Anti Ageing Skincare Routine Cheat Sheet - Over 30's

Do you know what I love more than Caroline Hirons site and her amazing advice?  I love infographics.   I have spent an age on Caroline's site trying to make sense of all the endless skincare advice on there and the one thing I wish it had is a nice easy printable guide.   So here its is, my version of her crazily good advice with a few changes to make it more achievable for us mere mortals.  You can print this off to keep in your dresser and get you in the habit or as a rough shopping guide.

click to enlarge

I spent days pouring over Mrs Hirons site, the lovely Paula Begoun's site, Makeup Alley reviews and numerous skincare awards lists and came up with this.  It's what I reckon is the best of both guru's skincare advice along with products that are widely well received in the industry.

I found Caroline's 7 step morning routine far to excessive for me and my hectic attempts at herding children out of the house, so I have eliminated everything I felt was optional, and stuck with the core idea of her routines.  I then researched which products she recommends, cross referenced them with Paula Begoun's suggestions and my own experience to leave me with an achievable routine that can work at different price points.  I really wanted to include the magical P50 lotion in here but seen as it is nearly impossible to track down, I figured it was pointless to add it to the list.

I have written this as a guide for over 30's as girls in their twenties would require some changes to the routine (mainly in the serum/treatment area.)

Now I know that the total of all the products is expensive but, stay with me here, seen as it is best to only switch in one new skincare items per month to determine if you are having any detrimental reactions to it, then you could just buy just 1 new skincare treat per month and go from there. I have tried to include some lower priced alternatives in there for those who prefer to keep their money for something more high minded than smeary stuff for your face.

 An important point to note is that I do slightly disagree with Caroline about her hatred of foaming cleansers.  The reasoning behind her dislike is that (most) foaming cleanser are alkali and when you wash your face with them it makes your skins PH move further away from the acid zone that helps it fight blemishes.

I'll let Dermalogica put it more lucidly -

"On a scale from 1 to 14, a neutral pH is 7. The skin's normal pH level is between a 4 and a 5 (acidic). The majority of soaps are made from lye or potassium hydroxide: alkaline ingredients that can reach in the opposite direction, all the way up to 14 on the pH scale. Using soaps that are high in alkalinity take skin from an acidic state to an alkaline state and strip natural lipids from our skin. This accounts for the tight, pulled feeling you may have experienced after cleansing with soap. While you may interpret this feeling as "cleanliness," it is actually your skin suffering from a loss of lipids!"

The reasons I disagree with Madame Hirons are three-fold;

• You follow your cleanse with an acid toner and therefore the toner puts your skin straight back in balance, just seconds after you have washed it.  
• Water has a neutral PH and so would upset the balance anyway.  
• A lot of foaming washes are PH neutral or with an acid base now.

Here are just a few of the best PH balanced foaming cleansers for those of you who still love to foam.

Kiehls Ultra Facial Cleanser £7
Neutrogena Visibly Clear Oil Free Facial Wash £5
REN Rosa Centrifolia Foaming Cleanser £14

I also found this handy guide to facial cleansers and their PH's on this Reddit thread, very few of them are actually alkali.

I have included balm cleansers too in the evening part of the routine, as they are definitely superior when it comes to removing makeup and SPF, but as the good ones are usually pretty pricey too, I feel that they are unnecessary on a morning when your skin should only have a light sheen from last nights sleep and the remnants of the evenings skincare products.

One last point regarding Treatments.  I use retinol creams every night see here for my favourites, but some people would prefer to spend their sleeping hours having a mild peel or luxuriating in facial oils, so I have left this section pretty open as all our skins have differing needs from week to week and so different night treatments are normally needed to combat whatever is causing you a skincare headache.

I hope this is of help to anyone else struggling to put all the great advice out there in to a realistic routine.  Feel free to pin it and if you want to receive more of my waffling sign up via Bloglovin here