The three-step evening

There was a period, maybe four years ago, when my evening skincare routine had nine steps. There was a double cleanse. There was a toner. There were two serums, applied in the wrong order. There was an eye cream. There was a moisturiser. There was a sleeping mask once a week, an oil twice a week, a chemical exfoliant three times a week. I owned somewhere around eighteen products. I spent maybe fifteen minutes in the bathroom every evening.

The skin I had at the end of that period was almost exactly the skin I had at the beginning of it. The nine steps had been, mostly, marketing. I had been sold the idea that more steps meant more care, which meant better skin. The idea is wrong.

What the three steps are

A gentle gel cleanser, applied to a damp face, rinsed off with lukewarm water. A single hydrating serum with hyaluronic acid and a few peptides — the same one for the last two years. A simple ceramide moisturiser, applied to slightly damp skin, in the same small upward strokes my grandmother used to use.

Three steps. Six minutes. Eight ingredients total across the three products. No actives that argue with each other. No layering schedule to remember.

What I gave up

The retinol. I gave it up reluctantly after about a year of using it and watching the small patches of irritation it caused and deciding the cost-benefit was not, for my particular skin, worth it. I might reintroduce it. For now my skin is calmer without.

The exfoliants. Both chemical and physical. I had been over-exfoliating and the skin had been responding by getting thinner. Six months of no exfoliation produced a measurable improvement in my barrier function. I now exfoliate maybe once every three weeks, very gently, with a damp washcloth.

The eye creams. I tried four different eye creams over two years and could not see any difference between using them and using the regular moisturiser around my eyes. The eye creams cost three times as much per millilitre. I stopped buying them.

On simplicity as a discipline

Three steps is enough. I think it might be more than enough. The skin is a robust organ that has been getting along without a serum for several million years. The job of the routine is not to do dramatic work on it. The job of the routine is to remove the day's accumulated grime, restore some water, and lock that water in until morning.

Three steps does this. Nine steps did this also, but in a more expensive and time-consuming way. If the routine you have is large, consider whether it could be three steps. The skin will probably not notice the difference. The time you get back is meaningful.