Skincare doesn’t have to be complicated.

Walk into any big box store or mall, and you’ll be inundated by different brands offering shelves upon shelves of creams and potions. Globally, skincare is a $100 billion industry.

But you don’t need dozens of products crowding your bathroom.

Let’s walk through how to assemble a basic skincare routine that works for your skin type.

There are five basic components we’ll walk through, three of them can be done morning and evening, and two can be done just once a day. See? That’s not too complicated at all.

First, we’ve got to prep our skin to benefit from other products by making sure we’re regularly exfoliating.

Next up: Cleansing.

If you’re skipping washing your face every morning and evening, then getting into the habit will change your skin.

When you skip cleansing, you’re letting dirt, debris, and dead skin cells clog your pores.

Cleansing doesn’t have to mean scrubbing away with a harsh soap though! There are plenty of gentle options.

When you’re choosing a cleanser there are a ton of options, but here are some guidelines:

• Avoid overly drying cleansers. So many mass market scrubs, foams, and soaps have taken oil-fighting to the extreme and can leave your skin over-dried. Which, in a cruel twist, leads your skin to over-produce oil!

• If you struggle with acne, look for astringent ingredients like salicylic acid.

• If you have dry skin, consider an oil cleanser for extra-gentle cleaning power.

These Cleansers are specifically formulated to provide different benefits for different skin types.

• For dry skin: Our Tallow Cleansing Balm. We’ve packed it with beneficial botanicals like lavender flowers to calm your skin (and your mood), calendula flowers to promote healing and circulation, lemon peel and rose buds for their antimicrobial properties. Oil cleansing has become more popular the last few years after decades of women avoiding anything with oil. We recommend using our cleansing balm one to three times per week.

• For people who like easy, simple bar cleansers.

Bar soaps aren’t usually meant for washing your face, and you might be used to avoiding bars for facial cleansing.

But not all bars are created equal.

And we’ve created a great lineup of tallow soaps that each have unique skin benefits.

Calendula Flower Soap

Calendula is a flower that’s long been used in herbal medicine for skin healing. It has anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, and antibacterial properties (yes that’s a lot of properties for one ingredient!). This cleansing bar is especially helpful for sensitive complexions, babies, and those with eczema.

Simply Unscented Soap

If you’re looking for a simple, basic cleanser that has the goodness of tallow, and no added fragrances or botanicals, then this is the bar for you! It’s has our smallest ingredient list, but it’s a perennial customer favorite for its effectiveness on sensitive, reaction-prone skin.

• For those who want an all-in-one solution: Myrrh & Frankincense Soap

This soap has all the rich creamy goodness of water buffalo tallow, and water buffalo milk! Plus it’s great for face and body. If you’re looking for a way to Marie Kondo your cleansers, count on this one to spark your joy.

• For oily skin: Charcoal & Green Clay Soap

De-toxifiy your skin and clear your pores with activated charcoal and French green clay. Unlike other deep cleansers, this bar won’t over dry your skin, since it still has nourishing tallow, olive oil, and castor oil. It’s perfect for acne-prone complexions.

• For gentle exfoliation: The Milk & Honey FACIAL BAR.

We created these small bars to be a powerhouse of skincare. We used ingredients like:

Prickly pear butter that’s rich in Vitamin K and can jump-start collagen production.

Organic honey that moisturizes your skin, cleanses your pores with anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties and has glycolic acid to exfoliate.

Camel milk powder - yes, this is a real ingredient, and it’s jam-packed with AHA that exfoliates, plus a range of vitamins and antioxidants for anti-aging benefits.

Once you’ve chosen a cleanser, it’s time to consider toning. This is a step that can feel “extra” but once you try it, you won’t go back.

Toning helps balance your skin’s ph levels and it sets your skin up for absorbing your other products well.

• For sensitive skin: Refresh Toning Mist

Balance and renew your skin with witch hazel, rosemary, spearmint, kombucha tea extract, and green tea extract. Yes - all those amazing ingredients are in this toner.

• For dry skin & as part of an anti-aging routine: Hydrate Toning Mist

Shalley packed this formula with botanical hydrosols to boost your skin’s radiance like cucumber, rose, sandalwood, and Helichrysum. But the real star ingredient is the Hyaluronic Acid that restores skin’s moisture and protects against aging.

• For oily skin or as part of a brightening routine: Brightening Toning Mist

Brighten, even, and tone your skin tone with this easy-breezy mist. It’s made with apple cider vinegar to cut through oil, orange blossom hydrosol to calm redness, and organic honey to calm, soothe, and deter bacteria.

Once your skin is toned, it’s time to moisturize.

Daily life can dehydrate skin, and failing to moisturize can lead to both dry flaky patches and oily patches as your skin has to overcompensate for dryness.

Quick note: healthy skin means healthy inside and out, so nourish your skin internally by drinking mineral rich water and eating your healthy animal fats.

Moisturizing is the third step you want to make sure you’re incorporating into both your morning and evening routine.

Remember: a lot of the skincare products you use get rinsed away, but moisturizers get longer time periods to soak in. So choosing a moisturizer with premium ingredients is a smart move.

                                                           

• For a nourishing, deep moisturizer, our signature tallow balms hit the spot. Shalley has created an array of tallow balms from basic and simple to infused with actives that target concerns for aging skin.

• For aching muscles… have you ever used a product with emu oil?

Our supplier for our Tallow & Emu Balm is a local Georgia emu farm where these impressive birds roam free, eating a varied diet and leading generally happy emu lives. What that means for you, is that our emu oil is pure, uncut with other oils, and full of anti-inflammatory and analgesic qualities, making it ideal for sore muscles and use after workouts.

For maturing skin, you’ll want to look for deeply emollient ingredients, antioxidants that can help fight the aging stressors our skin faces every day. Luckily for you, we’ve got just the thing. Our anti-aging balm uses the same homegrown water buffalo tallow, and adds in powerful botanical ingredients all designed to fight wrinkles and environmental damage to keep your skin healthy, nourished, and glowing.

And as the last part of your routine before stepping out for the day, if you’re going to be spending time outdoors, you’ll want to think about sun protection.

Sunscreen is a tricky thing. We know that direct sun exposure is the only way our bodies can naturally synthesize Vitamin D. And it’s an essential nutrient that most Americans are low in.

However, we also know too much sun exposure can lead to premature aging, and in some cases, skin cancer.

But to make it even more complicated, the chemicals in commercially available sunscreens can can have hormonal effects, the extent of which are still unknown. So it can seem like a case of choosing a lesser evils between sun damage and toxic sunscreens.

For your face: Day Balm with UV Protection is has sunscreen properties. We don’t sell it has a sunscreen and but estimate that it has SPF of 28-30. Plus, the antioxidants the coffee provides helps repair UV damage.

(Psst: We are continually adding sun care products to our offerings.  Keep following our posts & emails to find out more!)

Remember, keeping your skin hydrated helps prevent burning. Both tallow and emu oil greatly hydrate and tone the skin.

Your basic skincare routine is established. Go you!!

Have questions about choosing the best products for your own skin type? Get in touch and we’ll be happy to chat all things skincare routines.