© Mat Hayward
What do you do if you have to attend a very big event the next day and your skin isn’t looking nor feeling its best? Do you decline the invitation? Or do you kick that sallow skin’s butt and do your best in making it look pretty damn good the next day?
For me, as much as possible, I go for the latter.
I have an arsenal of products I use to prep my skin to look its best the next day. It could be a friend’s birthday party, fancy dinner, big media event or even a wedding that I need to attend. If I have plenty of notice for the event, I prep it with facials and then amp up my skincare routine the night before the event. If it’s a last-minute thing, then I must make sure I take out the big guns in terms of skincare to make sure my skin looks the best it can the very next day.
For this post, I’m focusing on getting my skin ready for a big event the next day. I like to exfoliate my skin with physical and chemical exfoliants to get rid of as much dead skin cells as possible. This will allow the active ingredients in my skincare arsenal to work better. These days, I favour either a simple silicone pad with bristles (I call it the “rubber scrubber”. You can get it cheaply at DAISO. I just reuse mine that came with an old L’Oreal cleanser) or the Olay cleansing brush. Both are not abrasive on the skin.
Next comes the most important part of my next-day-great-skin routine: facial masks. I have 4 types of masks that give me great results for super boing-boing skin the next day. I don’t use all of them at once.
Dermalogica Multivitamin Power Recovery Masque
This is the first step to great next-day skin. After cleansing my skin, I use the multivitamin mask (contains concentrated vitamins A, C, E and F) to help rescue stressed skin. This cream mask came highly recommended by Lisa Eldridge. I watched her raving about it in one of her YouTube videos and the next minute, I found myself confirming an order for it on Adore Beauty 😛 . I use this a couple of times a week to revitalise my dull and dehydrated skin.
SK-II Facial Treatment Mask
My Holy Grail of masks for fantastic next-day skin. Each single-use mask is expensive so I save the good shizz for big events only. Skin boing boing-ness and radiance are guaranteed with the SKII mask. As the facial sheet mask is completely drenched in the good juice, a lot of it remains in the packet. Don’t throw it away! What I’d do is I’d pour the remaining serum from the packet to a small jar and use that as my serum for the next few days. Yep, you’ll have enough leftover serum to last you for days!
L’Herboflore Facial Sheet Mask
If I run out of the SK-II Facial Treatment Masks, L’Herboflore’s facial sheet masks (especially the Hyaluronic Acid Moisture Energy Biocellulose Mask) is really good as well. I prefer them to My Beauty Diary masks. I love the amount of hydration and boing boing-ness the L’Herboflore masks give my skin.
La Mer Lifting and Firming Mask
I’ve written about this mask before and I still love how great it makes my skin feel and look. This goes on my skin before my moisturiser. I use this in lieu of a serum.
Sounds like a lot of products on my skin and I’d understand the concern of overloading the skin with too much potent ingredients. For me, this facial routine works great for me and so far, my skin loves it. It’s not crying bloody murder yet *fingers crossed*. If I were to skip a product or two, I would still keep up with skin exfoliation and the SK-II or L’Herboflore mask because even these two steps alone will give me positive results.
But really, it’s not a lot of work at all and for soft, smooth and super boing boing skin the next day? Oh yes please! 😀
Is there a particular product or even routine you use or go through to achieve great next-day skin? Do you have an instant skin pick-me-up formula to share? A secret recipe perhaps?
🙂
SKII handsdown. Nothing beats it seriously. NOTHING. It’s so good. For daily or in between routine “maintenance” I’ve been using the SKII Skin Rebooster. Have not been a fan of using it in the shower so I use it out of the shower and also instead of rubbing off/wiping off with the provided sheets, I spritz some toner on and massage the remaining in. My skin feels so soft and hydrated after. This is saying a lot coming from someone with dry skin.
Ooh I must check out this Skin Rebooster now!
Hmmm, the L’Herboflore hydrating mask sounds great. I’ve gotta look that one up and see if it’s available in this neck ‘o the woods. My poor face is sensitive from trying a million different things on it lately, and I think too many things e.g. exfoliating pads used every other night that have a little alcohol in the ingredient list, maybe the glycolic pads I use every other night when I’m not using the exfoliating pads. So I’m looking for gentle, gentle hydrating 😉
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Unfortunately, the L’Herboflore masks are only available in Taiwan at the moment. Such a pity because they are fantastic masks.
Yah I know what you mean. My skin is not feeling its best too with so much trialing of new products. I’m currently also trialling exfoliating pads but so far, so good. Thank goodness or else my skin will be screaming bloody murder. Good luck in finding gentle hydrating pads. Have you tried the ones by Radical Skincare? I’ve only tried them out in store but they seem pretty good.
LOL, it’s Radical Skincare’s exfoliating pads that have irritated my skin (but I do still love their orange-scented mask!). I didn’t know they had hydrating pads. I’m sticking to rosewater & rose oil for a while till my skin calms down 😉
Oh. Oopssssss 😛
I’m almost out of my Recovery masque, you just reminded me to hop onto Adore and get some more! Will definitely have to try the SKII masks, might have to slip one into my order as well to try it out… I love a good enabling :p
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The SKII masks are fantastic. Holy grail material, if only they weren’t so expensive. My skin looks like it’s had a great facial each time I use it. Well in that case, I suppose it’s not that expensive after all since facials are even more expensive? Ah the ways I try to justify my purchases. 😛
Lovely post and one that makes a lot of sense indeed if you want good skin before a big event. I have a question: do you wash of the essence on your face after applying your sheet masks? One blogger I asked uses this method and she then proceeds with her normal skin care routine of toner-serum-moisturiser. I hardly use sheet masks these days because I am a bit confuse on how to fit it into my normal skin care routine of serum-moisturiser on one night and chemical exfoliators only on other nights.
Oh no, don’t wash the essence off! They’re good stuff! What I do is when I remove the sheet mask from my face, I rub the mask on my neck, arms and legs. Sometimes I’d even tear the mask in two and put them on my knees. Don’t waste the good juice. I’d gently massage the remaining essence on my face and leave it to absorb to the skin. Just when my skin is moist (not wet, not damp, just moist), that’s when I use my serum and moisturiser. I don’t bother with toner when I use facial sheet masks. Toners, especially the ones where you use with a cotton pad, will just wipe the good juice off your face. Sheet masks are so easy to use. On days when you want a boost to your skin, cleanse, pop mask on, do your thing, remove mask, apply serum, eye cream then moisturiser. Your skin will be super boing boing!
I love sheet mask! I also love my Merle Norman Clay Mask or their Miracol Mask!!
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Right, time to Google those masks! 😛
Hi!
So glad to come across your blog! A little out of topic here.. but do you mind sharing the lipstick/lipgloss you are wearing in this photo? So pretty!
Aww thanks Jowin. I’m afraid I can’t help you out with the lippie used in the picture because that’s a stock image. It’s not me. 😛