Are you the one who loves hoarding skincare and makeup and then pick those babies once in a while when you need them? Girl, we’re here to break why we need to stop that and what is the right way to consume skincare and makeup products. Given the havoc that we’ve created on Earth, it is time we become mindful consumers and at the same time do good to our skin. Skin minimalism is the way to be both, remain a skincare enthusiast and respect our planet too. Here’s everything you need to know to get started with it!
What is skin minimalism?
Skin minimalism or skinimalism is quite literally what it says - minimal skincare and makeup. The trend talks about using the bare minimum that your skin needs. Let your skin be. It’s about showing your bare skin with flaws and owning it. Nobody can have perfect skin all the time, regardless of what social media shows you. It’s time we flaunt our skin with pores, spots, acne, wrinkles. Skin minimalism also helps your skin breathe, rest, and just be itself. There are multiple reasons to call skin minimalism the most honest skincare trend of the year. Let’s look at a few benefits.
What are the benefits of skin minimalism?
1. Saving Time and Money
Minimising the number of skincare products means investing in only the ones that your skin actually needs. For a hustler, the additional benefit is you save time too. You don’t need 12 steps of skincare and waiting after each product application to let it sink in. What’s better than saving time and money?
2. Reduce chances of skin irritation
Too many ingredients’ concoction means that there are chances that your skin may get irritated and turn sensitive. It is because certain acids and other actives may not be best fitted to be paired. It may also be so that serum and cream may have worked wonderfully for someone but for you, it resulted in breakouts. The best way to avoid such situations is by reducing the products you apply. This point is especially true for those with acne, rosacea, and eczema.
3. Maximising the benefits of a single product
While doing a 10-12 steps skincare routine, it is essential to take breaks in between to let the product skin in. Some take longer than usual to settle in but you may not have given it enough time to sink in and this results in not getting all the benefits that your expensive product was supposed to give you. Skin minimalism helps you derive the maximum benefit out of your skincare routine.
4. Sustainable lifestyle
While we all talk about saving our planet and leading a mindful life, it is not easy to do so. Overconsumption is one of the common behaviours we all skincare enthusiasts possess. Yes, recycling helps our planet but that is just one part of the big picture - Sustainability. Mindful consumption is the peak necessity to ensure that you’re not contributing to global warming. Skin minimalism is all about it. So help your future generation to live a happy life on planet Earth itself.
How to start with skin minimalism?
It’s easy to stack up products thinking ‘just in case, I may need it’ but to minimise your consumption, you may need to strategise. Let’s make this easier for you. There are certain factors that a skincare enthusiast must keep in mind to build a compact yet effective routine:
1. Pick a product with combined action
Opt for a product that has a subtle combination of ingredients to help you target multiple skin concerns. The difference between having a product with combined ingredients and layering too many ingredients on your skin is that the latter can do damage while products with ingredients are formulated after careful testing which means lesser chances of irritating your skin. So let’s say if you’re looking for something to hydrate and mildly exfoliate as well then we recommend Cosrx AHA/BHA Clarifying Treatment Toner that has AHA/ BHA and other botanical extracts to control sebum and eliminate dead skin along with other impurities.
2. Focus on your primary skin concern
You might want to tackle wrinkles, enlarged pores, acne marks, active acne altogether. But with skin minimalism pushing you to be honest with your flaws, it is okay to let your flaws be for a while. Pick your primary skin concern. Let’s say if you have acne-prone skin with acne marks and fine lines, your primary focus should be on cleansing and hydrating. So pick a face wash that helps you do this. In case you’re curious, we’d pick Daughter Earth AHA BHA PHA Exfoliating Cleanser that has AHA, BHA, and PHA to cleanse, maintain hydration and wash off dead skin.
3. Multi-purpose usage of your products
You don’t need an extra eye cream, eye mask, face mask, body butter to rejuvenate your skin. You can use your face cream on your neck, body, and under your eyes too. Eye creams are usually heavy on moisturising properties but so are lip balms since they both have thinner skin. You can eliminate many such products by multi-purposing the ones you have.
4. Pick smart actives for your skin
If your skin needs more damage control than repairing, then you may believe it is a valid excuse to buy multiple products. But that’s not true. You can still target multiple concerns with one ingredient. For example, if you have fine lines, sun-damaged, acne marks then you can use just Retinol instead of using multiple ingredients. Retinol can help you tackle all three concerned areas. A product that we’d recommend for such individuals is Neemli Naturals Retinol & Peptide Serum which suits all skin types and targets some of the most common concerns like fine lines, acne marks, dullness, sagging. Read more about actives in skincare here.
What are the products that you need for skin minimalism?
Build a clean 4-step AM and PM routine. Start with the bare necessary steps and add one extra ingredient that you need to tackle your primary skin concern. Your routine can look like this:
1. Cleanse
This is the common step in your AM and PM routine. You can pick a cleanser that has Vitamin C along with cleansing ingredients to reduce steps while including the necessary ingredient in your routine.
Sublime recommends the Beaumark Maskne Gentle Cleanser that has BHAs like Salicylic Acid, Citric Acid with Tea Tree Oil, and Frankincense Oil to give you clear, glowing skin.
2. Tone
Toner sets your skin and helps your following skincare product to sink in your skin better. Again, focus on your skin concern. If you have damaged skin, then you can pick a toner with AHA, BHA to tone and repair your skin. However, if you have dry skin and minimal skin damage, try picking a toner that has soothing properties so that you can use it throughout your day to refresh and hydrate your skin.
Sublime recommends Cosrx Centella Water Alcohol-Free Toner. Centella Asiatica is also known as Brahmi and tremendously helps our skin to soothe when you’re out in hot or humid weather.
3. Antioxidants-rich moisturiser or serum
You can pick a light moisturiser for the day as your third step. You can easily find a moisturiser that has repairing ingredients like Vitamin C, Rosehip Oil, Aloe Vera, Peptides.
Sublime recommends Coccoon Restoring Day Cream With Vitamin C Kakadu Plum And Witch Hazel that has Antioxidants to fight free radicals while you hustle. It also has SPF 15 which makes it even better.
Replace this moisturiser with a serum in your PM routine. You can pick a Retinol-based serum or cream since it cannot be used in your AM routine. Retinol targets multiple skin concerns and hence has become a favorite for those in their mid-twenties.
Sublime recommends Dot & Key Night Reset Retinol+Ceramide Sleep Treatment Cream that is a beautiful concoction of Vitamin C, E, Ceramides, and Retinol to wake you with glowing skin.
4. SPF
This is the last AM step that no one must ever skip. If you have an active life then go for a higher SPF with PA/ broad-spectrum. We cannot stress this enough but your entire skincare fails if you skip this step.
Sublime recommends Qurez Mattifying SPF 50 Sunscreen With Vitamin E & Matcha Green Tea that has SPF 50 and PA +++ to protect from the sun. It also has Aloe Vera, Matcha Green Tea, and Vitamin E to nourish and soothe your skin.
How to adopt minimalism in make-up?
Well, it’s pretty much just how we explained to minimise your skincare. The principle rule is to multi-purpose. There are ways you can ditch bronzer, blush, highlighter, and much more. Let’s take a quick look at the steps to full-face makeup with minimal products:
1. Concealer
What about primer? Nope. You don’t need a primer. Your cream can pretty much do the same job. After applying cream and SPF, you can start with concealer on the concerned areas. Keep it for about 4-5 minutes before blending it.
Sublime recommends Ilana Organics Soft Blur Cream Concealer + Foundation that is easy-peasy to apply and blend. It comes in three shades for Indian skin tone.
2. Lipstick
You may question the lack of foundation as one of the steps but with makeup minimalism, we aim to let our skin breathe and flaunt it almost bare. So for coverage, you just need concealer and let the rest of your skin show.
Dab a lipstick on your lips and it could be used on your jawline, cheekbones and forehead too for bronzing purpose. Of course, you’d need a brown lipstick that is of a shade darker than your skin. Use a satin or a creamy lipstick since matte lipsticks won’t blend easily.
Sublime recommends Paul Penders Handmade Cream Lipstick- Maple that is a rich brown shade which may go well with most of the Indian skin tones. They have a range of shades to pick from.
3. Lip gloss
This is an amazing lip item to legit do your entire glow face. While most of the time, people tend to use lipstick as blush, we’d recommend going for lip gloss. Why? This works not just as blush but also as a highlighter to get that dewy face. Dab a bit on your lips to make it look plumper and on your cheeks as blush and highlighter.
Sublime recommends Fae Beauty Glaws Gloss - Emerging that has Passionfruit oil and Vitamin E to nourish your skin and has tiny specks of glitter that gives you an angelic glow when the light hits your face.
Summary
Skin minimalism is about accepting your skin as it is and being mindful of what you’re applying on your face. This goes for skincare and makeup too. There is only goodness that one will find in this trending method. Regardless of how much of a skincare and makeup junkie, it is time we consume mindfully and skin minimalism could be one of the steps towards such a sustainable lifestyle.
-Divya Salvi
