How To Build A Skincare Routine for Life

I believe the secret to good and consistent skin lies in simplicity.

Make simpler choices. Make less product-oriented choices. Make better and, oftentimes, simpler lifestyle choices. Nuke your barrier less (or avoid it completely). And have better skin at it.

In this guide I will teach you how to build the, what I can only describe as, ultimate skincare routine, and give you a simple routine template;

One that is infinitely modifiable, as budget friendly or unfriendly as you want it to be, and one that fits you and your unique skin and lifestyle context.

It’s a great starting point for beginners trying to understand their skin needs. And it’s a great base + upgrade for skincare obsessives who’ve been doing skincare for years.

I will not be mentioning any products in this guide, and my aim with this is to give you all the tools at my own disposal, so you can make better consumer – and (hopefully) better skin decisions going forward.

With that said, nobody online can say that for sure. Because nobody – and I mean nobody, this blog included – can see you, the individual reading this, through the screen, or make these claims without first having a look at your, unique lifestyle and skin context.

That’s why YMMV (your mileage may vary) is, in 99.999% of cases, used in skincare circles.

Because skincare is the most you-dependent niche online.

Fitness, Relationships, Dieting, any other major niche online, all have a pretty standard template:

• if you work out for long enough periods of time you will inevitably gain muscle.
• If you run you will inevitably get better in condition.
• If you eat less calories than you burn through the day, you will inevitably lose weight.
• If you position yourself as a decent human being, expand yourself to larger environments other than your bedroom, and do stuff that makes you a more interesting person, you will have a way easier time at finding a partner.

But with skincare, you can be doing it for long periods of time and follow the same advice as someone preaching it online, and end up with worse skin than when you started.

Yet a lot of people keep getting convinced, time after time, that “that” product is “the one”.

This daily routine template (and this guide in general) is here to make you a more mindful consumer and help you make the right choices for you, from the start.

I don’t see myself deviating from this philosophy.

I mentioned routine for life.

That’s a pretty bold claim, and in my mind such claims should always come with certain requirements.

Here’s what they are for me:

• it needs to be simple
• it needs to be modular
• it needs to fit any budget

This post will show that this is not only possible, but that a routine like that is the only sensible option if you want to have good skin for the long-term.

Most people overcomplicate their routines nowadays – for absolutely no reason other than being greedy.

• most want faster results
• most want to try everything
• most get FOMO when a new product is being “recommended” literally everyone
• most want to cram as many products into their routine and feel like they’re doing something

This is the opposite of the requirements (simple, modular, fits any budget) from before.

Short and simple routines are the best.

If you don’t at least partially agree with me by now, this post is likely not for you.

How short?

4 products.

AT. THE. MOST.

If you can’t do a routine that will give you compounding results over years (and decades) with 4 products you have a bad routine.

Your daily routine should also be modular enough that, once your goals change or a product gets discontinued, you can replace that step with essentially whatever you feel like it, and it won’t clash with the rest of your routine.

This is me when a product gets discontinued. [meme]

Lastly, you shouldn’t expect your daily routine to do everything.

I wrote a long post on booster routines, so I’ll keep this section short.

Separating your daily routine from your “spa routine” (iykyk), creates a mental separation that you can fit more products if you have to.

• You use the trusty workhorses daily.
• You supplement a few times a week.

I could not for the life of me fit a BHA into my routine. I hated it and it always felt like a chore. Once I separated bha from my daily routine and decided that it was a “spa day” step, I love using it now.

And that’s why I promote so few products – and when I do, I have the most disclaimers what an affiliate offering is.

Listen to your skin and context. Don’t take advice from strangers online for granted.

If you’ve tried most product categories and know what – and why – your skin needs, feel free to skip this.

If you’ve tried most product categories but have no idea why you used them, what they did for you, or got them off a blind recommendation, I recommend you read this.

You need to have an experimentation phase.

Not one where you buy 12 things and use them all at the same time. But a period of 6-12 months where you let yourself test all the major product categories that actually do anything. Only after that do you build a routine

Again, my consult aims to speed this up to a few weeks instead of months.

This will make more sense when I lay out the routine template.

And in this experimentation phase, I whole-heartedly suggest trying whatever you have a high-level assumption you might need (please remember this phrasing).

This includes: vitamin c, retinol, azelaic acid, niacinamide, bha, aha.

• Are they too strong for you right now
• are they too weak
• are they the right thing you need at the moment
• do they do anything, do they magically fix literally everything and give you that “perfect” skin?

Obvious disclaimer on the retinol: this is still dependent on your skin, but you likely have no need for it before your mid 20s (i didn’t start until I was 29).

DEFINITELY NOT if you’re a teen, – I’m sick of seeing 11-year olds put retinol and $80 serums on their face

For basics (cleanser, moisturizer, sunscreen): are they going to break you out, are they too rich, are too stripping. If you want to get fancy with it, how well do they sit on your skin.

After all, skin feel and texture is something.

Again, please don’t just buy everything at once, get overwhelmed, try to stuff it in a routine, and let 90% of it expire on the shelf.

This process is supposed to be slow enough to give your skin enough inputs to know what works and what doesn’t. For most basics 2-3 weeks. For actives 3-4. For retinol, 6-8 at the least.

Samples are your friend here, and most (tube) samples can last you a week.

If you want a starting resource, check out my free Notion library that I maintain and update throughout the year (you have to be a reader to access it)

Even with the actives mentioned above, some people might not need ANY of these their entire lives.

But a lot of people might benefit from using one or two of these simply as a long-term insurance. Again, depending on their skin and lifestyle context.

A few examples:

• Some people never get clogged pores.
• Some people have faster cellular turnover or one that doesn’t slow down until their 60s.
• Some people never get acne.
• Fun fact: redheads have a specific gene mutation that is the equivalent of up to 21 (!!!) years of sun exposure compared to people who don’t have this gene mutation.

These are just a tiny drop, but they all constitute skin context.

But think about it, how many grandmas in their 70s do you know who use bar soap and have perfect skin. It might just be me, but I know quite a lot.

There is a different ceiling for each of these for each of us, but a lot of people might improve these improving their lifestyle context.

Speaking of wildly different ceilings – this is the same as how some people never have to go to the dentist (I hate you by the way).

On the lifestyle context bit: some people never had to work in the sun, or mummified themselves in so much UV protection that they won’t get sun spots in their 50s.

If you go to any dermatologist, they will laugh at this philosophy and likely make claims that most things can be cured with products.

(on that note, I don’t give a sh*t. Western medicine is teaching their practitioners to prescribe stuff, not look for root causes.)

No doctor, aesthetician, or derm – unless you’re a medical case – can recommend you products with 100% certainty of success. If you are a medical case, you will in most cases be prescribed the same stuff, that will, in most cases, get the job done.

(the surface level stuff at least – again, root causes)

Imagine then what a wild shot all the skinfluencers promoting hype online are.

I purposefully didn’t mention the template until this point.

If you don’t agree with at least some of the things discussed in this post so far, you likely won’t find much value in this template.

So here’s how you can create a daily template for yourself:

Most before when they approach building their own routine, is: they see a routine or product online, then try to copy paste it and implement it into their own routine, thinking it will give them results.

By doing that, you essentially are at the mercy of someone else’s routine. Their skin is not yours.

And it’s a bad practice implementing something you put on your skin daily without first testing it or understanding what it will do for you.

I know this might sound weird to a lot of you. But it sounds weird, because copy-pasting has become so normalized, that any advice that claims you need to take time is seen as weird.

What you actually should be doing is, look at each product as for what it does. In other words, what is that products. So basically you need to look beyond just the name.

Here are some examples of what most skin’s need, and that are proven by science to give a positive result:

• Most skins need something to wash off the dirty and the grime off your day.
• Most skins need something to kill the free radicals on your skin.
• Most skins need something to protect them from the sun.
• Most skins need something to keep the moisture and hydration in.
• Most skins, after a certain age, need something to help with the cellular turnover.

Translating that into products, those would fit the category of: cleanser, vitamin c, sunscreen, moisturizer/lotion, retinol.

Most skin could also benefit from:

• something that evens out the tone.
• something that keeps the acne away, and kills and bacteria on our skin.
• something that unclogs pores
• something that improves texture

That would be, niacinaminde, azelaic acid, bha, aha.

This guide is already getting long, so I made another document that goes through a simulation with a few scenarios (experimentation phase -> daily routine -> booster routine). You can read it here. (no email required)

what I really want you to take away from this is not to copy my template.

If you want to have good skin, you should detach yourself from the consumerist mindset and make high level decisions that serve your skin.

I wanted to add a full section on my own routine and go more in depth, but I gave my skin philosophy in the email series and throughout my writing. This post is here to be as concise as possible, so I won’t bother you with that.

I personally simplify it to the max:

AM: Splash face with water -> vit C -> moisturizer -> sunscreen.

sometimes I add a mist if I feel like it after vitamin C.

sometimes I skip moisturizer.

during summer I’ll use a different lotion than during the colder months.

sometimes I’ll steal my girlfriend’s moisturizer at night if I feel like it.

PM: cleanse -> hydrating step (I mentioned it in the template) -> retinol (2-3x per week) -> moisturizer

putting “you” in this example:

• sometimes you can do retinol 4x per week.
• sometimes 1 or none.
• sometimes you can add a third “Spa Day” if the air is dry or very polluted.
• sometimes you can add a hydrating treatment.

These are all micro decisions that happen almost sub consciously for me at this point.

And they can for you too.

But that’s only possible through consistency and being confident in your skin and routine.

Today, staying consistent and being confident in your skin is harder than ever.

You are your skin’s own worst enemy.

Because no matter what someone online recommends you, at the end of the day it is still you choosing what to put on your face.

Most people will never get to that “level” of effortless skincare if you keep buying whatever TikTok is pushing to you that week.

That’s why I’ve spent years ranting against shortform skinfluencers pushing everything and anything your way.

Because it kills consistency. It destroys any chance of it happening.

If you get overstimulated by that, just unfollow people. I am not a psychologist, but from my own phone (ab)use and screen addiction, I found the best success when I reset my algorithm and unfollowed content that made me overstimulated.

Again, this post is meant to be short and actionable enough so that you can start making better skin decisions right now.

If you are a first-time reader, I encourage you to join the 5-day training for my own skin story and to see whether any of this applies to you. (If you are a skincare obsessive that’s overwhelmed with all the skincare advice online, it probably does.)

As always, with everything skincare – YMMV.

Thanks for reading.

K. Hoe