Kenneth Byrne: Perfect Summer Skin In Just 5 Steps?!

Originally published as Perfect Summer Skin In Just 5 Steps?! from the Mario Badescu Skin Care Blog.

I’ll be the first to admit that I often slip up when it comes to committing to weekly DIY at-home facial treatments. Neither time nor patience has been on my side lately, and my skin suffered as a result of good ol’ negligence.

(Moral of the story? Do as I say and not as I do. Unless we’re in the same boat…in which case, follow away!)

I highly recommend booking it to our salon for a classic European facial to sort your complexion out. But, if you’re out of time (or just not in the area), here’s what you can do:

1. Get deep-cleaning. What you are in desperate need of is deep clean and thorough exfoliating session to rid your skin of all that dulling, pore-clogging buildup. Trust this miracle-making duo to make your skin look clear as day and soft as a baby’s bottom:

Start with the Botanical Exfoliating Scrub. Finely ground Ecuadorian Ivory Palm seeds do the manual labor here, buffing away dead surface skin cells and other gunk to reveal softer, smoother skin. You really want to work the product: massage it in circular motions, focusing on the T-zone and around the nose where buildup loves to, well, build up.

Then, you follow with the Glycolic Foaming Cleanser. Glycolic Acid is great because its molecules are smaller—which enables it to actually penetrate pores for a truly deep clean. With most of the surface buildup gone, this Holy Grail (HG) exfoliant is able to really get in good.

2. Bust those blackheads. After exfoliating, sweep over your skin quickly with some toner. (I used the Cucumber Cleansing Lotion because of its gentle antiseptic properties—essential after a good scrub sesh—but any toner that’s right for your skin will do the work just fine.) Dampen a cotton pad and start gently applying Silver Powder wherever you see congestion: typically, that means between the brows, on the nose, around the nose, on the chin, and sometimes on the cheek area too. After 10 minutes, wipe clean with the same toner. I won’t even tell you how incredible the results are: see/read for yourself over at Refinery29, where we won in the acne category.

3. Mask it. We’re not done yet. When I want clarifying and beautifying, I mean it. So next up is your favorite mask. I prefer one of our tonic masks to further draw impurities from the skin and brighten up my complexion. Summer skin needs all the help it can get in the decongesting department.

4. It’s super important to get any and all mask residue off your face. Cleanse well and tone too. Again, the products you use will depend on your skin type, but I highly recommend a skin-brightening formula. Dry, sensitive types will love our Alpha-Grapefruit Cleansing Lotion; combo/dry skin will adore our Glycolic Acid Toner; and if you’re combo/oily like me, the Glycolic Grapefruit Cleansing Lotion will do the trick.

5. Brighten + hydrate! We’re all about that glow—winter, spring, summer, or fall. (All you have to do is call….) Now that your skin is pretty much blackhead-free and feelin’ all sorts of beautiful, go for the finishing touch. After all that deep cleaning, a few drops of our Vitamin C Serum is guaranteed to make you look like a million bucks. Or, like you’ve just gotten a facial.

Five steps. Maybe 40 minutes total, tops.

I told you so.

. . .

Originally published as Perfect Summer Skin In Just 5 Steps?! from the Mario Badescu Skin Care Blog.