Don’t you just love the feeling of the warm sun on your bare skin in the summertime? This is what a no-makeup-summer feels like. Your skincare routine can be simple and help the best of your skin come through, without covering it with makeup in the summer heat. If you’re looking to join our no-makeup summer revolution, here are our esthetician-approved picks for the best summer skin you’ve ever had.

How to protect your skin in the heat

Think about how leather ages when sitting in the sun for long periods of time. It gets dry, and could become damaged, and begins to wrinkle. Time outdoors can dry out the skin, too. And when exposed to the sun, dry skin leads to an excess of dead skin. Rise in temperatures causes us to sweat. And sweat can also lead to dehydration and cause more oil production on our faces. When sweat mixes with dead skin cells, you get acne - ugh! Air conditioning can also negatively affect your skin by removing moisture from the air, leading to dry skin and dehydration. 

So, how do you care best for your skin in the summer heat?

Swap in, Swap out

In the summertime, you don’t want to congest your skin with too many ingredients. Our go-to’s are oils and hydrosols. They’re lightweight and formulated with essential ingredients that help aid your skin in healing and protect it from the environment. In colder weather, we want an occlusive, heavier barrier to protect our skin from the chill and wind and to prevent water loss when you’re using a heater daily. In the warmer months, you can skip the emollients and simplify your routine using face oils combined with serums. This is a perfect deconstructed moisturizer that has a light feeling on the skin.

Your skin, just like leather, if you care for it and treat it with oils, it can stay supple and smooth, even with prolonged exposure plus wear and tear. Our skin needs a little bit of oil to help keep our barrier intact but without emulsifiers (the ingredients that bind oil and water) in a traditional moisturizer that can clog pores in hot weather. We add in hydrosols, choosing a hydrosol that best fits our skin's needs. When paired with our Hydrating Serum, the hyaluronic acid molecules will absorb the hydrosol, holding it, and bringing deeper hydration into the skin. Before applying SPF, layer our sun-safe retinoid Well Serum, Wisdom Oil or Replenishing Facial Oil as a lightweight moisturizer to protect your skin from the environment.

Here’s a general summer regimen for most skin types:

AM Routine

Cleanse: Balancing Oil Cleanser (comes in travel size too!) 
Tone: Hydrosol + Hydrating Serum
Moisturize: Well Serum or Replenishing Facial Oil
Protect: SPF 

PM Routine

Cleanse: Balancing Oil Cleanser to remove makeup and SPF, double cleanse with Gentle Cleanser or Essential Enzymes to add mild exfoliation to the mix.
Tone: Hydrosol and Hydrating Serum
Moisturize: Wisdom Oil 
Repair: Soothing Repair Mask one to two times a week, or after too much sun exposure. You can leave it on overnight for extra hydration. To fight redness and inflammation, mix it with Flower Mask to soothe your skin to the max.   

If you’re looking to build your own personalized summer skincare routine, take our skin quiz. Our in-house master estheticians will suggest Botnia products to let your best skin shine through.

Celebrate no-makeup-summer with us and get the healthiest skin of your life!

Xo,
Botnia