How to create the ideal summer skincare routine

An expert breaks it down.

Our skin reacts to the elements around us, so it’s important to create skincare routines for every season to keep your skin looking and feeling healthy. Now that summer is on its way in we need to be more mindful of elements like the sun, chemicals found in swimming pools and air conditioning, as they can affect sensitive skin and cause patches of red, itchy and flaky skin.

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Below, a specialist in aesthetic medicine and owner of SkinMiles, Dr Alek Nikolic, has shared some of his tips on how to create your own summer skincare regime.

Try a different moisturiser

The first thing you should think about swopping out your moisturiser. Try switching to a lightweight moisturiser to keep your skin hydrated in summer without overloading it.

Exfoliate

The next step is exfoliation, which welcomes in summer glow. Many are hesitant to exfoliate during summer, but exfoliating regularly prevents acne by opening pores and removing dead skin cells, product build-up and excess oils.

Overdoing exfoliation, however, can leave your skin irritated. I suggest incorporating a gentle exfoliator into your skincare routine once a week during the warmer months. My preferred exfoliators are products that use gentle acids like glycolic, citric, salicylic and lactic acid to help slough away pore-cloggers.

Sun protection

SPF ratings can be misleading as it is a rough guide to how well a sunscreen will protect your skin from harmful UVB rays. SPF protection works differently for everyone because it really depends on a number of factors namely, skin type, the amount applied, and intensity of sunlight.

To calculate how much protection your skin needs, start by looking at how long it takes for your skin unprotected to start burning. Then multiply that number in minutes by the SPF rating given to the product you’re using. For example, if you usually burn after five minutes of unprotected sun exposure and you are wearing an SPF 15, then you’ll get 75 minutes of protection.