Routine Guide
Benzoyl peroxide should come early on in your routine unless you're buffering it to reduce irritation. You may even want to use your benzoyl peroxide as a mask - apply to dry skin, wait 2-5 minutes, then wash off.
Benzoyl Peroxide Wiki
Retinoids
Retinoids like retinol, adapalene (Differin), and tretinoin (Retin-A) should come early in your routine, applied to dry skin. However, you may want to use them later on in your routine if you want to buffer them to reduce irritation.
Retinoids Wiki
Azelaic acid
While azelaic acid is pH dependent, it requires a higher pH range than other pH dependent actives like AHAs and L-AA. So it’s not as important to try to use it early on in your routine, especially since most azelaic acid products are quite thick! These would come later on in your routine, either right before or right after moisturizer. But feel free to use azelaic acid early in your routine if it's a thin serum or toner!
Azelaic Acid Wiki
Everything Else
Everything else covers, well, everything else! These are the products that don't contain targeted treatment ingredients, and this will likely make up the bulk of your routine. Hydrating toners, serums, ampoules, essences, lotions, creams, whatevers - it all goes here.
Cleansers >> Actives >> Everything Else >> Sunscreen
The order for Everything Else is simple: apply from thin to thick.
Toners
Toners are thin, liquidy products with a consistency similar to water. While we've lumped them together with Everything Else, you can certainly apply them before your Actives if you want! Toners have a thin enough consistency that they shouldn't buffer or reduce the efficacy of any actives, and they generally don't have a high enough pH to impact pH dependent actives.
There are many different types of toners, including:
Hydrating toners - can help address dry or dehydrated skin, or used as a lightweight moisturizing product for oily skin!
Astringent toners - can help address oily skin
pH Adjusting toners - are slightly acidic, can help balance the pH of your skin
Toners with actives - like AHAs or BHAs in a toner format
Serums & Toners HG Thread (2017)
Serums
With the consistency of slightly thickened jello, serums come after toners and before moisturizers. Common serum types include niacinamide or vitamin C (SAP, MAP.) If you use sheet masks, you would likely use them in this step.
Serums & Toners HG Thread (2017)
Moisturizers
Gels, lotions, creams - whatever moisturizer type you're using, it comes close to last in your routine.
Moisturizer Wiki
Balms
This covers very thick products like petroleum jelly, Aquaphor, and sleeping packs - check out product recs in the moisturizer wiki!
These have a lot of occlusive properties and act like skincare saran-wrap - moisture doesn't escape, but subsequent products don't absorb. As such they should be applied after pretty much all of your products, except for...
Sunscreen
This is really the only hard rule for routine order: Sunscreen comes last in your skincare routine.
Cleansers >> Actives >> Everything Else >> Sunscreen
It doesn't matter if you have a physical (inorganic) or chemical (organic) sunscreen, it will always be the absolute last step in your skincare routine. This is because sunscreen works by forming a thick, even layer over the skin - you don't want to disrupt this layer too much with subsequent products, and sunscreen doesn't need to absorb to work.
If applicable, any makeup products (primer, foundation, etc.) would come after sunscreen - but all skincare products come before.
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