Summer skincare is no joke! While the winter months are brrr cold and dry skin, summer brings all sorts of irritants out of the woodwork, and that can mean blemishes, dryness, burns, and hyperpigmentation.
The good news is that there are simple steps you can take with your day-to-day routine to help prevent breakouts, sunburns, and sweat buildup, so you can focus on having fun in the sun and getting your natural glow on without the damage.
Whether you love the 12-step skincare routine or are all about the set-it-and-forget-it products, there’s a good practice and product for your skin type and summer skincare needs. Mix and match the perfect practices to achieve healthy, soft, and glowy skin all summer.
What Are Some Summer Skincare Must-Haves?
Summer 2023 is all about protecting our skin this season and well into the future. When developing the perfect skincare routine, you want to make sure that you’re accounting for your body's specific needs since different skin types will have different skincare needs.
You also want to consider what your daily schedule looks like since the outdoor girlies are going to have very different needs than nerdy girls who love the library in the summertime.
All that said, there are a few simple steps you can take and products you can tuck into your favorite travel bag to make sure that your skin is protected no matter what the day or summer season ahead might hold. These are just a few of our favorites at 10PM Curfew.
1. Sunscreen
When it comes to summer essentials, there’s nothing like broad-spectrumsun protection.
In fact, sunscreen is a year-round essential — and for very good reason. Sunscreen helps to prevent sunburns, which can be painful and cause damage to the skin, like premature aging. Sunscreen can also help to protect you against more serious conditions, like skin cancer.
The type of sunscreen you’ll need in the summer is going to vary, depending on your level of sun exposure, your skin type, like oily skin or dry skin, and the rest of your skincare routine. A good rule of thumb is to pick out sunscreen with at least 30 SPF, even if you have a darker skin tone. While individuals with darker skin tones are less likely to experience burns, they can still have sun damage, and SPF is still an important part of the routine.
If you find you still burn with SPF 30, consider bumping up your sunscreen. You also want to make sure that you’re getting even coverage, that you aren’t sweating your sunscreen off, and that you get protection either as long as you’re outside or that you remember to reapply as needed.
2. Tinted Sunscreen
You may want to consider tinted sunscreen if you’re spending a lot of time in the sun this summer. Tinted sunscreens can help to balance out some of the redness or discoloration of your skin without the heavier application of concealer or foundation.
There’s also said to be more protection in tinted sunscreen products since they offer UV and blue light protection, which means your skin is safe even if you spend the day indoors at your laptop.
When picking out a tinted sunscreen, pay special attention if you have more oily skin, as tinted sunscreen can increase the appearance of oiliness. You also want to make sure you’re getting enough coverage from regular sunscreen in addition to tinted sunscreen, so it’s good to have both products on hand for your next summer adventure.
3. Hydrating Serum
Summer is hot, hot, hot, and you deserve to feel cool, cool, cool. One of the most common skin concerns is dryness and dehydration, which can lead to irritation, cracking, and burns on the skin and lips. Hydrating serum can help to prevent that, giving you glowing skin and keeping your skin feeling smooth as butter.
That’s because hydrating serum is true to its name. It helps to hydrate the surface of the skin but also to help the skin retain moisture, which means it’s easier to protect and care for your skin on even the hottest days to come. While hydrating serum can be used as a stand-alone product, it is typically applied between a cleanser and a moisturizer for full effect.
Common hydrating ingredients include hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, and vitamin E.
4. Aloe Vera
Burns happen! Even with the best summer practices, we’ve all experienced an accidental sunburn or two — and they can really hurt! That’s why you’ll want to have the very best pain relief product on hand for sunburns, aloe vera.
Aloe vera comes from a plant similar to a cactus and is rich in vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, all of which are helpful for relieving pain and healing damaged skin.
When your skin is sunburned, it becomes incredibly dry and dehydrated, which is part of the reason it’s so painful. Aloe vera helps cool the skin and make it easier for it to retain moisture, so it can begin to heal. It does all this with no harsh chemicals that might cause further irritation.
Sunburns aren’t the only reason you’ll want to have some aloe veragel cream or lotion on hand. Aloe also helps to prevent the appearance of aging and can even reduce inflammation, like puffing around the eyes, due to its antimicrobial properties.
5. Vitamin C
Vitamin C gets an A+ in our book, especially when it comes to summer skincare. There’s not much this humble little vitamin can’t do. Not only can it reduce irritation, like the kind we get from sunburns and exposure to pollutants and chlorine, but it’s also useful for managing the effects of pigmentation, like the dark spots that develop with excess sun exposure.
Make sure you apply vitamin C serum to dry skin, typically before putting on your moisturizer and sunscreen.
6. Moisturizer
If you’ve got Vitamin C and hydrating serum, why do you need a moisturizer? Along with sunscreen, this is one of the most important products for you to keep in your summer arsenal. Moisturizer helps to ensure the skin is hydrated and that it can retain moisture even after the product is gone.
It also helps to fight acne and slow the appearance of aging and the development of wrinkles and fine lines. Moisturizer also just feels nice, especially when it comes to sensitive skin. Remember, you always want to moisturize the neck along with the face.
Look for ingredients like collagen and peptides to nourish your skin.
7. Lip Balm
You're not alone if you experience dry or cracked lips in the summer. Because there are no oil glands in the lips, they tend to dry out and flake with dead skin cells more than the skin on our face or the rest of our body. They are also more likely to get sunburned since the skin there is so thin.
A lip balm with SPF protection can help to prevent damage from occurring and can help to provide relief and comfort in the event that damage does take place.
8. Mosquito Repellant
You probably don’t think of mosquito repellant as a skincare product, but it can be— it’s just important to pay close attention to the type of repellant you use.
Some can be very high in chemicals and pesticides that can cause acne-prone skin to break out or sensitive skin to itch. It’s best to do your research and find a bug-repellant that protects without irritation.
Conclusion
When it comes to summer skincare, protection is best. You want to try to reduce sun exposure, protect your skin from UV rays, and make the most of products with vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants. With a few simple steps, you can help to reduce the development of sunburns, protect your skin from free radicals, and even minimize the appearance of wrinkles and aging.
That’s why it all starts with a high-SPFsunscreen, like SPF 30 or SPF 50. You also want to make sure you have hydrating products on hand to prevent dry skin and that your skin is safe from the creepy crawlies at the campsite.
No matter what the summer months might hold, you’ll be able to enjoy bright, glowing, happy, and healthy skin with the right summer skincare routine. 10PM Curfew has your closer look at trending products, female lifestyle, and summer skincare practices, and we’re sharing all you need to know about packing up for the next trip.
Learn about how you can work with our team today and all year long.
Sources:
Skin cancer - Symptoms and causes | Mayo Clinic
Vitamin C | The Nutrition Source | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Antioxidants | The Nutrition Source | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health