My 10-Minute Skincare Routine That Actually Works

The skincare industry would prefer that you believe your face requires a twelve-step process administered twice daily with products that each cost more than a flight to Penang. I spent several years operating under this assumption before I ran a simpler experiment: what if I just did four things, consistently, and stopped there?

The four things: a gentle cleanser, a vitamin C serum in the morning, a moisturiser with SPF during the day, and a slightly richer moisturiser at night. That is it. That is the whole routine.

What I dropped: the toner that was probably fine but might have been doing nothing. The eye cream that was almost certainly the same formula as the moisturiser in a smaller jar. The various exfoliants I was using too frequently and which were making things worse rather than better. The sheet masks I was using for the experience rather than the outcome.

The results, after three months of the reduced routine: better. Not dramatically, cinematic-reveal better — but the low-grade congestion I had been managing had cleared, and the mild sensitivity I had accepted as my baseline had mostly resolved. Less, it turned out, was more, in the most literal sense.

There is a lesson here that I keep having to relearn in different domains: the baseline is often doing more harm than it needs to, and the reset — the stripping back to the necessary — is usually where the improvement begins. Skin included. It is, in the end, the same argument I keep making about buying less and choosing better — just applied to the face.

The same audit that cleared out the serums also cleared out most of the rest of the cabinet. That piece gets into the grooming side of things — the principle scales, and the result is the same: fewer decisions, more consistency, better outcomes.