Step 1: Identifying your goal

First up, you’ll need to decide on an overall goal: maybe you’re going on the holiday of a lifetime this year and you want radiant skin by then. Perhaps, your goal is to strengthen sensitive skin and eventually use a high percentage retinol every night. Maybe you just want predictable, resilient skin by the time winter rolls around again. This goal is your skin north star and every skin decision you now make needs to feed into this with your timeline in mind. So, no more trying the latest niacinamide serum that everyone’s talking about or adding a product to your routine because it works for your friend/mum/fave blogger and it’s the end of using a product just because you always have. Your new skin strategy means you won’t be aimless, but targeted, and your skin will reap the benefits.

Step 2: Creating the steps

Now you need to work backwards from your goal to work out how to achieve it. This is where your skin pro’s knowledge can really help you. They’ll be able to build the steps out with the right products containing the active ingredients you need to reach your north star. It might be that you need to begin by focusing on barrier betterment, so you use products that help to improve your skin moisture barrier. Once your barrier is stronger you can build up your retinol usage, whether that’s the strength, or twice daily application, or even both! Just keep in mind your skin strategy is a marathon, not a sprint, and taking it slowly still means you’ll make it to the summit.

Go all in with lifestyle

Your skincare strategy might be focused on your daily skincare routine, but our skin is our largest organ and works in synergy with the whole body. It’s important to ensure your aesthetic routine is holistic and includes all aspects of your wellness. In fact, one of the pillars of your skin strategy should be a focus on lifestyle. It’s now scientifically evidenced that things like stress levels and sleep (or lack of it) can impact the skin. Our wellness series tackled some of these topics with articles on sleep, gut healthand hormones, so go for a re-read to help you build out this part of your strategy. You might start small by aiming to get an extra 2 hours of sleep per week and work up to getting 8 hours a night every night, or even just add an extra piece of vitamin-rich fruit to your daily diet. Your skin pro can help you to look at your wellness from a 360-degree angle and build in these changes.

Active ingredients are key

When you work with active ingredients that have a positive impact on the skin, you’ll see changes. Did you know that if you mix and match your skincare brands there’s a chance you could be using competing ingredients? If this happens, your skincare active ingredients will simply cancel each other out and you’ll see no benefits! Stick to AlumierMD and not only will you avoid this, but because our hardworking, medical-grade hybrid formulas work in harmony with your skin and the whole collection works in synergy together, you can be confident you’re using exactly the right skincare for you. Each formula is multi-tasking and packed with active ingredients, so you might need only 3—4 products in your routine, instead of 8—9.

Work with your pro

Start by meeting your skin pro for an initial consultation where you can set your skin north star and build out your strategy with steps to follow. Then stay ahead of your goals with monthly clinic visits and quarterly skincare reviews. During these reviews, your pro might suggest going up a strength in retinol, adding an extra exfoliator or switching product categories as you hit your incremental goals and move onto the next. In-clinic treatments can be another pillar of your strategy, and when you work closely with your skin pro on the at-home products you use before and after treatments, you have the potential to accelerate results.

If you get strategic with your skincare selections and you’ve spoken to a pro, you know you’re using your products correctly. It means you make massive progress with every step.

Welcome to your strategic skincare year . . . book in    with a pro today

Image by Senivpetro on freepik