Taking care of your skin is hard. It sounds obvious, but it’s the truth.

By now, you must have typed in “skin care tips” on Google and must have read tons of pointers and “miracle” cures to solve your skin concerns. Plus, you must be sick of hearing “seek a dermatologist for a life-changing result” right?

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Of course, a visit to a skin expert can actually get you out of your worries but not everyone has the luxury of time and money. Add to all misinformation out there on the internet, navigating to a clearer and healthier skin feels like a minefield.

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But we have some tips that you might want to note down. This by no means we are doctors nor near experts, but we’ve spent a fair share of research time to curate seven of out personal tips to tame down your skin care struggles. Let’s start off the list with a simple one.

Exfoliate less.

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The best tip to a healthier skin is to go easy on the exfoliating, like seriously. Using face scrubs or any exfoliants everyday doesn’t necessary promise you to a glass-like skin! Stop assuming that your skin breaks out because of insufficient scrubbing, instead you may over-scrubbed your face. What we can suggest you is to exfoliate only a few times a week and alternate with a gentler face wash.

Pillowcase is not just a pillowcase.

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You must have heard it multiple times by now that changing your sheet and pillowcases often is important for obvious cleanliness reasons, but do you know switching to silk pillowcases can make wonders to your skin? A nighttime routine is typically more heavy-duty and extensive compared to daytime’s, so it is expected to consist of nighttime oils and creams. With silk pillowcases, the products won’t stick to the pillow and eschew from bacterial transfer too often.

Follow the instructions, don’t just read it.

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If you don’t know, for each beauty products there are instructions written down on their labels. And what do instructions do? Yes, they instruct you. So, read them. Even though most of them might be obvious or by now already known as common sense, products that have active ingredients such as AHAs (glycolic acid or lactic acid), BHAs (salicylyc acid), PHAs (lactobionic acid), or retinol have specific times they should be used or amount of time they should be kept on your skin. Literally, they could save you from countless breakouts and freak outs.

Single ingredients are sometimes as powerful as complicated formulas.

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Let’s just use honey as an example. Honey is a powerful healing agent. Not only it is superb to heal cuts and scrapes, it is also as efficient in soothing sore throats when consumed orally. Using honey as face mask, it fights first sign of breakout — owing to it being a strong antibacterial agent, and keeps moisture to your skin — as it is humectant.

Dry skin and dehydrated skin; know the difference.

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One of the most shocking revelations in skin care is that not all dehydrated skin is dry skin! Really, sometimes when you thought that you are dry because of dry cheeks and chin, you might actually have dehydrated skin instead. The difference is if your skin is dry, you have fewer oil-producing glands while if you’re dehydrated, it means your skin is lacking water, not oil. So whereas dry skin is usually tight and itchy, dehydrated skin tends to have more redness, congestion and inflammation. So, take a step back and re-evaluate your skin because after this, you might want to stop using heavy moisturizers and opt for putting more water into your body.

Think of your routine as calculated trial and error.

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The best skin care tip is to treat yourself like a science experiment. Sounds scary but truth is, skin care is so personal so whatever that works for your sisters may not work for you. So, how to know what works best? Start with the basics (retinol, vitamin c, and hyaluronic acid) and see which reacts best to your skin. Try to eliminate as many variables as possible so you know which one is your skin’s wonder. It may take a while but you can’t discover the perfect regime without getting a little experiment.

Give the same love to the skin on your body as well.

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No, it doesn’t mean you have to use hyaluronic acid serum all over your body! Giving the same love to the skin on your body can be as basic as using exfoliating sponge once in a while. Just like our face, the dermal layers on our body also need a little bit of pick me up. Start of simple by for example using gentle body wash, exfoliate (but make sure to change your exfoliating sponge often to avoid more bacterial transfer) and lather on some good ol’ lotion.

Read this too: This Doctor is Saying That You Might be Using ‘Too Much’ Active Ingredients in Your Skin Care