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I’ve shared before my love that squeaky clean feeling I get from washing my face with a gel or foaming face wash. As I’ve gotten older, and as balm cleansers have become more prevalent, I’ve expanded my cleansing horizons and embraced many types of non-sudsy cleansers. Now, a skin care trend that has been gaining a lot of traction of late, double cleansing, has allowed me to have my skin care cake and eat it too. I can use a balm and a foaming cleanser all in one night! Dreams do come true, people.
Why Double Cleanse?
If you’re reading this from New York City, Los Angeles or any other major metropolitan city with major metro city air quality, I’m hoping you understand why. Ditto if you’re someone who wears a full face of makeup every day. And I know EVERYONE READING THIS wears some sort of SPF everyday, right? Well, the thing about SPF is, it’s is formulated to stay on your skin! When you add all these up, you can begin to see why a single 20-second sudsing is just not going to cut it, and by it I mean all the grease, grime, oil, dirt, makeup, sweat and SPF.
Nighttime Treatment Products are Pricey!
It feels good to get all the remains of the day off your face before bed. But feeling so fresh and so clean isn’t the only reason you should double cleanse. The cleaner your face is before you put on your night time treatment products, the better those products – and all their lovely active ingredients – will penetrate the layers of the skin. Serums, night creams and face oils can be very expensive, so it makes sense to do all you can to get the most bang for your buck from them. Double cleansing is the keys to the kingdom.
Finding your perfect routine and favorite products is a very personal journey you’ll have to undergo on your own. As a starting point, here is what I do during my nightly double cleansing.
First cleanse: I love a balm for this. Emma Hardie and Supernatural Beauty make great ones. If you’ve fallen in love with a cleansing oil, that is great for a first cleanse as well. Supernatural Beauty Glorious Cleansing Balm is quite thick, so it takes longer to remove than Emma Hardie Moringa Cleansing Balm, but it also has sodium bicarbonate in it, so it has a very gentle buffing action. If I’m wearing mascara, I make sure to gently apply the balm to eyes and lashes. Never rubbing back and forth, but closing my eyes, then taking my fingertips (covered in balm) and gently wiping from base of lashes to tips. I do this a few times. Then I cover the rest of my face and neck in the balm, really massaging it in. Because the balms emulsify into oil, massaging them into my skin feels so soothing. At the end of my day, this is always a welcome relaxing ritual. Often, I’ll leave the balm on my skin while I read to my kids before they they go to bed. Letting the balm really work its magic leaves my skin looking extra fresh and luminous. I always use a washcloth to remove. Moringa Cleansing Balm comes with its own, but any washcloth will do. Make sure to machine wash between each use.
NOTE: If you have a lot of eye makeup on, you may want to precede this first step with some eye makeup remover, so you don’t have to go over your lashes and lids too many times with the cleansing balm.
Second cleanse: This is when I use a more traditional face wash. I have several that I choose from, depending on what I did that day. (Did I workout? Was I out in the sun and applied extra SPF? Did I just Netflix and chill?) If I want a deeper clean, I’ll use Ursa Major Fantastic Face Wash. For a more gentle, yet still thorough wash, Sapelo Skin Care Rosemary Cleanser is wonderful. If my skin is congested due to hormonal changes, I’ll use Jillian Wright Congested Cleanser. This second cleanse gets all traces of the balm off my skin, as well as any lingering eye makeup. My skin feels amazingly fresh and ready for all my treatment products…which are a blog unto themselves!
NOTE: I skip my second cleanse if I am using one of my exfoliating peel products. On those nights, I will just use one of the “second cleanse” cleansers, followed by my peeling product of choice.
Have you tried double cleansing? Let us know in the comments below!