How do you know what your skin needs? 

Everybody’s skin needs different things at different times of their lives, but it’s more complex than that. The care that our skin requires is a combination of genetics, age, environment, time of year and hormones. Those hormones also vary from day to night, affecting the products and ingredients that are best for supporting skin health. In this article, Dr. Thiess discusses how to decide on the best products for your skin and its individual needs to create the ideal skincare routine for you.

Knowing what’s right for your skin

Knowing what’s right for your skin is complicated, and to some extent we're fans of observing what works and getting to know and understand your own skin intuitively. In an ideal world, the best thing to do is to start by going to a dermatologist in order to determine the precise behaviour of your skin. However, practically that's not always feasible, so for most of us it’s about trial and error.

How age affects our skincare

We tend to think of our skin as a homogenous entity. However, most people have different skincare needs across different areas of their face, which is one of the reasons that trial and error is usually necessary to find what works for you. While the weather and our environment also affect the different needs of our skin, most brands tend to talk about different skin types - broadly categorising them as dry, oily and combination skin. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg - you might also have rosacea or acne, so what your skin needs becomes more layered and profound. At DR. THIESS we find that age is the most effective broad spectrum characteristic to use as a baseline for deciding what skin needs. It is arguably the most influential factor as our hormones and hormonal balance are inextricably linked to our age.

What young skin needs

When we are young our skin tends to need lighter ingredients and often requires support in remaining balanced in terms of oil production. However, it’s also always important to remain gentle with young skin - it’s a good stage for using serums rather than creams as they have a lighter texture. One of our favourite natural skincare ingredients for young skin is hemp seed oil, known for its soothing and anti-inflammatory properties. As we move from our twenties into our thirties and forties, we enter that ‘middle ground’ before ‘mature skin’. At that time, our skin can be more varied and you may find it easier to predict what it needs for a period of time.

What mature skin needs

As a result of hormonal change, as we age our skin almost universally gets more dry. The spectrum of that dryness may be different from one person to the next, but it will likely be more dry than when you were younger. The best ingredient to look out for as skin matures is hyaluronic acid. We also advocate the use of 24k gold and the scientifically-engineered Renovage™ complex. Together they restore the skin’s health and natural glow with proven, optimal results.

Top tips for all skin types

All of this said, there can be overlap between age groups when it comes to skincare needs, which is why Dr. Thiess created a formula that can work for lots of people and accommodate that crossover. Products can then be mixed and matched to create a custom skincare routine for individual needs. With that in mind, there is one baseline need that Dr. Thiess says is essential for the optimum health of all skin types: cleansing. She can’t stress enough the importance of cleansing skin properly. Without preparing with that foundation step, the best creams in the world won’t be able to work their magic properly. A proper facial soap is sacred, helping to naturally dilate the pores to enable the nourishing ingredients that you apply afterwards can really penetrate the skin and get to those deeper levels.

She says: “My two cents of advice? Clean, clean, clean, clean!” 

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