you have an oily complexion. Check out our post here if you want to learn more about why oily skin needs a moisturiser.

The purpose of step 2 in your skincare routine is to hydrate the skin. So it’s important to find a moisturiser that meets the hydrating needs of your skin. For example, if your skin is very dry, consider a moisturiser that contains humectant (water-attracting) ingredients and maybe even add a toner as an extra step to your skincare routine to improve skin hydration.

Step 3: Protecting

One of skin’s biggest enemy is the sun. The

damaging ultraviolet radiation ages our skin prematurely, causes problems like wrinkles, pigmentation, sunburns and worse of all, skin cancer.

Make sure you include a physical sunscreen, rather than a chemical sunscreen, in your skincare routine in the morning. A physical sunscreen blocks harmful ultraviolet radiation from the skin by acting as a physical protective barrier. Apply your physical sunscreen after your moisturiser.

What if I want more?

This basic but essential 3-step system is a great morning skincare routine that suits all skin types. It is so easy and simple that the whole routine should take less than 5 minutes to complete. And if you are good, it may take even less time (no competition there).

But what if you have a bit more time to spare or you would like to add a few more skincare products to make your routine more luxurious. You will be happy to know that this can be easily achieved. You can still keep your morning routine simple and effective even with the additional steps.

Step 1.1 Toning

If you want to add extra hydration to your skin or help active ingredients in your skincare products penetrate your skin better, you can add a toner to your morning routine. Let’s call this step 1.1 as you will apply a toner to your skin straight after cleansing.

In the past, people used toners to “shrink pores”. In reality, toners don’t physically shrink anything let along pores. Toners’ primary job is to balance skin pH. They also act as a delivery system for those expensive but small amounts of active ingredients that you pay for in your products to penetrate deep into the skin.

Some people may find toners harsh to the skin if toners used contain alcohol. But of course, we now have many choices as water-based toners are readily available in stores.

But adding a toner to your skincare routine  is not strictly essential if you have a fairly healthy skin and if you are using a gentle and right type of cleanser.

What if I want to use a toner anyway?

Make sure you choose a water-based toner that contains no alcohol. We recommend beautiful organic rose water or lavender water as a toner. Simply spray the beautiful scented floral water onto your cleaned face will do the job. Honestly, this is actually quite delightful. 

Gently wipe any excess floral water away and you are ready to move on to your next step.

Step 1.2 Treatment with Facial Serum

Facial serums are nutrient-fueled, concentrated oils that are designed to treat specific skin issues such as reducing the appearance of wrinkles and fighting off harmful pollutants and
radicals. 

There are many different types of facial serums to choose from. To keep things simple, we recommend a revitalising serum that is gentle enough to be used in most situations. This is important, because some facial serums, while good, should only be applied to the skin in the evening away from the sun to avoid photosensitivity.

For oily skin, consider sera that contain hemp seed and grapeseed oils and for dry skin, try sera containing avocado and grapeseed oils.

How do I apply facial serum?

Because they are concentrated (and, therefore, more expensive), you only need to use literally a few drops each time. And when you do, you want to apply facial serums to your face as soon as you can after cleansing. In other words, you don’t want the wonderful facial serum sitting on top of other skincare products such as sunscreen, which literally acts as a barrier, resulting in your precious facial serum being wasted.

To apply facial serum, warm up a few drops of  your favourite serum between your palms and press the serum onto your skin gently. Remember, little is more in this case.

You are now ready to hydrate your skin with a  moisturiser (step 2).

Keep skincare routine simple but effective

As you can see, a morning skincare routine can be simple and yet still effective. Cleansing, hydrating and protecting will always form the basis of any morning skincare routine. Once you have these 3 essential steps sorted, you can then enhance your routine with additional carefully selected skincare products.

We hope this article has made choosing your skincare a little bit easier. Do you have a question or two about natural skincare yourself? Send us your questions and let us pull our collective brainpower together and help answer the question. 

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