How to Start a Clean Skincare Routine (with Products)
When I first went clean over ten years ago, the options were slim.
I’d just read Alissa Vitti’s awesome book, WomanCode, and learned that my skincare products could be contributing to the hormone disruption that was upending my periods and life. Obediently, I tossed away all offending products and began my switch to the cleanest-seeming product line I could find to replace them.
Turns out, it would take about five years to land on the products that were truly non-toxic and the routine that would make my skin sing.
Today, I’m shortening your learning curve.
One by one, I’m breaking down all my steps and sharing my favorite, beginner-friendly routine––with my hand-picked products.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
♢ Step 1 - Educate | What is Clean Beauty and Why Does it Matter?
♢ Step 2 - Your Clean Beauty Hacks
♢ Step 3 - Switcheroo! | The Best Way to Replace Your Products
♢ Step 4 - Steps and Products to Your Basic Routine
So if you're ready for the straight line to a clean routine, let’s get to it!
How I Got Here
As I said up top, my hormones were in revolt. I’d had two surgeries after taking the Lupron shot that shut down my estrogen for three months and was just getting over the side effects––brain fog, hot flashes, night sweats, and other symptoms similar to those of menopause.
I was living in London, getting my M.A. in Writing, and battling extreme insomnia and wave after wave of serious acne.
In this post, I go deep into how I healed that hormonal acne. This was my first super serious foray into living clean.
Problem was: “clean beauty,” even “wellness,” wasn’t a huge, popular, hashtag-able, thing. This was prime “#riseandgrind” time. Paleo had just entered the chat, and people were just beginning to talk about sleep actually being important! It was nowhere in the zeitgeist that what you put on your skin could be contributing to poor hormonal health.
There were only whispers of the importance of low-tox living. Those of us straining to hear were left to figure most of the details out on our own. But, I was determined, so, based on my limited (but growing) knowledge, I sought the cleanest seeming skincare brand I could find.
The one that I found, and loved, was Neals Yard Remedies. But skincare was reduced to the basics––just a cleanser and oil (far from the multiple steps I happily indulge in today).
I was focusing on the inside out with my healing journey. I went completely clean with my eating––including, cutting out sugar and dairy from my diet. I healed my sleep, upped my hydration, paid attention to stress, got plenty of fresh air and sunlight (super easy in a highly walkable/ public transport-friendly city like London), and more.
And, it worked! My skin cleared up!
Around that time I would tell people that they didn’t need a skincare routine to have beautiful skin, to focus more on their diet and lifestyle. And I still believe that if you have a horrible diet and hard-living lifestyle, the best skincare routine in the world will struggle to give you long-lasting, consistent results.
But things took a slight turn when I moved back to the States. Neals Yard was hard to find, there was nowhere near as much walking, and there was much more stress.
Still, my learned good habits did keep my skin clear, but overtime it was beginning to feel dry and dehydrated.
I chalked it up to aging––I was now in my late thirties. But my sister mentioned that I should try the much-lauded “Korean Skincare Routine” known for its multiple steps and “glass”-like, “dewy” results.
I decided to go for it.
It was through creating my clean version of the Korean Skincare routine that I really dug into, refreshed, and up-leveled my clean beauty knowledge. I learned even more about ingredients, misleading marketing, and how to build an effective clean beauty protocol.
And that is my STEP ONE of starting your own Clean Beauty Skincare Routine.
Step One| Educate Yourself on What Clean Beauty is and What It's Not
So, what is clean beauty anyway?
Clean beauty revolves around the use of skincare products that are crafted with natural, non-toxic, and sustainable ingredients that are free from harmful chemicals like parabens, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, and more. This is important because many of the harmful chemicals used in conventional beauty products are endocrine-disrupting xenoestrogens. These xenoestrogens are detrimental to your hormones and health.
Xeno-What?
What are Xenoestrogens?
Xenoestrogens are man-made chemicals that mimic the effects of estrogen. They are structurally similar to estrogen and can bind to estrogen receptors. This disrupts the delicate hormonal balance in men and women so much so that since xenoestrogens were introduced into our environment in 1960, the fertility rate has dropped at a rate of one percent each year.
Xenoestrogens aren’t just in our products, they’re everywhere––meat and dairy, insecticides, tap water, plastics, cleaning products, dry cleaning chemicals, and more.
And, the cumulative effect of all the xenoestrogens in our environment can tip your hormones into revolt, causing all sorts of issues like fibroids, endometriosis, PCOS, the hormonal acne that shocks many women when they enter their 30s, and aforementioned infertility.
This is why I believe clean beauty is a “gateway drug” (so to speak) into lox-tox living for so many women. Once you start learning about all of the toxins in our environment through your clean beauty journey focused at first on your beauty products––you become addicted to learning more and more. You go further and further, deeper and deeper, cleaner and cleaner ‘til you clean it all up.
But, on your journey, I caution moderation.
I’ve learned that, to preserve my mental health, it’s best to be okay aiming for 80/20.
Here are the books and websites I recommend to begin to educate yourself on clean beauty and low-tox living:
Woman Code: THE female hormone bible written by hormone-synching pioneer, and nutritionist, Alisa Vitti.
Organically Becca: Becca turned to low-tox living after healing chronic reoccurring acne, and her resulting clean lifestyle business is a gift to us all.
Gurl Gone Green: One book led organic hairstylist Suzi Swope to an obsession, which led to an exceptionally high-value, low-tox living website that I love to visit, use as a resource, and recommend.
Weekly Gorgeous Clean Beauty Newsletter: My weekly clean beauty newsletter designed to help you get gorgeous––mind, body, and soul! And, when you join, you get a gift!
But, no worries, as you’re learning, you do not have to commit it all to memory.
STEP TWO |
Your Clean Beauty Hacks
Today, there are so many resources at your disposal. In my free, 90+ page clean beauty eBook, Dew You: Design Your Perfect Clean Beauty Routine, I highlight my favorite resources that help me stay squeaky clean. A bit of context for this next quote: earlier in the book, before this excerpt (below), I wrote about how few resources were available when I started. I also write about Credo Beauty’s high standards and why they are such a great resource.
Excerpted from Dew You: Design Your Perfect Clean Beauty Routine:
“There are so many resources at your disposal now. Stores like The Detox Market and Credo Beauty, apps like the Yuka app and Think Dirty, and websites like EWG’s SkinDeep make it much easier for you...
“To me, Credo Beauty is the gold standard of toxic-free beauty retailers. It’s like a Sephora for toxic-free beauty products. As I said earlier, Credo has a list of 2700 ingredients they don’t allow in their products. If you purchase from Credo, you know the brand is truly clean. They were where I went to completely overhaul my make-up and skincare, and remain my go-to favorite today.
“The Yuka App is my Clean Beauty Bestie. All you do is scan a product's barcode, and it shows you how safe it is. If there are ingredients that aren’t safe, it tells you why. But, heads up, you will truly get addicted to scanning. After a while, you’ll have your go-to brands, your favorite stores, and when you toss over a product to read the ingredient list, toxic ingredients will stick out like an angry zit.”
But even with these hacks, you need to know your toxic red flags. For me, that is greenwashed marketing and the ingredient fragrance.
Let’s start with greenwashing.
Greenwashing
Greenwashing in personal care is a deceptive practice that misleads the consumer to believe that a product is safer or more environmentally conscious or friendly than it actually is.
One tactic includes the use of “green” sounding adjectives like “natural,” “green,” “eco,” “raw,” “botanical,” “earth-friendly,” “extract,” “herbal,” and more to market potentially harmful products.
Even the use of the word “clean” is unregulated. So, being marketed as “clean” or “natural” doesn’t necessarily mean a product is actually safer or more sustainable.
Read more about Greenwashing in my free eBook Dew You: Design Your Perfect Clean Beauty Routine.
For now, just know, if something is being heavily marketed as “green,” or “clean,” let that be a yellow flag and look a bit closer.
Fragrance
I did a huge deep dive on fragrance in this post, Clean Fragrance 101| What You Need to Know.
Here’s the TL;DR excerpt:
“Unfortunately, today the label “fragrance” has become a convenient chemical dumping ground that companies can legally use to hide toxins including phthalates, allergens, potential endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins, carcinogens, and more creating a potential cocktail of hidden chemicals that are detrimental to your hormones and health.
“How? You may ask.
“The issue with synthetic fragrances is that cosmetics companies aren’t required to disclose what’s inside ingredients on their labels that are considered “trade secrets.” Fragrance is considered a trade secret.
“So cosmetics companies can label an ingredient “fragrance” and inside that label dump and hide any ingredients they want. Inside the label “fragrance” could include any of 3,000+ ingredients, some known or suspected to harm health, some not.”
“It’s a filthy practice and it’s legal. So when you see the ingredient fragrance, DIG DEEPER! It is essential to keep yourself and your loved ones safe from serious toxins.”
STEP THREE | How to Replace Your Products
The truth is, purging the old and building the new can be expensive and feel overwhelming. But you don’t have to chug it all and start over (though you absolutely can). If you want to move a bit more modestly, this is the number one tip I have on rebuilding your routine:
Replace Your Products As You Run Out.
When the product is empty, replace it with a clean option. That is the simplest, most modest, and most stress-free way to switch over your products.
Before you know it, you’ll have a full and fabulous, low-tox, high-value, clean beauty skincare routine.
STEP FOUR| Design Your New Clean Beauty Skincare Routine
When it comes to starting a clean beauty routine, I recommend starting simple, with a minimalist routine. A minimalist skincare routine has the core steps you need for clean, healthy skin. It’s great to reset your skin and help it ease into clean products.
Here is the exact, minimalist skincare routine I would start with.
The Core Essentials of a Minimalist Skincare Routine
The Core Four
Cleanser
Toner
Moisturizer
Sunscreen
This is truly all you need to kickstart your journey toward radiant, healthy skin. Let’s move on to the products that keep this routine simple, yet effective.
The Steps + Tested and Recommended Products
1 —
Cleansing:
The Double Cleanse Method
The double cleanse starts with an oil-based cleanser to dissolve makeup, sunscreen, and any daily grime, followed by a water-based gel or foam cleanser to remove any residual impurities. This method ensures a thorough cleanse without stripping the skin of its natural oils.
A note on Oil Cleansers: You want an Oil Cleanser that emulsifies into a milk with water, not one that needs to be wiped off. All of these recommendations emulsify.
Oil Cleansers:
Karuna Oil Cleanser ($17-$18): An easy-to-work lightweight oil at a great price point.
Whamisa Organic Flowers Cleansing Oil ($30): A favorite for its effective, easy-to-rinse formula. And it’s from my current favorite Korean Beauty brand.
Mad Hippie Jelly Cleanser ($17): A thicker, jelly-like texture that transforms with a bit of water.
note: This one was a bit thick for me, but I prefer lighter weight oils to balms. If you like thicker balms, this is great!
Water-based Gel/ Foam Cleansers:
Karuna Balancing Cleanser ($17.99): This lovely gel cleanser thoroughly cleanses your face. Fantastic second step to a double cleanse.
Three Ships Purify Aloe & Amino Acids Cleanser ($21): Don’t let the tiny package fool you! This mighty cleanser requires only a tiny amount.
Whamisa Organic Flowers Foaming Gel ($23): Combines efficiency with the trusted quality of Whamisa, making it a reliable choice.
Ursa Major Fantastic Face Wash ($28): Great if you’re also looking for a gentle exfoliation.
Get Your FREE Clean Beauty Bundle complete with eBook + Workbook.
2 —
Toners: Unsung Heroes
Toners prep your skin for additional products while providing extra cleansing and balancing benefits. And, if you have dry or dehydrated skin, a hydrating toner can be transformative in a skincare routine. One of my favorite skincare products ever is a hydrating toner (of course, listed below).
Toners:
Ursa Major 4-in-1 Essential Tonic ($32): This toner is great! It cleanses, exfoliates, soothes, and hydrates, making it a versatile addition to your simple skincare routine.
Three Ships Calm Lavender Toner ($17): Refreshing, calming toner with the best mister on a product I’ve ever used. This is my 2nd favorite toner. But, heads up, it has a strong lavender scent.
Whamisa Deep Rich Toner ($40-$45): *My favorite skincare product ever* An unparalleled hydrating experience, it’s a rich, dense formulation that you smooth on with your fingers. This toner is a game-changer for keeping the skin dewy and bouncy. It’s the #1 skincare product I recommend.
3 —
Moisturizers: Lock in the Deliciousness
A good moisturizer is the key to locking in hydration and keeping the skin's barrier healthy.
Moisturizer:
Three Ships Radiance Moisturizer ($38): Thicker in consistency for a lush, nourishing experience. You have to really work this one in. Once you do, it’s great for achieving that glowy look. Great for dry skin and combination skin.
OSEA Atmosphere Protection® Cream ($54): Lightweight seaweed-powered fast-absorbing moisturizer. I love the seaweed-powered OSEA brand. This may have been reformulated since I used it, but the ingredients still look awesome. Great for oily skin and combination skin.
Tammy Fender Intensive Repair Balm ($130-$150): Yes, this one is pricey. But, to me, worth every cent. This is an unparalleled choice for healing and rejuvenation. More than a moisturizer, this balm truly repairs and soothes the skin. I know firsthand. I have used this to repair my skin after burns and more. So, yes, an investment, but, to me, it pays dividends. A good investment for all skin types.
4 —
Mineral-Based Sunscreen: The Final Touch
And it has to be mineral. Don’t even go near the chemical stuff. The problem with chemical sunscreens is that they may have ingredients that mimic hormones, are neurotoxins, are carcinogenic, and more. And one common ingredient, oxybenzone, is toxic to coral reefs and marine life.
I deep-dive sunscreens here (it’s a must-read).
But, with your mineral-based sunscreens, choose a product with non-nano mineral active ingredients. Nano, or nanoparticles, are tiny particles that are one-twentieth the width of a human hair that can be absorbed into the skin and enter the bloodstream. We don’t want nano that.
Mineral Sunscreens:
Kinship Self Reflect Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 32 $28
Bestselling priming and moisturizing sunscreen. Gives a nice finishing glow. And, this sunscreen has won a lot of awards.Josh Rosebrook Nutrient Day Cream with SPF 30 Tinted $60
Plant-nutrient packed dual moisturizer and sunscreen. One of my favorites.
Building Upon a Solid Foundation
Starting with these core products allows you to establish a simple skincare routine that covers all the essentials. From there, you can gradually introduce new products, such as serums or oils, tailoring the routine to your skin's specific needs.
And, when you're ready, you’ll find a host of skincare routines in the Dew You | Design Your Perfect Skincare Routine eBook (complete with product guide).
Conclusion: Building Your Clean Beauty Skincare Routine
Going clean was one of the best things I ever did for my hormones and health, but it was a process. Here, I aim to shorten your learning curve. Save money and time by following these steps to build your clean beauty routine: educate yourself while embracing good intentional hacks, replace your products gradually, and start with a simple routine of recommended products.
Do this and you’ll be radiating that healthy clean glow in no time!
And if you want more help in getting that dewy, gorgeous glow, check out my resource library where I house everything I use to shine brilliant and bright.
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