Beauty Hacks to Keep Your Skin Healthy and Glowing at Home

For going on three years, our faces have been at the forefront of our daily lives. With so much attention on our skin (hello, masks and Zoom calls), it might feel like it’s time to give it a little extra love — after all, prioritizing healthy skin is not just about getting glowing skin, but also about maintaining our overall health.

Because we don’t all have the time (or the budget) to always run to our local esthetician for treatments, these 10 tips and hacks from local beauty experts are here to help you improve — and keep up with — your skincare routine from the comforts of your home. Bonus: A step-by-step guide on giving yourself a no-tools-needed face massage.

While the sun’s rays provide essential nutrients and vitamins our bodies need, across the board our experts agree that protecting against overexposure year round is the most important part of maintaining healthy skin, reducing premature aging, and protecting against skin cancer. Sure, no one wants to have a greasy face all day, but according to Becky Fenlan, practice coordinator at About Face Skin Care, you don’t have to. She says there are plenty of tinted moisturizers, powders, and other products in which SPF is already included (so read the label to make sure the one you’re using or buying includes it), and that many oil-free products are so light you will forget you are even wearing any.

Another great way to protect your skin against the sun is to use a vitamin C product, says Viviane Aires, local esthetician and founder of Viviane Aires Skin Wellness. While it might be tough to remember to reapply SPF-included products every two or three hours, she says ones that feature vitamin C will help build immunity to catch and protect against anything coming into contact with your skin when the SPF might have worn off.

While sometimes it might feel easier to take a full shower than wash your face before bed, don’t skip this step. That’s because throughout the day, our faces are exposed to endless bacteria. Luckily, “our skin is composed of many layers which act like a factory both keeping bacteria and harmful substances out of the body, while simultaneously excreting toxins out of the body,” says Jewellee Williams, owner of Crown Jewel Esthetics. At night, the pros suggest cleansing your face twice, once with an oil-based cleanser to remove makeup and sunscreen, and then a second time with your typical cleanser to remove any residual up.

Tirzah Blair, owner of Kári Skin, recommends adding a pea-size amount of clay to your cleanser for a deeper cleanse, or incorporating some baking soda for added exfoliation. She says it’s important to exfoliate the skin two to three times a week to ensure products absorb into the skin.

We are all guilty of washing our face with warm water to “open our pores,” but the increased absorption of products from this method is a myth. Aires recommends splashing your face with cold water to better eliminate toxins. “Doing so helps to stimulate the receptivity of the skin, which enhances the absorption of products and also increases blood flow,” she says.

Cold products are also great for reducing inflammation — think ice packs on an injury. If you can’t book a cryo treatment, Aires recommends using beauty products such as eye patches, creams, moisturizers, face masks, and jade rollers in the fridge to keep them cold and better reduce inflammation. (Just don’t forget they are in there!)

If you need to reduce some inflammation around your eyes, Blair suggests placing thinly sliced cucumbers on your eyes for 15 minutes. The vitamin C and hydrating nature of the cucumbers can aid in brightening and de-puffing the area. You can even try green tea or chamomile tea bags instead; incorporating some caffeine into products works to constrict blood vessels, which in turn, can reduce inflammation and brighten the eyes.