Adjusting Your Skincare Routine For Autumn

Booooo... Where has the sun gone? Why is it suddenly too cold for (the occasional) ice cream?! Let's face this together: it is nearly officially Autumn. Autumn brings its own challenges for the skin. In Summer, we were able to harness the humidity and pull it into our skin using hyaluronic acid. What about when the lovely moisture in the air is dying down? Read on for advice on how to tackle Autumn skin... 

Protecting the skin in Autumn

If you are on the drier or more dehydrated side of the skin spectrum, the first thing you’ll notice now that the cold winds doth blow is skin dehydration. Your skin may be feeling less plump, less hydrated and a bit rougher in texture on its surface, regardless of how many of your usual serums you are applying.

Wind strips the skin of its moisture so you need to protect your skin from the bluster, especially if you suffer from psoriasis, eczema or rosacea.

A physical barrier can help. Literally wrap your scarf over your face when facing extreme weather conditions. 

However, we do stock a product on the store that acts as a scarf for your face: Dermalogica's Barrier Repair (€47.00). This product is formulated to act as a shield for skin that is prone to irritation, dehydration, dryness and reactivity and so if you find that these concerns are exacerbated for you coming into Autumn, maybe it's a product to ask about at your follow-up consultation. 

As you must know as someone who is nerdie about skin, you have to feed your skin’s protective barrier from the inside too. In Autumn and Winter, we recommend doubling your omega intake, so if you're taking 2 Skin Omegas+ capsules per day, start taking 4 per day. Sound excessive? Trust us, your skin will thank you. 

We know you understand the importance of SPF but just because it's not sunny, doesn't mean you can drop it like a hot potato. Keep applying it as UVA rays, aka the rays that can get to us here on Earth all year round, contribute greatly to skin ageing. 

Exfoliation in Autumn

You may not have been exfoliating as much in the Summer if you were going to be exposed to sun and didn't entirely trust yourself to top-up your sunscreen once every two hours. Now is the time to kick it back up a notch. Lactic acid is an ideal AHA (exfoliating alpha-hydroxy acid) for these chillier months as it simultaneously helps to hydrate the skin.

REN's Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Tonic (€32.00) is a mild lactic acid based exfoliant that also contains the precursors to azelaic acid, which can greatly help with pigment too. 

This will keep your skin looking as glowy as it did in the middle of May! 

 Skin hydration in Autumn

As we mentioned earlier, the wind can strip your skin of its hydration so we want to simultaneously protect from this and rehydrate the skin at night too. We need to add something nourishing and a little bit heavier to our skincare routines in Autumn alongside our correcting serums and our hyaluronic acid.

An antioxidant and omega-rich facial oil will give your skincare routine that bit of extra lipidic moisture that you may need. Urban Veda’s Reviving Facial Oil (€39.99) ticks those boxes due to the organic sea buckthorn oil, rosehip oil, hempseed oil and shativari extract.

You can apply this after your key serums or you can mix it in with them or your moisturiser – however, you shouldn’t be mixing this in with your SPF as this can compromise its effectiveness! In order of application, you can apply your Environ AVST, follow it with your other serums and then pop on your facial oil (or mix it in with your night cream). 

An oft neglected part of our skin is the lips and they are particularly prone to cracking, dryness and soreness in blustery, chilly Autumn so we need to give them some nourishing love. We adore the IMAGE Skincare Ormedic Balancing Lip Enhancement Complex (€25.00). It contains peptides to stimulate collagen and elastin, two core proteins that give skin density and elasticity, omega-rich avocado oil and antioxidants vitamin E and coenzyme Q10.   

Another important point to make is that if Autumn weather doesn’t affect your skin, you are grand to stick to your usual skincare routine. Monitor your skin and only adjust accordingly. If it ain’t broke…