What Ingredient Should Be Included In Your Summer Skincare Routine?

With the changing season and stepping into the hot and humid days of summer, we tend to make certain lifestyle changes like swapping our sweatshirts for the summer appropriate linen shirts, our comfort drink may change from a hot cup of coffee to ice-tea and our skincare products change from the heavy moisturizing ingredients to cleansing and photoprotecting products incorporating ingredients like salicylic acid or products like Caffeine Sunscreen in an attempt to protect our skin throughout the harsh summer season.

With the rising heat and humidity, summer could be challenging for people dealing with acne and related skin conditions given the favorable conditions the heat and humidity provide for the growth of acne-causing bacteria and fungus. Sweat and pollution also pave the way for added skin challenges like inflammation, redness, and hyperpigmentation. It may sound like a lot at once for your skin to take but don’t worry! This blog will help you navigate through the skincare ingredients that will help you ace the summer face with readily available products like a salicylic acid cleanser or a calendula toner.

What Are The Common Skin Challenges During Summer?

• Acne Breakouts
• Folliculitis
• Melasma
• Heat Rash
• Suntan
• Sunburn
• Sun Allergy

How To Tackle These Summer Skin Challenge?

There should be a holistic approach to cater to your summer skin needs which includes proper intake of water thereby maintaining ample hydration levels along with ensuring proper hygiene, a healthy and balanced diet, wearing light, breathable fabrics, and added photoprotection by wearing hats, carrying umbrellas and more.

Curating a summer skincare routine to help tend to your specific and unique summer needs. The basic CTM skincare routine is now considered obsolete as lately, we have learned the significance of a caffeine sunscreen in our daily skincare routine and how it is a non-negotiable part of it, therefore, the revised basic skincare routine now includes the steps CSTMS (Cleanser, Toner, Moisturizer, and Sunscreen). 

Let’s Decode The Best Ingredients To Be Included In A Summer Skincare Routine

Cleanser

Summer brings about added heat and humidity that may cause congested skin and exacerbate skin conditions like acne and melasma therefore it is important to include an exfoliating face wash such as a salicylic acid cleanser.

• Salicylic Acid: Salicylic acid has a keratolytic action wherein it helps get rid of the dead skin layer and unplugs pores thereby choosing a Salicylic Acid Cleanser can be helpful to get rid of the dirt, sweat, or gunk accumulated throughout the day thereby also a great choice of cleanser for people with oily, acne-prone skin to help them effectively manage acne.
  
  
• Lactic Acid: Lactic acid is one of the mildest alpha-hydroxy acids that offers mild exfoliating action along with hydration. One can either include it in the form of a serum or as an exfoliating face wash, lactic acid is well tolerated by all skin types including the sensitive skin type therefore including a lactic acid face wash is advisable for all skin types to help with skin concerns like acne, melasma, uneven skin tone, congested skin etc.
  
  
• Pionin: Quartenium-73 or Pionin is an ideal ingredient for people with acne-prone skin as it has broad spectrum anti-microbial action along with the melanin inhibiting property which helps in preventing the growth of microbes along with efficiently providing an even skin tone thereby helps in minimizing suntan too.
  
  
• Neem: Neem is one of the widely used anti-microbial ingredients in the Ayurvedic system of Medicine for its multiple skin benefits and therefore is called “Sarva Roga Nivarini". Neem-infused cleansers are helpful in naturally alleviating skin symptoms of acne or fungal origin. It also further helps with deep pore cleansing and skin decongesting, a very necessary action required during the humid days of summer.

 

Toner

Toners were initially developed to help balance the skin’s natural pH in order to ensure its optimal health and with the advent of pH-balanced skincare products, most people consider toners as obsolete nowadays. But toners serve a greater purpose than just balancing skin pH. Certain toners are infused with ingredients like niacinamide, calendula, salicylic acid, and hyaluronic acid to cater to varied skin concerns.

Calendula Toner helps to soothe skin along with minimizing skin pores. Dry, irritated, dehydrated, and damaged skin types with open pores can opt for calendula toner to help minimize the appearance of pores along with the added soothing effects of calendula. 

Toners are the added step that prepares the skin for further layering of skincare products and assists in their better absorption.

Moisturizer

While most people tend to skip moisturizer during summer, it is one of the most essential steps of the skincare routine as it helps hydrate and moisturize the skin thereby ensuring skin’s optimal health.

Ingredients and labels that one should look out for in a summer-appropriate moisturizer:

• Ceramide: Ceramide moisturizers are a hit in the skincare verse lately and for good reasons, ceramides are the naturally found lipids in the skin barrier and make up around 40-50% of the skin’s barrier, ceramides, however, tend to deplete with time and therefore it is advised to compensate for it by the topical application of ceramides in the form of ceramide moisturizer.
  
  
• Non-comedogenic: This label pertains to the formulation of a moisturizer such that it does not clog the pores and thereby does not cause acne flare-ups.
  
  
• Rosa centifolia: Rosa centifolia extract has an astringent effect and helps tone the skin and further assists in minimizing the appearance of pores.
  
  
• Sandalwood: Sandalwood has skin-brightening properties and using a moisturizer infused with sandalwood could be a good choice to include in the summer skincare routine.
  
  
• Hyaluronic Acid: Hyaluronic acid helps in retaining water molecules on the epidermal layer and thereby ensures optimal skin hydration.

Sunscreen

Sunscreen has to be the essential part of any skincare routine and therefore becomes a non-negotiable and final step of the summer skincare routine. Including a caffeine sunscreen could be a game-changer this summer as caffeine is a potent antioxidant and therefore it not only helps in mitigating photodamage but also helps enhance the photoprotection factor by 25%. Therefore, look out for caffeine as a key ingredient while placing an order for sunscreen.

Hopefully, this blog helped you get an insight into decoding the ingredients of your skincare products this summer to ensure happy and healthy skin this summer.