As many of us have been spending a lot more time sitting at home due to the pandemic, we’ve found ourselves asking: How can we up our skin care routine game during quarantine?
Being in quarantine has given us the opportunity to perfect our skin care regimens and remain consistent with them, which is something we may not have given ourselves time to do before.
Now that we have some extra time to devote to our skin care routines, they’ve become ways for many of us to relax.
Having an effective yet simple skin care routine is essential.
The last thing you want is to overdo things and make matters worse for your skin!
Did you know that between March 15th and April 14th, there were over 200,000 searches for skin care products?
Popular search terms included: “facemask,” “cleansing,” “moisturizing,” and “foot care products.”
With increased popularity and interest in skin care during self-isolation, we want to make sure that you are treating your skin well and nourishing it properly with the right products for you.
The first step in taking care of your skin during quarantine is to test what actually works for your unique skin type.
This may require some initial experimenting with products here and there, but now is the time to do that work so your skin can thank you later!
Are you ready to learn how you can perfect your skin care routine while being stuck at home? Let’s dive in!
What’s in this article?
- The basics of an effective skin care routine
- Tips for enhancing your skin during the quarantine
- Things to avoid and/or be cautious of when it comes to quarantine skin care
What makes up a simple yet effective skin care routine?
There are a few basic principles of proper skin care that are essential.
Obviously, everyone has different skin types and can alter the basics or add certain steps that will suit their own specific needs.
But to start, it’s helpful to follow a few simple guidelines of a standard and effective skin care routine, and from there you can perfect it to fit your own unique skin type.
- Step 1: Exfoliate. Exfoliation should be the first step of any basic skin care routine. It’s important to be gentle and aware of how much your skin can take in terms of frequency here. If you over-exfoliate, use too rough of a formula, or exfoliate too frequently, your skin could pay the price with irritation and unsightly redness. When done properly, exfoliating is an important step that opens up your pores and lets them breathe. It also rids your skin of dead cells and encourages cell turnover, as well as helps your skin to more efficiently absorb serums and creams. If you’re looking to try out a gentle exfoliant to add into your routine, check out our Alana Mitchell Brightening & Exfoliating Pumpkin Anti-Aging Masque!
- Step 2: Cleanse. This is a step that can be implemented into your morning and evening routine, as long as you’re using a gentle cleanser for both. You can use the same cleanser both morning and night, or choose one that’s night-specific for your PM routine and a standard gentle cleanser for your AM routine. A great cleanser you can try out is the Alana Mitchell Foaming Pumpkin Cleanser!
- Step 3: Treat. After your skin has been exfoliated and cleansed, it’s ready to be treated for whatever issues you’d like to address. This is the time to pop on an acne/rosacea treatment, corrective serum, eye cream, toner, etc. This step will be most beneficial as part of your nightly routine, so in the morning you can feel free to skip this step and move straight to moisturizer.
- Step 4: Moisturize. When it comes to moisturizing, be sure to use a lightweight moisturizer with SPF as part of your morning routine. According to dermatologist Dr. Zeichner, we should be wearing SPF every day, even if we don’t plan to leave the house. The reason for this is that damaging UV rays can still impact us when indoors. As for a nightly step, you can switch out the lightweight SPF moisturizer for one that’s deeper penetrating for overnight repair.
Keeping these basics in mind, it’s easy to start perfecting your daily and nightly skin care routines and commit to staying consistent with them.
Now that we’ve learned the breakdown of a standard routine, let’s take a look at some of the tips to achieve your best skin ever during quarantine.
What are some of the best skin care tips during self-isolation?
It can be overwhelming to figure out the best way to maintain a skin care routine that works for you.
We’re going to look at some tips that can assist in perfecting your skin care regimen during quarantine without doing any further damage, giving you real results that last.
- Keep it simple. It can be tempting to ditch everything from our old routine and immediately switch to a new one just because we have more time than we know what to do with. However, this may actually result in a negative change for your skin, particularly if the products and regimen you were using previously worked well for you! According to Lena Bratschi, founder of Carasoin, it’s best not to drastically switch up your routine with tons of new products. Instead, you can focus on the products that work for you, incorporate those into your regimen, and try to keep it as simple as possible.
- Wear less makeup. Rather than ditching all the products from your normal skin care routine, try ditching the makeup instead! Being in quarantine gives us the perfect opportunity to take a break from applying and removing makeup every day, allowing our skin to breathe.
- Nourish your body from the inside out. The more you’re doing to maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle from the inside out, the better results you will see in your skin! Keep eating nourishing foods, staying active, and fostering healthy habits. This is a crucial component for maintaining not just healthy skin, but a healthy body and mindset as well.
- Incorporate self care. What better time to lean into self care than during self-isolation? There are many ways that self care can be implemented into your skin care routine. According to DMK Skincare, a lot of us are actively trying to combat “stay-at-home skin” right now, which is the appearance of tired-looking eyes, sagging skin, and lack of color due to less movement and exposure to sunlight. We can turn this around into healthy skin care and self care practices by using a face mask once a week, using an at-home face steamer, or using a jade stone roller to massage the face.
- Take precautions against blue light. Sitting at home and staring at a screen all day not only takes a toll on your mental health, brain function, sleep cycle, and attention span but takes a toll on your skin as well! There have been studies suggesting that blue light exposure could contribute to premature aging. Aside from taking breaks from screens during self-isolation, it’s also a good idea to implement a product into your routine that will protect and defend against blue light emissions. Check out some of the products that we offer that will assist in perfecting your quarantine skin care!
- Alana Mitchell Environmental Protection Nourishing Cream
- Alana Mitchell Daily Matte Physical Defense SPF 47
- Alana Mitchell Daily Vitamin C Moisturizer
- Toss old products. If you’re like me, you probably have a ton of old skin care products lying around that were used once or twice and then shoved to the back of the cabinet and never touched again. Well, now is the perfect time to clean them out and streamline your collection of products! Trust me, a lot of us have held onto products that are either expired or no longer serve a purpose anymore. Since we should be sticking to a simple skin care regimen using products that we trust, there’s no need to keep the old ones. It’s time to declutter your space and purge them.
- Think of skin care as ‘me’ time. As mentioned before, skin care has become a coping mechanism for many of us, especially during a challenging and difficult time like this. With all the disruption and uncertainty, one thing that people have clung to is the fact that they can control and improve their habits, including how they care for their skin. When we have this mindset about skin care, as well as thinking of it as pampering rather than a chore, we’ll be more likely to stay consistent and get better results.
Keeping these tips in mind, you can definitely reach your skin care goals during quarantine!
But there are pitfalls, and you should be aware of them.
Below are some warnings to heed before jumping headfirst into a new skin care routine.
What are some things to avoid when it comes to quarantine skin care?
Another way to improve your routine is to be aware of certain things you should avoid while taking care of your skin from home.
- Avoid anything that should only be practiced by licensed estheticians. It’s a good idea to stay away from doing intense chemical peels and extractions at home. These procedures are considered aggressive, even from a professional standpoint, so there are many risks associated with trying them at home. It’s safer to try an at-home face mask or treatment that you have consulted a dermatologist about before using. The last thing that you want is to have an allergic reaction, infection, or rash in response to a treatment that is not meant for at-home use!
- Don’t over-exfoliate or over-moisturize.Right now, there’s a tendency for most of us to get overly aggressive in our exfoliating and moisturizing habits in the hopes we will combat the dryness we might be experiencing. However, this is not the best course of action. Instead, it’s recommended to exfoliate no more than every two days and incorporate a moisturizer or face mask that includes hyaluronic acid. Depending on your skin type, moisturizers can be applied twice a day, but be sure to use face masks no more than once a week, because overuse can lead to more irritation.
- Stop touching your face. Okay, this one is tough, especially when we’re sitting at home in front of the TV or computer screen for most of the day. Touching your face is not only one of the easiest ways to potentially spread the virus, but it is definitely not doing your skin any favors either! According to one study, there is an effective way to reduce the amount of times you touch your face throughout the day by counting and tracking this process.
- Stop over-analyzing your skin. Another big downfall for many of us during self-isolation is spending way too much time analyzing our skin in the mirror. This is definitely not going to help the stress and anxiety we already feel from the general state of things in the world. It’s best to avoid heaping even more stress onto ourselves in quarantine by hyper-focusing on our skin/appearance issues. Try to replace that analysis with some deep breathing exercises, meditation, physical activity, and any other hobbies that reduce tension!
Final Thoughts
Now that your eyes have been opened to the do’s and don’ts of skin care in quarantine, hopefully, you’ll find it easier to perfect your routine and stick to what works for you!
Not only will you be able to move toward the skin goals that you want to achieve in quarantine, but you’ll also be able to carry these practices and your beautiful skin with you back into normal life!
We know that these are challenging times, but if nothing else, at least you can feel good about the ways you’re caring for your skin during self-isolation.
We’re here to help you reach all the skin goals that you have, and we hope that this article gave you the tools you need to set you up for success!
