To have a great skin regimen, you don’t necessarily need to have eight to nine products. There are skincare routines that are great for some who just want to use about three to four products a day and nothing more than that. 

The issue with having a lot of skincare products or large regimen is knowing that you have to apply each step at a time and kind of walk away as each one sets and then return and apply another.

For someone who’s traveling for work or on the go a lot, they don’t want to haul around eight products with them so there are many instances where it’s nicer to have a minimalist skincare routine. Actually, one of the many benefits of having fewer skin products is that there’s less risk of reaction. And if you do have a reaction to one of the products, it’s much easier to find out what it is that could be irritating or bothering your skin if you’re only using about three to four products. 

With someone who has dry skin, you definitely want to avoid alcohol in skincare products. However, not all alcohols in skincare are bad. There’s one called cetyl alcohol that is not a bad alcohol to use in skincare. Now, as a rule, it’s great to avoid sulfate-based products. MDPen products, of course, are sulfate-free, paraben-free, and EDTA free. Pretty much every product we have is organic.

Hydrating Cleanser

For a cleanser, you’d definitely want to cleanse twice a day. Whether you are a minimalist or not, our Hydrating Cleanser is going to be great for all skin types. It is PH balancing and again, you do not want to have sulfates in a cleanser that’s going to set off your skin. The last thing you want to do when you cleanse is strip all those natural oils that are great for protecting your skin throughout the day as well as in the evening. 

This is a very affordable cleanser and it does remove makeup. Just close your eyes and very gently do circles over the eye and makeup does come off. Great for double cleansing as well as great for men. It does suds up and leaves you feeling clean but it doesn’t give you a really tight feeling. A lot of times when you are cleansing and then your skin feels really tight, it’s because you have stripped those oils and you are setting off the pH of your skin.

Broad Spectrum SPF 30

Our sunscreen is SPF 30 UVA/UVB, which is both a chemical and a physical block. One of our goals for this year is to come up with a purely physical sunscreen. I know those are popular right now but whether you are a minimalist or not, you do want to have sunscreen on board.

MDPen SPF 30 is very light and packed with antioxidants. Everyone tends to really like the feeling it gives. It feels almost more like a lotion than a cream base. It does not leave any type of powdery residue or anything like that. This is also the sunscreen you can resume the day following a microneedling treatment. So, no matter what your skin type is, you will always find yourself loving our sunscreen. 

Tighten and Lift Serum

We talk a lot about our Tighten and Lift Serum as being used for people with acne- prone, oily, or combination skin. But this also can be a product for dry or mature skin—as strange as that sounds—because it contains a little bit of lactic acid in it. And lactic acid is actually a smoothing ingredient. It is a great moisture barrier protection while also being a repairing exfoliant at the same time, so lactic acid is really going to be a good standard for dry skin. 

Do not think that Tighten and Lift Serum is just for oily or combination skin types. This is going to be an amazing product. However, it’s not going to be enough moisture for people with dry skin, so we need to bring on board the ReVita Peptide as well.     

ReVita Peptide Cream

ReVita Peptide is going to be a day and night cream. Ceramides, squalene, amino acids, jojoba oil, primrose oil, HA, and also growth factors are in this product, which can also go on the neck. 

Cleanser, Tighten and Lift Serum, sunscreen, and ReVita Peptide are four products out there—that’s a great regimen. 

Now, you may also want to use things that are great for natural lipids for the skin such as the Jojoba oil, and sweet almond oil that are in the Tighten and Lift Serum which is why it is also good for dry skin, and also sunflower oil, which is in some of our products as well.     

Vitamin C + E Brightening Serum

If you have hyperpigmentation and you want to hydrate your skin and you are a minimalist, another thing you can do is cleanse twice a day and use our Vitamin C and E Brightening Serum again with ReVita Peptide Cream. You can actually use these together in the morning if you want to just put a few drops of Vitamin C and E serum or if you want to give sunscreen a boost, you can put it right in there. So this is going to be great for that person who loves antioxidants but is a minimalist—this is probably something I would do.

To be honest, I’m also known to use Vitamin C twice a day even though I probably don’t need to, but I just love antioxidants. But you could definitely do a couple drops of our Vitamin C and E Brightening with the ReVita Peptide as well. That would be a small regimen on its own.  

Cellular Renewal Serum

If you have sensitive skin, I will definitely tell you that you need to be checking out our Cellular Renewal product. This is going to be great for really sensitive skin types. The knotgrass, red algae, and aloe in this wonderful product are going to protect the oils on the skin. This is going to feel a little bit more moisturizing than the Tighten and Lift Serum. This can definitely be used twice a day, so this could be used, of course, with sunscreen, cleanser, and ReVita Peptide, or you could just do plain HA to lock it in.

As an aesthetician, I’m a believer that when you use HA, you really should take it as far as a daily regimen to lock in your other skincare products. So, if you’re just cleansing and putting HA on your skin, it’s not going to necessarily be as great of a result as if you were using something else prior to using the HA. So those could pair really well for a sensitive skin pattern. 

Copper + HA Mist

Now for acneic skin, I can definitely give you an MDPen regimen for a minimalist with acne-prone skin. For this, again, you will use our hydrating cleanser, and I would definitely recommend using Copper + HA Mist twice a day.

You will need, if you have active acne, a product outside our product line. Perhaps you will need a prescription from a dermatologist or an active acne-type product; however, I would definitely use our cleanser and our Copper + HA Mist twice a day.

And for that, I would probably do our Tighten and Lift Serum in the morning and our Retinol at night. And if you’re super-oily acneic, I would just go straight to the 1% Retinol cream from MDPen. So that would be your product for acneic minimalists. 

Now, when you think of a toner, toners are not meant to strip the skin. The purpose of a toner is to balance the pH of the skin and to moisturize or protect the barrier, which is exactly what our Copper + HA Mist Serum can do. So that’s why I would also select that product. We know it has trace minerals in it as well as the HA, which is going to be perfect for the acne-prone person. The zinc is going to really balance those oils and sebum production as well as having those nice antimicrobial properties.

Questions and Answers:

Can you share a standard skincare routine for all skin types?

Yes, I can. So if you want to go as minimal as possible for all skin types, I would do our Hydrating Cleanser, I would do our ReVita Peptide, and I would do our sunscreen. If you’re willing to bring a fourth product on board, I would add the Retinol 1.0% at night. That would be a regimen of four products. This would be straight across the board. Now, it’s hard to say “all” skin types because someone with acne probably cannot tolerate the ReVita Peptide Cream twice a day. There’s some that might, but if you have active acne and pustules, this is not your product for using twice a day. It does have a little bit of Shea butter in it, and it does have ceramides and those oils added as well, so this may be too much. However, normal skin across the board. This is going to be a great regimen. If you’re only willing to use the four products, it’s going to be these with Retinol, so Cleanser, SPF 30, ReVita Peptide Cream, and Retinol 1.0%.

Is ReVita Peptide OK with oily skin?    

Yes. To clarify, the ReVita Peptide is OK for oily skin. But if you are someone with active pustules and papules and acne-prone oily, I would not use this product twice a day. It might be OK for you to do this post-microneedling, post-peeling, things like this, but you’re not going to use this twice-a-day. 

If you are acne-prone and using Retinol, is it OK to use ReVita Peptide as your moisturizer?

No, I wouldn’t recommend it. I would use one of our other ones—the Cellular Renewal if you’re constantly recovering from breakouts. This is a wonderful healing serum, again, red algae, knotgrass, and aloe, so you would be doing this. You could always do Copper + HA Mist first and then our Retinol. However, most people that are, if they do have active acne and they are a young person, they usually have oily skin. I will tell you that our Retinol by itself is probably going to give them enough moisture at night. It is loaded with ceramides and it does have niacinamide in it, so you have that vitamin B there. So if you’re oily, our Retinol is going to be enough for you at night as far as moisturization goes, so really no need to mix the ReVita Peptide. As much as I love that product, you don’t need to overdo it.

And outside of our skincare line, I think when people have dry skin, they think that they need the creamiest, the thickest product. It’s not always the best so don’t think of it that way.

How many times do you recommend exfoliating the skin?

OK, I think you probably need it per week. Maybe in most instances, it will be about two times a week for active exfoliants, depending on the person, depending on how many treatments they have done. However, products like Retin-A, Retinol, alpha hydroxy acid are exfoliants, so even our Vitamin C+E Brightening Serum has those alpha-hydroxy acids in them from fruit enzymes. So you’re using it every day as an exfoliant. It’s not going to be super harsh, but that is what this is.

For someone who has a completely normal skin regimen and is a minimalist, I would say hydrating cleanser, sunscreen, ReVita Peptide and Retinol if they’re willing to do four. If they’re willing to do just three, cleanse twice a day, put on your ReVita Peptide moisturizer, and in the morning, use your SPF 30. So that’s three products right there. 

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