Some skincare rules were made to be broken
Beauty influencer Natalie O’Neill has gained quite the following on TikTok with her honest beauty advice, and has now shared her three least favourite - and most overrated - pieces of skincare advice.
As anyone with sensitive skin knows, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, though it doesn’t stop us from trying every new hack and ‘groundbreaking’ product to hit the market.
But according to Natalie, that in itself can be causing half the trouble. Her answer? Focus on the basics - cleansing, toning, and moisturising - and stop following these three popular but probably doomed-to-failed ‘rules’.
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Exfoliating
“The first one is exfoliation,” she said. “Ask any dermatologist, they will tell you you don’t need to exfoliate every day. Skin care brands have exfoliating products that they want to sell to you, and you will use them up quicker if you exfoliate every day.
“The only thing is, your skin doesn’t need to be exfoliated every day. And if you do that you probably will have worse skin. We are conditioned to feel like skin needs exfoliation, but it actually exfoliates itself. It has its own natural turnover, it doesn’t need you to interact with it all the time.”
Natalie suggested instead just protecting skin, keeping it hydrated, and exfoliating maybe once every one to two weeks at most.
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Vitamin C
“In at number two is vitamin C,” Natalie continued. “I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, several dermatologists that I follow don’t use vitamin C. It’s not that necessary, and it can actually be one of the most irritating ‘actives’ available.”
After going on to list some popular online dermatologists that she knows don’t consider it important either, Natalie said that “again, it’s the brands telling you that you need to use it every day. And actually, you don’t.
“And you might find that if you stop using it you would have much calmer skin. That’s what I found.”
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Skin cycling
Skin cycling is a skincare routine that calls for ‘rest days’, where the skin is given time to ‘repair’ itself after using products. Supposedly, this has the added benefit of preventing the likes of irritation and inflammation.
“I know that the person who invented it is on this app [TikTok], I know that, I respect her,” Natalie began for her third take. “In a way, skin cycling has helped lots of people, and that’s a good thing.
“But let me ask you this - if those people weren’t using chemical exfoliants and retinoids prior to doing skin cycling, it would therefore make sense that they are now experiencing good results after using chemical exfoliants and retinoids.
“On one hand I do understand why people do skin cycling, because it makes a complicated subject a lot easier to absorb and implement in your daily life. But on the other hand, it’s not really anything new.”
Her answer? “Use your retinoid or your chemical exfoliant more consistently” to see better results.
Images: TikTok