Your beauty regime may feature a good number of products, from a cleanser to a foundation all the way down to a collection of natural foot creams, however, there’s a new trend that’s circulating the internet and the glossy magazines which is all about taking a break from all those products to allow your skin to reset.
You undoubtedly know the feeling – one day your skin was fine on its own, and then after starting to use products such as face creams and moisturisers, all of a sudden your skin doesn’t function the same way without it. The idea behind the ‘skin-fasting’ trend is too stop using, or minimise the use of, skin products for a certain time, allowing the skin to get used to fixing its own problems itself, without relying on a bathroom’s worth of skin products to do the job for it. Elle magazine quotes the creators of the term on the concept: “to strengthen the skin’s natural protective barrier that is weakened by excessive nourishing, to normalise the secretion of natural oils and support the natural rejuvenation process.”
In actual fact, the original concept is to do things like sleep without moisturiser on your skin a few night’s a week, but the writer of the Elle article decided to go the whole hog and spend two weeks free from her beauty regime. Needless to say she hit a wall at just day two.
The sensationalism of giving up all beauty products was undoubtedly part of the article, but a dermatologist suggested that a skincare ‘diet’ was preferable over a ‘fast’, especially if you have a cumbersome skin care routine that you just keep adding to. “I do advocate streamlining your skincare to only products you need, and using products that complement one another, rather than overlap in their function,” the dermatologist said, suggesting limiting yourself to using just three or four products for a few weeks and studying the effect on your skin. Re-adding your much-loved products one at a time will allow you to see if they’re adding to your complexion, or just adding extra time and expense into your regime.
Over cleansing is also a problem that a skincare reset might address, as using too many products, and too many which are antibacterial, may also weaken the skin’s natural barrier, and cause breakouts, according to the dermatologist.
The writer of the Elle article had a hard time with her skin cleanse, and after two weeks, wasn’t the most impressed with her skin which had broken out in acne and gone dry, dull and itchy. However, the take away from this experiment was that by taking some time to think about what you put on your skin, rather than simply adding another product into the line up, you could save yourself from doubling down on useless products. Giving your skin a breather to allow it to reconnect with its own natural rhythm may also be a good idea, you just need to try it for yourself as everyone’s skin and skin routine is different.