Skincare Routine for Beginners + Free Download

Everyone needs a skincare routine. Babies need sunscreen, teenagers need face wash, 30-something-year-olds need preventative treatments, 60-something-year-olds need anti-aging treatments, and so on. You don’t hit a certain age and someone shows up to your door with a pamphlet saying, “okay, you’re at the age now when you need a skincare routine and here’s everything you need to use”. Wouldn’t that be so easy though? Well, I can’t come to everyone’s door, but I can tell you right now that you are at an age where you need a skincare routine! Whether your 15, 45, or 75, you are at that age. So if you’ve never really had a skincare routine or you do have one but you don’t think it’s good enough, I’m here to share a “Skincare routine for Beginners”.

This post is not just for beginners, though. This post is for everyone. No matter what age or skin condition or schedule or budget. Everyone should be making time for their skin. 

I personally would much rather spend money on skincare than on clothes or shoes. Investing in yourself is one of the smartest things someone can do in my opinion. 

$200 for a top? Hell-to-the-no. $200 for a night cream that will make me look like I’m 27 forever? I’ll take two. 

So let’s get started. 

Not everyone will need to focus on the same things and not everyone can use the same exact products. 15 year olds don’t need a wrinkle-reversing skincare routine and 75 year olds don’t need an acne treatment routine. Make sense? 

Take a look in the mirror and take an inventory of your face and your skin. Do you have acne? Do you have large pores? Do you have fine lines and wrinkles? Do you have dry skin? Do you have chapped lips? Do you have uneven skin tone or dark spots? 

So here are the basic Skincare Routine for Beginners steps that everyone needs:

1. Face wash or cleanser – obviously you need to clean your face and remove the impurities.
2. Alcohol-free acid or toner – when you wash your face, you are stripping your skin of all the bad AND the good. So the acid will help replenish the good that you just cleansed off. 
3. Eye treatment – I’m specifically talking about your under eyes. This is such a fragile area of the body so it needs extra care. And as Anna Faris said in House Bunny, “the eyes are the nipples of the face”. She wasn’t lying….
4. Oil or serum – this is where you focus on your inventory that you just took (acne, fine lines/wrinkles, uneven skin tone, dark spots, large pores, etc.)
5. Moisturizer – let me hit you with a life-changing analogy: moisturizer is to skin what water is to the body. Boom. 
6. Sunscreen – everyone needs to wear sunscreen all the time. Even in the winter. Even on cloudy days. The sun is the leading cause of wrinkles and fine lines. 

So those are the six key steps in a skincare routine for beginners. Or just a skincare routine for everyone. You could have a skincare routine that you’ve had for years but maybe you just wanted to brush up and compare notes. I’m here to help.

Here are some other helpful skincare routine for beginners tips:

#1 – If your schedule allows it, you should have a morning skincare routine and an evening skincare routine. 

#2 – You need to stick to a skincare routine and to specific products for at least 6 weeks before you’ll see a major difference in your skin. You can’t use a pore minimizer serum one night and expect to wake up the next day without any pores on your face. I’ve found that six weeks is the average time that your skin adjusts to products and really makes a difference. But of course, if you have a bad reaction to a product then you should stop taking it immediately. 

#3 – Don’t buy the cheap shit. Good skincare products are kind of pricey, and for good reason. We’re talking about your face here. If you go to a drug store and buy a $5 tub of moisturizer, you’ll probably break out in pimples or your face will just get really greasy. In my opinion, the pricier the skincare product, the better it works. I bought a drug store anti-aging cream once and I had to stop using it after two uses because it turned my face bright red and my face would literally burn. No thanks. Skincare is not the place to be frugal. 

#4 – Know your skin type and purchase products accordingly. The different skin types are as follows: normal skin, dry skin, oily skin, and combination skin. I have combination skin where my T zone (across forehead, down the nose to chin) is oily and the rest of my skin is either normal or dry. So I always have to be careful with the products I try. If you have dry skin, obviously you need the products with a lot of moisturizer in them. If you have oily skin, you want to stay away from the products that won’t fully absorb into your skin and can leave you feeling “greasy”.

#5 – Do your research before buying skincare products. Read the ingredients, read the reviews, read the instructions, and read exactly what the product is for. You should pretty much ready every single word on the box or the bottle or on the website. If the product has before and after pictures, that’s even better. 

#6 – Don’t be afraid to experiment and use a million different products. You can keep it simple with the 6 steps I listed above, or you can be adventurous and use 16 steps, or however many you want. I definitely have way more than six steps. I have large pores, dark spots, uneven skin tone, fine lines, dull skin, red cheeks, my lips are always chapped, and my eyelashes aren’t as long as I would like them to be. So you better believe I have a step in my skincare routine for ALL of those issues. 

Here is a list of my favorite products for each of my problem areas:

Cleanser / Face Wash:

1. Tula Facial Cleanser
2. Dr Dennis Gross Daily Peel Pads
3. Elemis Pro-Collagen Cleansing Balm/Makeup Remover
4. Clarisonic Mia Electric Cleansing Brush

Alcohol-free Toner:

1. Tula Pro-Glycolic 10% pH Resurfacing Gel Toner
2. Bobbi Brown Hydrating Face Tonic

Eye Treatment:

1. Baebody Beauty Eye Gel (dark circles, puffiness, fine lines)
2. Tula Revitalizing Eye Cream (crows feet, fine lines and wrinkles)
3. Tula Eye Renewal Serum (dark circles, puffiness, inflammation)
4. Collagen Eye Zone Mask

Oil or Serum:

1. InstaNatural Vitamin C Serum (anti-aging, brightening, tightening, even skin tone, antioxidants)
2. Eminence Licorice Root Serum (dark spots, sun spots, sun mustache, brightens skin)
3. Algenist Genius Sleeping Collagen (anti-aging)
4. Caudalie Vinoperfect Radiance Serum (brightens skin and evens out skin tone)
5. Lancome Genefique Youth Activating Serum (reverses fine lines and wrinkles)
6. Drunk elephant Virgin Marula Antioxidant Face Oil 

Moisturizer:

1. Tula Hydrating Day & Night Cream (non-oily, perfect for during the day)
2. It Cosmetics Confidence in a Cream Moisturizer (nighttime moisturizer)
3. La Mer the Moisturizing Soft Cream (nighttime moisturizer)
4. Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve Moisturizer (nighttime moisturizer)
5. Sephora All Day Hydrator (daytime moisturizer)

Sunscreen: 

1. Drunk Elephant Umbra Tinte Daily Defence SPF 30 Sunscreen
2. Clarins Multi-Active Jour SPF 20 sunscreen 

You can also check out this post to see my exact morning and evening skincare routines plus videos so you can see how I apply each products.

And you can check out this post to see The Master List of my favorite skincare products of 2019!

I hope this skincare routine for beginners is helpful, enlightening, and a good jumping off point for those who are looking to start a skincare routine or looking to add on to their current one!

Shop my Favorite Skincare Products: