When I tell you I horrified my coworkers, I mean I horrified my coworkers.
I am almost too ashamed to say why. Almost.
But fuck it: On occasion, I used to wash my face with dish soap. This wasn’t a daily routine, mind you, but rather something I’d do if my face was feeling especially greasy or dirty.
So yeah, friends, coworkers, my own fiancée — “Tim, that is not something you tell people” — were all disturbed that I’d scrub down my face with Dawn and Palmolive. But I didn’t mind. I was part of the Skincare Darkweb (™), and I did not need the internet’s overwrought, fancy routines involving serums, creams, masks, and other things I didn’t understand.
Image: Tim Marcin / Slack Screenshot / Mashable
To be fair, beyond perpetually red cheeks, I’ve been lucky enough to have relatively clear skin my whole life. Even in my teenage years, I didn't have much acne. I never went to a dermatologist. So, my entire adult life, my skincare routine consisted of basically washing my face and body (and, in college, hair) with whatever body wash happened to be in the shower.
I picked up the dish soap maneuver from an article by Amanda Mull in Mel Magazine, which presented the idea as an utterly hinged thing a man did. Mull wrote that it was "for lack of a better description, fucking wild."
"I just want to point out that they use over-the-counter dish soap to clean animals that get caught in oil spills!" said the man identified only as a 33-year-old named Barry. "If it’s good enough for them, it’s more than good enough for me."
That made sense to me. So I did it. I'm not sorry.
To be clear: I didn't think my dish soap routine was necessarily good or right, I just didn't care to do anything else. With time — and after internalizing the horror of people smarter than me — I decided maybe I was being shortsighted. Or at least I should try something else. It's probably not ideal to have absolutely no skincare routine. I didn't think I'd ever be a person to have an elaborate, 20-minute skincare ordeal, but it might be worth seeing if basic products and a simple routine was better than Dawn.
So I hit up an expert. Well, I hit up an expert who knows experts, Mashable's own Chloe Bryan, who was well aware of, and disturbed by, my fucked up skincare habits. She was happy — nay relieved — to help, which led to me getting in touch with Dr. Jeremy Fenton at the Schweiger Dermatology Group in New York.
Image: Slack Screenshot / Mashable
First: Dr. Fenton wasn't really horrified about my dish soap practice. He sounded more incredulous, like why the hell would one even think to do that.
"Dish soap is designed to be extremely efficient at removing grease, which is oil," he explained. "It's not designed to be gentle on your skin. It's designed to be harsh on your pots and pans."
In short: Stripping that much oil off your face runs the risk of making your face more sensitive to irritation. It could also alter the pH of you face, making your skin less acidic and less protective.
Thankfully, Dr. Fenton broke down the basics of what I should do instead. I'd need a face wash, a moisturizer, zinc sunscreen, and a retinol. I'd wash my face twice a day, moisturize at least twice per day, use sunscreen every day, and use retinol every other day.
For the face wash and moisturizer, Dr. Fenton told me I didn't need to go wild and spend big bucks. He recommended three major brands: Neutrogena, Cetaphil, and CeraVe. None of the products were super expensive and the face washes came in different styles for dry or oily skin.
"I usually tell people: You don't need a fancy face wash. You just need something gentle to cleanse the skin twice a day," Dr. Fenton said. "And moisturizer is obviously important. Again, I usually tell people, if your goal is simply to moisturize your skin, you don't need to spend a lot of money."
After a bit of perusing, I ordered Neutrogena face wash ($5.97) and Cetaphil moisturizer ($12.88) from Amazon. I wish I were joking but I was shocked — legit shocked — to learn there are face-specific moisturizers. I used to just slap on Vaseline aloe lotion whenever my face felt particularly dry. (By the way, I still contend that is a very good lotion.)
Image: Amazon / screenshot
Image: Amazon / Screenshot
The place where you might have to spend a bit more cash, Dr. Fenton said, was buying retinol — a serum that should smooth and refine your skin's texture — and sunscreen, which are both helpful for anti-aging. And, yes, Rihanna is correct. Dr. Fenton insisted I apply sunscreen every single day.
"You just make it part of your normal routine, whether or not it's raining, cloudy, winter, if you're just going outside for a minute," Dr. Fenton said, adding even if you're just by a window you need sunscreen. He suggested an at least 30 SPF sunscreen that has zinc oxide as its only active ingredient.
"Zinc oxide gives you broad spectrum coverage, it doesn't degrade in sunlight, and it's the least irritating," Dr. Fenton explained.
This, too, was a complete lifestyle shift. I'm white, but relatively olive-skinned from my Italian descent, and pretty much only wore sunscreen if I planned to sit on the beach all day. Even then, I usually would go with SPF 15 because I still wanted to get tan. I was blown away that, apparently, I was being reckless. Whoops.
After buying sunscreen, I got a retinol, which I used every other evening because it sort of dried out my skin. Dr. Fenton said it was a powerful anti-aging tool.
"Retinols have been proven to not only, in the short term, improve the appearance of the skin by exfoliating, removing some pigment irregularities, [and make] fine lines and wrinkles look better — but over the long term, it has been shown to help promote collagen production and improve skin recovery from damage," he said.
I settled on buying a SPF 50 Neutrogena sunscreen ($10.97) and a CeraVe retinol serum ($16.97). In total, I spent $46.79. Dr. Fenton also suggested maybe trying out an antioxidant serum but that shit was way too expensive for my tastes.
I'm not sure how long my four items will last me, but I've been doing the routine for a month now and I'm not even close to finishing any of the products. I feel like that's not a bad deal.
Image: Amazon / Screenshot
Image: Amazon / SCreenshot
I followed Dr. Fenton's advice pretty religiously for about a month, although a couple of times I got mixed up and forgot which day I was supposed to apply the retinol.
Going into it, I felt like having a routine was going to require more work. Perhaps that's because I'd read so much about skincare online and knew there was this whole complicated subculture. But washing my face twice a day, putting on a few creams, it didn't seem like too much. I'd say, in total, it was like five minutes of effort per day.
Still, sometimes I'd be annoyed. I'd slide into bed and think "shit, I forgot to wash my face." I'd have to slink out to the bathroom and wash my face, then moisturize.
OK, so did it work? I don't know, maybe?
I did not notice any shocking changes in my face. But then again, acne has never been a huge problem for me. I get the occasional zit, which happened about a week into my new routine. That cracked me up — of course, I stop dish soap and then BAM — but I think that was mostly a coincidence.
Otherwise things looked normal, or maybe a little better. I perhaps got a bit red at times from the retinol, but also, my face has always had reddish bumps and rosy cheeks. Here are photos from the start and end of my experience. I'd say there were no drastic changes beyond my at-home buzzcut and a shave. If anything, I notice a little less blotchiness, but that could also be a product of lighting.
Image: Tim Marcin / Mashable
Now, I'm not saying using the right products does nothing. Body wash, dish soap, and aloe lotion is an idiotic skincare routine. I'm well aware. I'm just saying that one month in there isn't some whoa difference.
And not for nothing, when I asked my fiancée if she noticed a difference, she said, "Yeah, maybe." I suspect that was a white lie to reinforce non-deranged behavior moving forward.
Also, while the aesthetic differences weren't massive, my skin did feel a bit different. I noticed that it felt smoother, a bit cleaner, the right amount of oily. I was also more aware when it was dried out.
I probably won't be as regimented with my skincare routine in the future. I will definitely keep using the face wash. Honestly, it just feels nice to use a gentle scrub. I suspect I'll use the moisturizer pretty regularly, apply sunscreen sometimes, and use retinol when I remember. But if I forget to wash my face and I'm already in bed, you can bet your ass I'm staying tucked-in from now on.
And as for dish soap. Well, I guess I have to listen to the doctor on that one.
"Save the dish soap for the dishes," Dr. Fenton said.
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