With summer comes the promise of frivolous fun from boozy brunches to exotic European vacations and also the likelihood of having oily skin, clogged pores, and breakouts. Whether you’re getting ready to go to beach party in Miami or Burning Man, you don’t want to be dealing with greasy or dull skin.
We collected our top seven essential skincare tips for you to keep your skin hydrated, smooth, and glowing all summer long.
1. Re-Apply Your Sunscreen Religiously
The number one most important step is to apply your broad-spectrum SPF regularly throughout the day.
It’s easy to get complacent and lazy with our sun protection and take it easy after we apply sunscreen once. But dermatologists actually highly recommend that we re-apply sunscreen every two to three hours to ensure that we maintain our level of sunscreen protection.
Make sure you’re using an adequate amount of sunscreen to cover all the exposed areas of your face (and body!) so that your skin is properly protected against those powerful UVA and UVB rays, especially during this heatwave.
2. Switch Up Your Moisturizer
Our skin tends to experience more dryness during those harsh winter months. This changes during summer because while our skin may still be dry, there’s obviously a lot more humidity and heat in the air. Our daily skincare routine should be updated along with our skin needs and our surrounding environment which affect those needs.
If you’re using a more heavyweight moisturizer with a thicker consistency, your skin may start feeling excessively sticky and greasy and this may not be the best formula to nourish your skin during the summer months.
To avoid this, get your daily moisturizer changed to a more lightweight formula to fit this heat.
Alternatively, pick up hydrating gel moisturizers that are water-based, are weightless, and have none of the heavy stickiness of their thick and creamy counterparts. They absorb quickly into your skin and you can walk around without feeling like there’s an additional layer of product on your face in this heat.
3. Wash Your Face (Seriously)
What’s the first thing that happens when you leave your house and step out into that scorching summer heat? That’s right – you sweat and usually, a lot.
The humidity and high temperatures activate your sweat glands which in turn kickstart your oil glands. You may notice that you tend to experience larger appearing pores and skin breakouts during the summer – this is because your pores are now getting rapidly filled with perspiration, oil, and all the free radicals in your environment which include dirt and pollution.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to wash your face twice a day to clean your face free from these impurities.
If your usual cleanser leaves your face feeling irritated or stripped, you can try using a gentle foaming cleanser that removes dirt and oils without being too harsh on your face.
4. Exfoliate Your Skin – But Not Too Much
Sometimes, a simple face wash isn’t enough to remove all the nasties from your face and you need a little extra effort to really clean those pores.
This is why you need to exfoliate your skin – exfoliation will help to remove impurities and unclog those pores, prevent skin breakouts, and give a boost to cell renewal which will leave you with much smoother and glowing skin.
That said, it’s important to not make the mistake of over-exfoliating your skin. Start off with exfoliating two to three times a week during your usual skincare routine.
When you exfoliate excessively, your skin is left feeling irritated, dry, and prone to redness. You might even damage your skin barrier. It’s good to remove excess dead skin cells but we still need some of those dead skin cells to act as a protective barrier for our more sensitive skin layers.
5. Get Some Vitamin C Serum This Summer
Vitamin C has slowly crept its way back up the ranks of popular skincare ingredients being raved about all over your Insta feed and TikTok.
This may be because Vitamin C has many great benefits and is particularly effective during the summer when it can act as a secondary line of defense against sun damage after your sunscreen.
Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that works to combat the damaging effects of free radicals like pollution and smoke on your skin which can lead to premature aging.
It also increases collagen production which helps to give your skin more firmness and elasticity while smoothing out fine lines and wrinkles.
All of which makes Vitamin C a particularly great ingredient to include in your summer skincare but as always, be careful to do a patch test before adding a new active ingredient to your skincare routine. After making sure that vitamin C suits your skin, you can easily add a few drops of serum to your moisturizer before applying it to your face.
Remember to store your Vitamin C serum in a cool and dry place to prevent the product from oxidizing and shortening its shelf life.
6. You Can Still Keep Your Retinol
Retinol is a powerful ingredient that can do wonders for your skin. That said, retinol breaks down in sunlight and makes your skin more prone to sun damage. Which explains why some retinol users are warier about using retinol during summer and some even go so far as to skip it during their skincare regime.
It’s perfectly alright to use retinol during the summer – you can include it during your PM routine and make sure to double up on SPF the next day to make sure your new skin cells have maximum protection.
7. H20 Matters – Keep Hydrated
The best skin care products in the world won’t help you if you’re enjoying the summer with nonstop tanning sessions by the beach accompanied by endless cocktails but no water.
Drinking water is a crucial but often skipped step in our skincare regime. Severe dehydration can cause your skin to lose its elasticity and firmness, making your skin sag while looking extra dull.
If you’re traveling, pick up a small water bottle that you can refill easily in cafes and restaurants and slip into your bag while you’re on the go. You should ideally drink at least two litres of water a day if not more.
Basically …
These easy-to-incorporate but essential tips will save you a ton of bother and go a long way in making sure that your skin will stay clean and healthy all summer long.
Embrace that summer spirit of carpe diem and switch up your skincare routine a little so that all your sun-drenched memories of awesome fun this summer will be matched by dewy and glowing skin.
