BUILDING A NIGHT TIME SKINCARE ROUTINE

Learn how to curate a night-time skincare routine to optimise and repair your skin whilst you sleep.

While a morning and night-time skin care routine will be familiar to most – including the placement of SPF in daytime and a night serum in the evening, the opportunities that surround separating your products this way are less known.

At night our skin behaves differently, which presents unique and powerful ways to use supportive and clarifying ingredients. The external stressors we face also obviously change, and protective formulas – found in overnight skincare like night face oil – respond to this shift to help you wake with brightened and refreshed skin.

By taking advantage of the resting period you allow your skin to strengthen and regenerate effectively. To balance and improve the concerns of every skin type – including oily and acne-prone, dry, sensitive and mature, there are efficacious steps meant just for your night skin care routine. Ahead, we talk through how sleep affects your skin and how to build an effective night time skin routine.

The science behind a night skin care routine

A night skincare routine provides an opportunity to wind down the day and give your body the best chance at proper rest. Aside from the positive structure of evening routines, our skin's dermis and the substances it contains operate differently during sleep. This means developing a night face routine can provide unique opportunities to enhance skincare efficacy and improve the overall appearance of skin.

You may have heard of the circadian rhythm – the mental, physical, and behavioural changes that occur during our sleep cycle. To achieve essential functions throughout the day, physical changes in the digestive system, hormones and skin come into effect as we rest. For skin, this means a couple of things. Firstly, cell regeneration occurs mostly at night, replacing ageing cells with fresh skin. This evening regeneration then makes skin more permeable – allowing topical skincare products to absorb better into skin layers.

NIGHT SKIN CARE ROUTINE STEPS & ORDER

To ensure that pollutants and stressors from the day are cleared and efficacious ingredients are applied correctly, there are universal steps for every night-time skin care routine. The best night serum, cream and mask for your skin goals can be viewed below.

1. REMOVE MAKEUP & CLEANSE

Dust, sweat, oil and pollution build up on skin throughout each day, and can impact concerns like dehydration, redness and breakouts. To address this, using a cleanser is required each night. Midnight Recovery Botanical Cleansing Oil effectively dissolves makeup, oil and dirt and imparts targeted botanicals like lavender essential oil to prepare skin for sleep. A universal cleanser, this evening step is non-comedogenic and suitable for all skin types including sensitive.

2. Toner

In addition to boosting hydration, a facial toner can help balance the pH of your skin so the rest of the products in your night face routine can penetrate the skin properly. We recommend using a gentle, alcohol-free toner like the Ultra Facial Toner, formulated with squalane and avocado oil to gently remove surface debris without removing skin's natural oils.

3. SKIN TREATMENTS

Remember when we mentioned skin’s increased permeability at night? This is especially opportune for facial serums – which work to apply targeted ingredients deeply to skin. The third step in your night skin routine, apply your serum after cleansing and before applying cream or night face oil. We recommend the Retinol Pure Wrinkle-Reduce Night Serum to help minimise the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. Formulated with our most concentrated retinol dose yet, this night serum accelerates surface cell renewal while you sleep for visibly smoother and younger-looking skin by morning.

After applying your skin serums, use a nourishing face oil like the Midnight Recovery Concentrate Facial Oil. This replenishing oil is infused with a botanical blend of lavender essential oil, squalane and evening primrose oil to restore your skin while you sleep. The result: radiant, younger-looking skin by morning.

4. EYE CREAM

As the skin under eyes is more delicate, the area can be vulnerable to concerns like fine lines, dark circles and puffiness. Including eye cream in your night skincare routine will help nourish the under eye area and target any of your under eye skin concerns. Our Midnight Recovery Eye Cream is specially formulated for night time application, to smooth and restore the skin so you can wake with a brightened, refreshed under eye.

5. Targeted night cream

One major difference between moisturisers and night creams is the thicker texture used in creating the latter. While it may be too rich for daytime use, thick formulas create a seal to keep moisture and ingredients from your previous steps in skin while you sleep. Because of this, night creams can be formulated to target specific skin concerns. To achieve supple, replenished skin by morning,- apply the Midnight Recovery Omega Rich Cloud Cream - our 98.6% natural night cream that works with skin overnight to visibly plump and restore radiance by morning. If reducing the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and sagging skin is a concern, apply hyaluronic acid and jasmonic acid-infused Super Multi-Corrective Cream.

4. Fortnightly: Face masks

As an additional way to retain radiant skin, we suggest applying a moisture-infused face mask once a week to every fortnight. Especially rich in texture and formula, face masks help your skin to achieve an optimal level of hydration. To lock in moisture overnight and wake up with plump, elasticised and brightened skin, Ultra Facial Overnight Rehydrating Mask with 10.5% Squalane helps to stabilise the moisture barrier with a high concentration of squalane.