Just when you think that you have your skincare routine all figured out, the seasons change, meaning that your skincare routine needs to do the same. Why? Because each season poses its own unique set of skin challenges. You need to ensure that your skincare routine has been adapted to help your skin to deal with these and avoid the seasonal skin concerns that people commonly face.
The winter months, with their dry air, cold temperatures, and harsh weather, can be particularly difficult for the skin. Dehydration, dryness, flaking, sensitivities, and more will be the norm if your skincare routine hasn’t been tailored to the winter season. How do you go about doing this? Read on as Lavelier explains exactly what your winter skincare routine should consist of.
Start With a Gentle Cleanser
While some of the steps in this skincare routine can be skipped, a cleanser is absolutely essential. However, not any cleanser will do…
In the winter months, your skin is much more vulnerable to damage. Sebum production slows down too. While this is good news if your skin usually produces too much sebum, it’s bad news for everyone else. Sebum keeps the skin feeling conditioned and protected. Since your skin isn’t producing as much of it now, you need to ensure that your cleanser isn’t washing away your precious sebum reserves.
This is why a gentle cleanser is key in the winter months. Look for a sulfate-free formula that contains plenty of moisturizing ingredients, such as the Lavelier Oceana Breezy Facial Cleanser. With aloe vera, lavender, argan oil, and moringa seed oil, it will leave your skin feeling refreshed and wonderfully soft. It’s gentle enough to be used twice a day in the winter yet it’s still effective enough to thoroughly clear away toxins and impurities from the skin’s surface.
Exfoliate Once or Twice a Week
Just like with cleansing, you need to go easy on the exfoliation in the winter months. Again, you don’t want to end up removing too much of your skin’s natural protective barrier when exfoliating. This is important at any time of the year but more so in the winter when your skin will be more susceptible to the effects of over-exfoliation.
The first step is to find a winter-friendly exfoliator. The Lavelier Oceana Refining Coral Peel would be a good choice. Its exfoliants consist of mandelic acid, bamboo powder, and walnut shell powder. This provides both chemical and physical exfoliation but in a way that isn’t going to harm or irritate your skin.
Knowing how often to exfoliate is crucial too. You won’t need to exfoliate as often in the winter as you do in the summer, so cut back on frequency. Once or twice a week should be sufficient, although you may want to exfoliate even less than this if your skin is already showing signs of sensitivities and inflammation from the winter weather.
Consider a Toner
If you’re trying to keep your skincare routine simple, which is an approach that can certainly have merit, you may decide to skip the toner. However, if your skin has been feeling parched or looking irritated in any way, the right toner could be a very helpful product to use.
The main purpose of a toner is to rebalance the pH of the skin’s surface. Cleansing and exfoliating can often interfere with this, leading to a variety of skin problems. Using a toner to rectify this balance will leave your skin feeling happier and much more receptive to the rest of your skincare routine.
A good toner will provide additional benefits too, just like the Lavelier Oceana Pure Balance Toner. In addition to leaving your skin feeling perfectly balanced, it will also provide hydration, soothe the look of inflammation, and give your skin an extra layer of antioxidants. This toner only takes a few seconds to apply yet can be a game-changer in your winter skincare routine.
Apply an Antioxidant Serum
Antioxidants should ideally be a big part of your skincare routine throughout the year. They’re fantastic for combating the look of environmental damage. In the summer, this primarily comes from the sun while the winter months wreak havoc with icy temperatures and harsh winds.
As a result, this is one area of your skincare routine that doesn’t need to change with the seasons. Find yourself an antioxidant serum that you can use year-round as your skin will benefit from these compounds every day of the year.
If you don’t yet have a go-to antioxidant serum, the Lavelier Oceana VitaGlow C Serum would be a good place to start. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that everyone should be using, and you’ll find two different forms of it in this serum. It’s joined by vitamins A and E – two other superstar antioxidants. Meanwhile, the plant oils in this serum contain antioxidants too. This results in a formula that will have your skin looking healthier throughout the year.
Apply a Hydrating Serum
While a single serum may be all that your skin needs in the summer, layering two or three serums can be very beneficial in the winter months. At this time of year, your skin will be desperate for some extra hydration and serums are an effective way to provide this.
The key is to look for a serum that contains a few humectants. These are ingredients that have moisture-binding properties, making them a great way to quickly hydrate the skin. They’ll immediately have your skin looking plumper and dewier, even on a cold and dry winter’s day.
Not familiar with humectants? Sodium hyaluronate is one of the best. Glycerin, seaweed extract, and lactic acid are highly sought-after humectants too. You’ll find all four of them in the HydroTherm Sauna Serum from the Lavelier HydroTherm Sauna Collection. This serum also contains several antioxidants.
If you’d like to add a third serum to your winter skincare routine, the Lavelier Nano Gold Serum would be worth considering. Once again, this one provides both hydration and antioxidants. It also contains a few ingredients that will help to smooth away the visibility of fine lines and wrinkles, leaving your skin looking firmer and younger.
Pat on an Eye Cream
Ideally, most of the skincare products that you use on your face should be applied to your eye area too. However, it’s important to also remember that the skin around the eyes is very thin and fragile. In fact, it’s much more so than the skin on the rest of your face. While regular facial skincare products may sometimes be enough for this area, it can sometimes benefit from some extra help.
This is where eye care products come in. Eye serums and eye creams are particularly popular and it’s easy to see why. Both have the potential to really nurture the skin around the eyes. While an eye serum will likely be your eye care product of choice during the summer months, the winter calls for thicker formulas. So, either switch to an eye cream or use both – start with an eye serum and then follow up with an eye cream.
At Lavelier, we have a couple of eye serums that you can choose from, one of which is the Oceana Wrinkle Reset Eye-Lift Serum. Although primarily formulated to tackle the appearance of eye wrinkles, this formula is perfectly suited to the winter months because of how hydrating it is. It also contains ingredients that soothe the feeling of inflammation. This is something that commonly affects the eye area at this time of year.
In terms of an eye cream, the Lavelier Eye Firming Concentrate would be a great choice. Again, it will hydrate your skin but with richer ingredients than the serum contained. It’s packed with antioxidants too so that the skin around your eyes takes on a brighter and more radiant finish.
Moisturize Your Skin
The final step of your winter skincare routine should be to moisturize. This is another non-negotiable step, especially in the winter. However, the moisturizer that you use should vary depending on the time of day…
While richer creams are always recommended in the winter, you don’t want a formula that’s too heavy in the mornings. You also need to consider sun protection. This is often forgotten about over the winter months, even though the sun’s UV rays continue to damage the skin. In fact, UV damage increases in snowy or icy conditions.
To make your routine a bit simpler, consider an SPF moisturizer, such as the Lavelier Divine Day Defense SPF 30. With a blend of hydrating ingredients and marine botanicals, it will keep your skin feeling supple and soft all day long. At the same time, it will also shield your skin from the appearance of sun damage.
In the evenings, a richer moisturizer will be needed. Skin permeability is higher in the evenings, which means that moisture evaporates out of the skin at a much faster rate. A thicker cream will form a seal over your skin’s surface that blocks moisture from disappearing quite so quickly.
A night cream like the Lavelier Oceana Restorative Night Moisturizer would be ideal for winter nights. Thanks to a blend of shea butter, jojoba seed oil, and almond seed oil, it contains plenty of occlusive compounds that will help to lock moisture into your skin. With aloe vera, sodium hyaluronate, and coral seaweed, it will bring some of its own hydration too. At the same time, the vitamins and antioxidants in this moisturizer will ensure that your skin looks bright and dewy the next morning.
Winter Skincare With Lavelier
While it may seem like a pain to have to overhaul your skincare routine twice a year, it’s well worth making a few changes once the winter weather starts to take hold. With the routine detailed above, you’ll be able to help your skin deal with all that the winter months throw at it, allowing your skin to emerge in the spring with a radiant glow.
Click here to boost your winter skincare routine with more bestselling products from Lavelier.
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