One of the most common questions that a laser and skin clinic will get asked is about general skincare topics and what can be done to help people meet the goals they have for their skin.
Ultimately, that advice will depend on so many factors, from skin type, which treatments you are following up on and your general lifestyle, as well as balancing what is best with what can be done consistently and provide the best long-term effects.
The latter aspect is part of a long debate that has been exacerbated recently by the somewhat unlikely skinfluencer Niall Horan, formerly of boy band One Direction, who revealed his 22-step skin and hair care routine.
Now, even if you are not a skinimalist, 22 steps might seem a little excessive. It starts off with a styling mousse before Niall dries his hair to make it extra luminous.
The first step to his skin routine is a cleanser, before following it up with a micro-crystal exfoliating face mask. Following this he does facial steaming to open up his pours and applies eye gel patches under his eyes, using ice rollers all over his face to reduce puffiness.
He then uses an eye cream, a hydrating booster, a retinol, an SPF and a lip balm to finish off his skin routine, before using a texturing paste on his hair, hairspray and aftershave.
It is a lot of steps to go through every single day, and whilst Niall has joked that this is to try and keep his youthful looks for as long as possible, it is not a process that everyone can or indeed should go through every day, even if in his defence several of those steps are hair care rather than skincare.
Ultimately, skincare is quite personal and all about experimenting to see what works for you. Just make sure that you stick with a treatment for at least a few weeks to see if it is providing a notable change.
