The most important part of your skincare regimen is your skincare at night routine.
What you do before you go to bed can either help your skin look younger or make it look older.
Neglect your skin at this critical time and you won’t be happy with how it looks!
Here’s why you absolutely must take some time to tend to your skin every night before you go to bed.
Skincare At Night Routine: What Happens to Your Skin While You Sleep
When you turn out the lights and retire for the night, your skin does the opposite: it goes to work.
Skin Recovers Overnight
You know how you can often feel tired and spent at the end of the day? Your skin is likely to feel the same. All day long, it had to work to protect itself against possible attackers. These include free radicals, germs and other microorganisms, UV rays, and more.
At night, your skin shifts gears and goes into repair mode. It fixes any damage that occurred, regenerates new skin cells to replace old ones, and cycles through the oxygen and nutrients it needs to start over the next day.
This is why applying nutrient-rich skincare products is so important at night. This is when your skin is more likely to take them up and use them in its repair efforts. Antioxidants like vitamin E, turmeric, and Reishi mushroom all help to repair free radical damage and reset the skin’s defenses. These ingredients and more are included in our award-winning and dermatologist recommended Calming Moisture for Face, Neck, and Scalp.
Skin’s Metabolic Rate Increases
Interestingly, just as the rest of the body is slowing down and resting, the skin’s metabolic rate is revving up. That’s because skin cells turn over more quickly at night, with younger, newer cells replacing the old ones.
This is one of the reasons why applying alpha hydroxy acids at night is most effective, as the serums work with your skin to shed the dead skin cells and reveal the newer, more youthful-looking ones the next morning.
Blood Flow to the Skin Increases
As more evidence that the skin is working to conduct repairs, blood flow to the different layers of skin increases as you sleep. Skin cells are flooded with oxygen and nutrients from the bloodstream, giving them the support they need to regenerate and restore the skin’s vitality and radiance.
Photo by Miriam Alonso via Pexels.
Hormones Circulate
While you sleep, the body releases certain hormones through different phases of your sleep cycle. These hormones have various functions throughout the body, but they can also affect the skin. Some of them help support the skin’s repair efforts, accelerating wound healing and shoring up skin structure to help delay the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Melatonin, the sleep hormone, also works as an antioxidant, scavenging free radicals and neutralizing them so they can no longer damage the skin. The human growth hormone (HGH), which contributes to skin repair and cell regeneration, also kicks in at night.
Skin’s Permeability Increases
Here’s another reason it’s so important to be sure you apply helpful skincare products at night: it’s the perfect time for those products to deeply absorb into the skin.
Skin’s temperature rises at night, which makes it easier for products to permeate the outer barrier. Apply nourishing products before you go to bed and you can rest assured that they will sink into your skin where they can do the most good.
This is also why it’s so important to cleanse your skin before bed. If you don’t, you leave all that makeup, dirt, and grime to sink into the deeper layers of skin at night, where they can clog pores, increase inflammation, and block repair efforts.
Skin Loses Moisture
That increased permeability also means that your skin loses more moisture at night. This is normal, but it does mean that you can greatly help your skin by making sure you apply a clean moisturizer before you go to bed.
This can help balance your skin during the overnight hours so it doesn’t reach the morning dry and dehydrated. Regularly applying moisturizer at night also helps fade the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Skincare Routine at Night: How to Optimize Your Routine for the Best Results
If you want your skin to look and feel its best, you want to take advantage of the nighttime renewal process. With the right support, the skin can perform its duties as it should, helping you wake up to smooth, soft skin. Nightly care over the years can also help you delay the effects of aging, allowing your skin to maintain that youthful glow.
Always cleanse before bed.
As noted above, skin’s permeability increases at night. Cleanse well before you go to bed so there’s nothing on your skin that will sink into it except for your nourishing skincare products. We recommend using a gentle, creamy cleanser that will not strip your skin of its natural oils. Use a soft brush or cloth to erase dirt and grime from your pores so your skin starts the night as clean as possible.
Tone to rebalance skin.
Toner is important after cleansing, as it helps balance the skin’s pH level while preparing it for your serums and moisturizers. We recommend our Rescue + Relief Spray as it is alcohol-free and will not dry out your skin. Plus, it includes calming ingredients to help tame inflammation and allow your skin to go calmly into its nighttime activities.
Apply exfoliating serums.
Your skin wants to shed those dead skin cells at night. You can help it out by applying your exfoliating products before bed. Choose those with gentle acids like salicylic, lactic, and malic, as they work to renew the surface of the skin without scratching or tearing it like some scrubs can do. Do pay attention to your skin—likely, you will need to apply exfoliating serums only once or twice a week. If your skin starts looking inflamed or if it breaks out, reduce your applications.
Apply nourishing serums.
This is also when you want to apply your anti-aging, nourishing serums. These may include formulas with retinol, vitamin C, peptides, niacinamide, and other nutrients that your skin may not receive during the day. These can go to work at night, helping to fade dark spots, support collagen production, and minimize enlarged pores.
Moisturize, moisturize!
We saved the most important step for last. You absolutely must apply a clean, nourishing moisturizer to your skin before you go to bed. Remember that your skin loses moisture overnight. That can lead to dryness and exacerbated wrinkles. When you apply moisturizer, you not only help prevent dryness, but you take advantage of that increased permeability. The product will sink deeply into the skin, helping to plump and hydrate so it looks its best.
We recommend our Calming Moisture for your before-bed routine. It will help immediately calm your skin, taming any inflammation that fired up during the day, and work to help repair and maintain the vital the skin barrier.
Then it will go on to deeply moisturize, help promote collagen production, speed healing, and diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. If you have sensitive skin, it’s a great option for you, as it contains aloe vera and oat extract to soothe skin and reduce redness and itch.
One Final Word: Get Enough Sleep!
In addition to staying consistent with your skincare at night routine, the other thing you can do to assist the skin in its overnight repair duties is to be sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep. We know that’s not always easy to do, but it’s super important to your skin and your overall health.
Just one night of poor sleep can make your skin look older, so do your best to go to bed and get up at the same time every day, and keep your room cool and dark to encourage your best night’s sleep.
Are you consistent with your skincare routine at night?
Featured image by Kampus Production via Pexels.
