the idiot's guide to basic skincare

published: 2024.11.13
tagged: skincare
by mana

I’ve had a couple of people ask me to write a guide on how to start taking care of your skin if you know nothing about cosmetics/skincare.

Having been there myself when I got started (my mom very rarely wore makeup and just bought whatever the lady at her hair salon would sell her for her skin. She also never wore suncream.), and being confused by the absolute onslaught of information out there, I thought I’d pen this (hopefully) handy guide for anyone out there wanting to learn how to take care of their skin properly.

A disclaimer, to begin: I am not a professional aesthetician or dermatologist. I am just a person in their 30’s whose tried a lot of things.

If you have a severe skin problem: please see a dermatologist!! Do not take my, or anyone on the internet’s advice! Consult a doctor, please.

the absolute bare minimum

the fundamentals, or absolute bare minimum you need to maintain your skin’s moisture barrier and health are as follows:

our skin gets dirty, and oil (called sebum) from our pores, pollution, dirt, etc. gets on our face as we go about our day, so we need something to remove the grime of the day, but not strip our skin of moisture.

‘but mana’, you may say, ‘my skin is so super oily, how could I possibly need moisture?’ very good question! and one I asked as well when I first began taking care of my skin.

In my mid-twenties, I went for a spa day at a makeup counter because I was friends with someone who worked there and she invited me to partake in this free exercise. the makeup brand she worked for had released a new skincare range and was doing this hour-long “spa” thing as a promotion (read: ad for their product), and I worked a very stressful job and could use the time to de-stress, so I went.

I remember as I was there, one of the girls who was massaging some product or another into my face mentioned how much nicer my skin looked afterward and that “see? all you needed was a little hydration!” which confused me - I was convinced I had oily skin (there are skin types - you may have seen that products are very often marked as “for all skin types” or “for dry skin,” etc.)!

After all, my skin very frequently was shiny and wet to the touch after a long day of working, and my bangs were constantly greasy even the morning after I’d showered. She had to be mistaken. I informed her as much, and she explained to me that dry, dehydrated skin frequently overproduces oil as a reaction to skin being dry in an attempt to moisturize it. That sounded like a product pitch to me, so I wrote it off, but scrawled that information down in the corner of my mind.

I had been using the same skincare regimen my mom had put me on when I was a teenager and had acne - salicylic acid gel to spot treat, and noxzema to wash (like I assumed most teenagers used back then - this was the 90’s). by the early 2000’s, when I started my sparklesskincare journeysparkles, my cleanser had changed a few times to whatever really struck my fancy at the drugstore. I’d used Clean & Clear and Biore before, in addition to St. Ives (their apricot kernel scrub was the thing in the late 90’s/early 00’s, little did I know at that time it was shredding my poor skin with its crushed apricot kernels ;w;) and Neutrogena products. Basically whatever smelled nice or had packaging that appealed to me and was affordable enough. It’s skin - it can’t be that complicated, right?

Well, yes and no
allow me to explain. Most skincare products are soaps or other detergents or surfactants that are too basic (as in pH, so, opposite of acidic) for your skin and irritate it. We associate that “squeaky-clean” feeling with cleanliness and assume everything is fine, but we’re actually depleting our skin’s moisture barrier. Why is that important?

Why is moisture important?

Your skin is designed to keep your bodily fluids and organs inside, and to keep bacteria and other things out. It is an organ like your other organs, but it exists as a barrier between your internal body and the outside world. It has needs just like any other organ in your body.

Basically, your stratum corneum (aka the “horny layer” - that’s literally what it means in Latin) has three “building blocks” that are essential for the health and maintenance of your skin: ceramides, cholesterol, and fatty acids. If you look in the most popular and well-rated skincare products, which, in the USA is mostly just CeraVe (a division of L’OrĂ©al - not sponsored), they have all three of these components: ceramides, cholesterol, and fatty acids.

Your skin uses these three materials to produce more skin cells and keep everything functioning, so if you have a damaged skin barrier (sunburn, irritation, redness, dryness, chapped skin, etc.) you’re going to want to look for those kinds of ingredients. I recommend using a website like CosDNA or the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database to look up different ingredients, if you are so inclined. These two resources have been especially useful for me as I am allergic to so so so many things. ;w;

the tl;dr so far:

ok ok, but how do I tell what to use?

the short answer is: experimentation. unless you live in a country where you can see a dermatologist for low cost and without any sort of referral or other hoops to jump through, experimentation is going to be your best bet. I like to start with products formulated for sensitive skin (because they will be the gentlest, as they’re formulated to be minimally irritating).

That being said, the first major thing you’ll want to try and learn is: what is your skin type?

I’m sure there’s more types than this out there, but the ones you see the most marketing & labeling for are as follows:

products for dry skin will provide more moisture, products for “normal” skin will provide the basic building blocks for maintaining your skin’s structure without targeting anything else, oily skin products will focus on dealing with excess oil, “combination” skin will usually be dry on the outer area of your face (chin & cheeks) but oily in your “T-zone” (forehead, nose, and under-nose, maybe even the chin, depending). Products for sensitive skin will focus on calming & soothing and will avoid having irritants & perfumes in them, and products for aging skin will usually have some kind of aging treatment in them (either low-dose retinol, collagen, CoQ10, etc. there’s a ton of these ingredients, but retinoids and peptides are the only ones that I know of that are proven to do anything).

so how do I tell what skin type I have?

in my experience, the best way to determine this is by washing your face with whatever your regular cleanser is, towel-drying your skin and waiting a few moments (maybe 5 mins maximum?) until your skin “feels” dried (like
internally
you know how when you know you’ve dried off from toweling after a shower or leaving the beach? that feeling, lol).

Take a piece of tissue: it can be toilet paper, a facial tissue (like a kleenex), a piece of crafting tissue paper, whatever. just something thin, like an oil blotting paper that could stick to your skin if it was wet.

Take the tissue and pat it against your forehead first. don’t press too hard, but press firmy with the back of your hand (to avoid transferring anything from the palms of your hand to the tissue and thus sullying the test). Does the tissue stick to your face when you pull your hand away? Or does it fall immediately? Does it stick for a moment but if you turn your head slightly, it falls?

If it sticks, then that area is oily. If it falls immediately, your skin is dry in that area. If it sticks for a second but falls if you turn your head, then it’s “normal.”

If the tissue is sullied by oil, then take a fresh one and move to your cheeks: you can do one or both, it’s up to you, but they will usually be the same, so if you only want to do one then that’s fine. Same process & question as before: does it stick? does it fall? Note this, and repeat the test with a fresh tissue (if needed) on your nose, and then finally, your chin.

If any area was oily, but not all of them, then that indicates combination skin type. If no areas were oily and the tissue fell immediately every time, then you have dry skin. If every area stuck, then you have oily skin.

Now, let’s study our skin in the mirror. Do you notice any redness? uneven tone? are parts of your face, like your cheeks, more flushed naturally than others? these things can indicate sensitivity, so if you notice anything like that, keep it in mind.

finally, if you have any fine lines or wrinkles you’re worried about, take note of that as well. My personal philosophy on fine lines and wrinkles are that they are the signs of a life well-lived, but I am aware that society still places unreasonable expectations on everyone’s (especially people who read as feminine’s) appearances, and if you choose to address these things then I don’t fault or judge you. Do what you must to be happy with yourself! hearts

now what?

now that you know your skin type, you can try and choose products and experiment with them to see what works for you. everyone’s skin is different, so it might be that not everything labeled as being for your skin type works for you. my advice is to start cheap and work your way up as you figure out what works for you.

basically, you can pick out a cleanser (ones advertised as being mildly acidic - again, as in pH may be better and less stripping if you run into problems with other types of cleansers bc of your skin’s acid mantle, I include this information mostly for my sensitive-skinned homies but it might also help you even if you don’t have sensitive skin!) and a moisturizer using the information you are now armed with!

next comes the most effective anti-aging and cancer-reducing skincare item: sunscreen!

ok so what do I look for in a sunscreen?

if you live in the USA you will be on the lookout for suncreams/sunscreens/sunblocks advertised as being “broad spectrum” and have an SPF rating of 50+. If you live elsewhere, depending on where you buy from, you may look for the same, or labeling that says “UVA & UVB protection,” or a PA rating of PA++++ or higher.

I am not a scientist, and frankly, Michelle over at Lab Muffin Beauty Science explains the reasons you need sun protection in a much more scientific (and complete!) way than I am able to, but I can summarize what she’s said here for those that aren’t so curious.

While the sun is beneficial for Vitamin D synthesis and your health, excessive sun exposure is not; it can cause premature skin aging and skin cancer, which can be deadly. You need sun protection if you’re going outside at all.

bringing it home:

ok so what we learned today was:

I feel like this barely scratched the surface on what’s available out there (serums, creams, eye creams, face masks, etc.) but I wanted to make something as like
low-maintenance and basic as humanly possible.

I know that there is a wealth of conflicting information out there, and if you have never tried to take care of your skin before or learn anything about skincare before, it can be extremely overwhelming and frustrating, especially when one article says one thing and the next says something totally different.

parting advice

once you figure out a few products that work well for you, you may want to branch out and learn more about skincare & what it can do for you! that’s awesome! but there’s a lot of misinformation out there, so my advice for further reading is as follows:

further reading