If only life was like the movies, and we could achieve a goal after a five-minute montage detailing all the ups and downs. Unfortunately, to get—and keep—clear, radiant, and healthy-looking skin, we must commit ourselves to skincare every day, forever. For reflecting your efforts on your skin, proper skincare routine tips can help you to stay on top of your game.

Daunted? Don’t be! Here are the best skincare routine tips to help you stay consistent and keep your skin beautiful.

Why Is Consistency Important in a Skincare Routine?

First, let’s break down why routine is so essential for your skincare, shall we?

Say you use a moisturizer, but you don’t use it consistently. So, you might use it at night, but not in the morning. Or you might use it on the weekdays but not on the weekends. How does this affect your skin?

Your skin might look great when you use moisturizer, but on the days you skip, your skin barrier may become compromised, especially if you’re using a harsh cleanser, hot water in the shower or if your skin is exposed to cold, dry weather.

Once your skin barrier takes a hit, it can take a few days to help rebalance your skin and get that protection back. After all, your skin barrier exists to keep out harmful bacteria and lock in moisture. 

Consistency is key when it comes to other skincare products as well, including retinol creams, eye cream and sunscreen. Although skipping a day likely won’t ruin your skin, being consistent as much as possible will reduce the impact of that night. You really just need to climb into bed instead of washing your face and applying a moisture mask.

3 Skincare Routine Tips to Help You Stay Consistent

We won’t lie—creating a routine and sticking to it takes commitment and patience. However, the benefit of having younger-looking, healthier-looking skin is a pretty big payoff. Here are three skincare routine tips to help you stay on top of your game, so your skin shows how much effort you’ve put into it.

1. Start Small

A multi-step skincare routine is often the best way to protect your skin barrier, banish breakouts and reduce the appearance of wrinkles. However, if you go all in with a skincare routine that’s five steps or longer, you may be more discouraged and have less success than if you’d started small.

Starting small can look like:

• Cleansing your face and using moisturizer, but skipping serums and eye cream.

• Exfoliating once a week instead of two or three times a week.

• Applying a balm at night to lock in moisture, then skipping cleansing in the morning.

• Using a concealer or primer with sunscreen to combine these steps.

How you start small will depend on which products you’d like to use and how much time you have. The idea is to block out a section of time every day for your skincare, even if it’s less than five minutes, where you wash your face and apply a good moisturizer for your skin type. Once you have that time established for skin care, you can build from there.

2. Keep Your Routine Minimal

Some people have no desire to evolve their skincare routine into a ten-step process, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Keeping your routine minimal can encourage you to stick with this new habit that only takes a few minutes of your time.

Although some steps are essential—especially cleansing, moisturizing, and sunscreen—other steps are largely optional. For example, you may decide to skip toner and instead use a serum. Or you may pass on face oil and use a cream moisturizer instead.

Other ingredients, such as retinol, chemical exfoliants including AHA/BHA and spot treatments are not strictly necessary, so if skipping them means you actually wash your face, apply moisturizer and protect your skin with sunscreen every day, onward friend!

3. Begin Earlier in the Evening (or Morning)

One of the best skincare routine tips is to start earlier in the evening. Why? Because you’re much less likely to stick to a routine when it’s the last thing you do before bed, and you’re exhausted. So, start a bit earlier in the night.

Wash your face when you get home from work and put on a sheet mask or apply moisturizer. Then, later in the evening, you can apply eye cream, retinol or face oil. Breaking up your skincare routine into two bigger steps like this can help it feel less overwhelming and easier to do.

For your morning skincare routine, starting just after you wake up (after you’ve brushed your teeth, of course) can help ensure you do all the necessary steps before your day starts getting into full swing, so when it’s time to get dressed and accessorize, your skin is already glowing and ready to make your day that much better.

Bonus Tip: Take Before and After Photos

Sometimes we can’t see the progress we’ve made without documenting before and after shots of ourselves—this is especially true with skincare!

Try taking a “before” pic where you don’t have any products on your face or maybe have even been neglecting your skincare for a while (hey, we’re not here to judge!). Then, once you’ve been doing your routine for a couple of days—or even after you complete your skincare routine—take an “after” photo.

We bet you’ll be shocked at the difference, which can be a major motivator to stick to your skincare routine.

Get Started With Your Skincare Routine by Taking Our Free Quiz

Our free skin type quiz will help you get started with YOUR skincare routine so you can pamper your specific skin type with the right ingredients, steps, and products. Take our free assessment now and say hello to glowing skin at any age with these skincare routine tips!