Great skincare products don’t work their magic with just one use. Products formulated to truly improve the health of your skin need two essential extra ingredients that won’t be listed on the bottle: time and consistency.
It’s advice we’ve all heard before: stay consistent with your routine and give it time to see results. But in an era where a new “miracle product” is being recommended to you on social media every day, it can be tempting to want to try something new or be lured in by the promise of instant results.
Deep down, we all know the best results don’t happen right away. Sure, your skin can look and feel better the first time you use a product–and that’s a hint it will be great for your skin in the long run–but seeing results like firmer skin or reduced dark spots takes time, usually a month or more to see significant changes.
So let’s dive into why consistency is the secret ingredient to any great skincare routine.
It Takes At Least 30 Days to See Results
There’s a process your skin undergoes called cellular turnover, which is when new skin cells formed in the deepest layer of your skin move up to replace the dead skin cells on the top layer of your skin. When you’re young, this process can take as little as 20 days, but for most of your adult life, your skin cells renew every 30 days or so.
What does this have to do with consistency? Well, cell turnover helps keep skin looking healthy and smooth, but it also means that because of the natural cycle of your skin, it can take 30 days or more to start seeing noticeable results from your consistently used skincare. All your hard work will really start to show when all those new cells you’ve been caring for come to the surface of your skin.
Many ingredients in your skincare, like bio-retinols and antioxidant-rich ingredients, increase the rate of cellular turnover. That’s why their results take time.
Your hard work takes time to show on the skin.
As you age, the cycle of cellular turnover naturally gets longer. Keep this in mind as well when you’re getting consistent with a set skincare routine—your results will take longer than 30 days. Don’t take this as a sign your skincare isn’t working, or isn’t working fast enough. Your skin is just going through its natural process of cell renewal.
Keeping Your Skin Healthy Requires Daily Care
The baseline for healthy skin is skin that is clean and hydrated. That requires, at minimum, using a cleanser and moisturizer daily.
That should give you some peace of mind when it comes to consistency. You don’t have to keep up with an elaborate routine if you don’t want to. You can also optimize the products you do use by choosing ones that are multifunctional and contain ingredients that offer some of the additional benefits you’re looking for.
But once you’ve got a base of using a cleanser and moisturizer daily, you can start adding on products that will further support your skin and target any particular skin concerns you have. That might look like a toner, serum, face mask, or any number of extra products.
What is great about having a consistent cleansing and moisturizing routine is that your cleanser prepares your skin to be able to absorb any additional products better, and a moisturizer over top seals in all the goodness you’re applying. They make the perfect first and final step, and whatever goes in between is up to you.
Once you’ve set a baseline for your skin, adding in new products and allowing them at least a 30-day trial is much easier. Consistency + time = results you can see on the skin!
A Daily Habit is Good for Your Skin and Your Brain
As human beings, we crave routine. It feels good to have a simple, rewarding habit we can practice every day–and a skincare routine is no exception. Not only is consistency good for your skin, but it’s good for your mental health, too.
It’s actually quite well documented that there are psychological benefits to having routines, including lowering your stress and making you happier¹. There’s also a link between your mental health and your skin health. So by sticking to a consistent routine, you’re truly practicing selfcare for your skin and your mind.
Both your skin and your brain crave consistency and routine.
When you’re first starting to form a healthy habit like a daily skincare routine, starting simple makes it easy to commit. Once you get into the rhythm of your new habit, it’ll become second nature to care for your skin. In general, it’s better to have a basic but consistent skincare routine rather than one made up of a dozen products that don’t get used frequently.
Consistency Starts with a Simple, Effective Routine
If you’re trying to get back into the habit of having a skincare routine, or you’re in the process of trying new products so you can add a new permanent fixture to your existing routine, staying consistent is easiest when you have trust in your skincare enough to stay consistent and be willing to wait to see results.
That’s why we think it’s best to ditch the elaborate, multistep routines that seem too intimidating and time consuming to commit to daily. Instead, streamline your routine by picking less products, but being selective with the few you do use. Choose high quality, clinically proven skincare that is formulated to gently care for your skin’s particular needs.
A good way to stay committed is to subscribe to your favourite products and have them automatically delivered to your house on a set schedule that works for you. You'll see the visible results a great skincare product used consistently can offer.
We offer a Subscribe + Save option at Graydon because we know how great it feels to run out of a product and know a new one is already on the way to you. Plus, when you subscribe to a product, you can save up to 15%.
Look for the Subscribe + Save option when you shop our products.
