Best Skin Care Routines During Quarantine

Skin care is important to everyone. During a pandemic, even more so! That we noticed. 

If there’s one thing we can work on in our work-from-home culture, it’s our skin. Our stuck-at-home style, means paying closer attention to what we look like and spending more on soothing our faces with ways to improve everything we’ve never seen before. Masks, moisturizers, serums, sunscreen, whatever is on the market. 

Take that Zoom Meetings!

Consistent skin-care routines don’t sway when you’re a dermatologist. So, here are a few tips that they suggest keeping in your routine despite your surroundings. 

• Cleanse

This is almost a given, Cleansing your skin of all it’s impurities is the first step to any skincare routine. And the type of cleanser you use matters. Too many people cleanse their face way too much or even too often with products that contain harsh ingredients. Gentle cleansers go a long way. Whereas harsh products will actually break down your skin barrier. 

• Tone 

It’s generally optional. If you have a toner you prefer, absolutely sue it. It’s a great way to balance your skin’s PH, especially if you have acne prone skin. Ingredients you can find in toners like salicylic acid are known to calm breakouts. If you have naturally dry and sensitive skin, look for a toner that hydrates as well as balances your skin

• Antioxidant Serum

This is the best way to protect your skin from free radicals. You can ingest them, which is highly recommended. (Yes, those blueberries are your best friend) Or you can apply them directly to the skin in the form of a serum. 

• Repairing Serum

Serums are a staple of evening care routines. These repairing serums are actively improving the look and feel of the skin while you sleep. This gives the skin plenty of time to absorb the products and start to repair itself without the interruption of pollutants. 

• Vitamin C Serum

A serum for during the day, a lot of dermatologists suggest a vitamin c serum. Vitamin C serum is for everyone, at all ages. Starting in your 20s, to be able to reverse any damage that we develop from pollution and the sun’s rays. Look for a Vitamin C serum that contains a stable form of vitamin C so that your skin will be able to soak it all in.

• Eye Cream

This is a treatment piece in your routine. Treat your under eyes from sagging or developing dark circles by dabbing eye cream using your ring finger to avoid unintentionally causing damage to your eye area

• Moisturizer

After treating your skin, moisturizing is important! Making sure your skin is moisturized, ensures your skin is hydrated and helps add strength to your skin’s defenses. During the day, use a light moisturizer that will soak quickly and won’t build up under any make-up. 

• Moisturizer with Sunscreen

Sunscreen is one of the most important steps in your skin care routine. Not only does applying sunscreen improve the cosmetic appearance of the skin but helps protect it from damaging sun spots, and fine lines or wrinkles that can be a result of sun damage. Aside from protecting the skin from UV rays, it helps allow the skin to function at its most optimal. And aids the skin in healing itself from any previous damage. 

• Sunscreen

Again, the most important step in your skin routine. And if you decide to not wear a moisturizer with sunscreen, then make sure you’re wearing sunscreen at the very least.

The sun makes the skin age prematurely and protecting yourself from the sun is extremely important even when you’re indoors during a forever-long quarantine. UV rays can still penetrate through windows. 

In addition to physical beauty routines. There are a few practices to incorporate into your daily life that can help aid your beauty routine into beautiful and glowing skin!

Avoid Scrubbing. Resist scrubbing your skin. If you have been sweating or have serious acne, it may seem like a necessity to scrub. Scrubbing actually irritates the skin and can worsen skin conditions, that includes acne.

Stress Less.  Managing stress in a healthy way can help manage your skin too. Certain skin conditions like dermatitis, eczema, and psoriasis, can appear for the first time when stressed or continually appear to cause flare ups. Stress affects skin conditions like psoriasis, rosacea, acne, and eczema.

Wash Your Face. Make sure to wash your face when you wake up, before you go to bed and after sweating. Remove all the impurities and bacteria and dirt that settle on your face when you sleep. Before bed, washing your face can help remove pollution from the day such as smoke, dirt, grime, and smog that may have landed on your skin.

Avoid Smoking. Smoking cigarettes speeds up the aging process in your skin. It also hinders the healing of wounds on your skin and pushes for a longer recovery time. Smoking also shows that it worsens skin diseases including psoriasis and hidradenitis suppurativa.

Check for Skin Cancer. Check your skin for skin cancers. Self-examine your skin to detect early onset of skin cancer. To allow time for it to be treated, the earlier the better treatable. If you find a spot that is very different from the rest of your skin. One that may change, itch, or bleed, make sure to talk to your dermatologist about changes in your skin.

Avoid the Sun. If you like to look tanner, use a self-tanner. Tanning outside or in a tanning bed can prematurely age your skin and increase the risks of skin cancer. A self-tanner can help you achieve the look without the risks and keep your skin healthy and protected from the sun.

Apply sunscreen. Apply. That. Sunscreen! Apply sunscreen everyday before you go outside. It’s the closest thing we have to keeping us young and vibrant. It helps slow down the skin from aging, and helps prevent skin cancer. Look for sunscreens that offer broad-spectrum protection, SPF 30 plus and are water resistant.

Apply Sunscreen to your Kids. Start out your children young and protect their skin. It’s important to protect infants’ skin from the sun but the AAD recommends applying sunscreen only to children who are 6 months and older. 

Match Your Skin Needs. Know what your skin needs and match it. Make sure you understand your skin type. Skin care is not a one-size fits all. Do you have oily skin? Dry skin? Normal? Combination skin? Sensitive skin? Do you have any skin conditions? Acne? Eczema?

Take all this into consideration when formulating your skin’s needs and the staple everyday beauty routine to maintain your youth. You will not only look but feel the best!

Talk to a Dermatologist

Make sure to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist if you dislike conditions of your skin. These doctors can help you disguise and treat all kinds of skin conditions and diseases. They also have the understanding and education on how to rejuvenate and care for the skin. 

When and how to exfoliate?

Avoid using harsh scrubs for so many reasons! Avoid making your skin worse with a scrub or exfoliant and replace it with a chemical exfoliating product. Exfoliation chemicals can be natural like AHA and BHAs. It sounds worse than a scrub but it’s less harsh on the skin than the alternative. 

AHA and BHA are used in patients to help promote skin cell rejuvenation that starts to slow down in our later age. Use them sparingly, and know when you may need it. For older people, using them more frequently can be helpful. For those who are younger, using them too much causes dryness in the skin and an inability to tolerate more effective ingredients to help with anti-aging. 

When to use a retinol/retinoid?

Use retinols at night. Also sparingly, once a week and work your way up if necessary. Retinol – Vitamin A – helps treat acne and aging. Highly recommended by dermatologists and skin care professionals. Talk to your doctor about which is right for you. 

Retinol cannot always be tolerated. So work into it slowly and add moisturizer over top. 

It’s also helpful to wear additional sunscreen when you use retinol in your beauty routine because it makes your skin more sensitive to the sun. Avoid using retinol with other products that can be like a chemical exfoliation, especially if you are considered a sensitive skin type. 

Talk To Our Professionals At Balshi Dermatology About Your Skin Care Needs

For over ten years, Balshi Dermatology has provided the most exceptional state-of-the-art skincare and cosmetic services to patients of all ages in South Florida. Dr. Thomas Balshi is board certified in both internal medicine and dermatology. His specialties include the aesthetic enhancement of pigmented skin conditions, non-invasive skin rejuvenation, and cosmetic dermatology.

To schedule a preliminary consultation about your skin questions and concerns, call board-certified dermatologist in Delray Beach, contact Balshi Dermatology at (561) 272-6000 or send us a message on our Contact Page to set up your appointment.