In my late 20's, I thought I had skincare figured out. My approach was simple. When my skin looked tired or dull, I bought something better. A more expensive cream, a prettier jar, a brand that felt like an upgrade. I believed that if I spent enough, the product would do the work for me.
I was wrong about that, and it took me years to understand why. Now I am 50, I formulate skincare for a living, and I have spent a long time studying what actually makes a difference over decades. The honest answer is not what I would have wanted to hear at 27.
WHAT I THOUGHT A GOOD ROUTINE WAS
Buy the good cream. Use it when I remembered. Replace it with something better when it stopped feeling exciting. That was it. I did not think about consistency. I did not think about what I was doing to my skin in between. And I certainly did not think about sunscreen unless I was going to the beach. I was treating skincare as a purchase. It is a habit.
THE THREE THINGS I ACTUALLY REGRET
1. Skipping sunscreen on ordinary days
This is the one I would change first. I wore sunscreen on vacation. I did not wear it driving, walking to lunch, or sitting near a window. It did not feel like sun exposure, so it did not feel like it counted.
The research on this is unusually clear for skincare. A randomized trial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine followed adults for four and a half years. The daily sunscreen group showed no detectable increase in skin aging over that period, and had 24% less skin aging than the group who used it only when they felt like it.
Four and a half years. Now imagine the difference across twenty. No cream I bought in my 20's could compete with that, and no cream I formulate today can either. Sunscreen is the step I most wish I had taken seriously, and it is the cheapest one.
2. Treating skincare as a purchase instead of a habit
I bought beautiful products and used them inconsistently. A few weeks on, a few weeks off, then something new. What I understand now as a formulator is that almost nothing in skincare works that way. Formulas are designed around regular use. The bakuchiol study I often reference ran for twelve weeks of twice-daily application. That is the kind of timeline real change happens on. A good product used sometimes will almost always lose to a decent product used consistently.
3. Being rough with my skin
Hot water. Foaming cleansers that left my face feeling tight, which I thought meant clean. Scrubs when my skin looked dull. Picking at things I should have left alone. I was treating my skin like something to correct rather than something to care for. That habit followed me into my 40s, when I responded to dryness and reactivity by adding more actives and more steps. It took me a long time to unlearn.
WHAT THE EXPENSIVE CREAM DID TEACH ME
I want to be fair to my 27-year-old self, because there is a version of this story that goes too far in the other direction. Price is not the problem. Quality ingredients genuinely cost more. Cold-pressed organic plant oils cost more than refined ones. Real hydrosol costs more than water. I build my formulas around ingredients like these, and that is reflected in what they cost.
But here is what I did not understand then: price tells you very little about whether a product suits your skin. An expensive cream formulated for someone else's skin is still the wrong cream. And a beautiful jar cannot make up for skipping sunscreen for a decade.
What surprised me most came later, when I finally learned to read an ingredient list. The expensive cream I had been buying was built largely on petroleum-derived ingredients and synthetic fragrance. Were those ingredients dangerous? No. They are widely used, well studied, and permitted by regulators. But I was paying a premium price for inexpensive base ingredients, and the fragrance in that cream never sat well with my skin.
That was the moment the math stopped making sense to me. I was not paying for better ingredients. I was paying for the jar, the counter, and the name on the box. It is also why I formulate the way I do now. I would rather build a formula on plant oils and hydrosols and tell you exactly why each one is there. Replenish is made without added fragrance for that reason. I will also be honest that several of our other formulas are scented with essential oils, and essential oils are not right for every reactive skin either. Read the label and know what your own skin tolerates.
Why I Am Telling You This at 50
If you are reading this in your 40's or 50's and feeling behind, please hear this part. I did not start taking proper care of my skin until my 40's, after my own skin changed and my old routine stopped working. Everything I know, I learned late.
My skin today is not the skin I had at 27, and I am not interested in pretending otherwise. But it is more comfortable, more balanced, and better cared for than it was at 35, when I thought I was doing everything right. Skin responds to how you treat it now. Not to what you failed to do twenty years ago. The regret is real. It is just not a reason to give up. It is a reason to start.
What I Would Tell My 28-Year-Old Self
This list works just as well at 48:
- Wear broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher every morning. Cloudy days, desk days, winter. All of them. We do not make a sunscreen, so use whichever one you will actually wear consistently.
- Pick a simple routine and stay with it. Cleanse, hydrate, moisturize, protect. Give it at least eight to twelve weeks before judging it.
- Be gentle. Lukewarm water, a cleanser that does not leave your skin tight, and no scrubbing when your skin looks dull.
- Choose for the skin you have now. Not the skin you had, and not the skin in the advertisement.
- Introduce one product at a time. You cannot learn what your skin tolerates if you change five things at once.
- Pay attention. Your skin tells you what it needs. I spent twenty years not listening.
Start Where You Are
If your skin feels drier, more reactive, or less predictable than it used to, you do not need to make up for lost time. You need a routine you can keep.
Replenish Antioxidant Moisturizer was made for exactly that: hydration, barrier support, antioxidant support, and soothing support in one daily step. If you want the fuller evening routine, the Hydration Essentials Kit pairs it with Regenerate Reviving Serum.
Not sure where to begin? Take our Skincare Quiz and find a routine built around the way your skin feels today.
The best time to start caring for your skin was in your 20s. The second best time is this morning.
This article shares my personal experience and general skincare information. It is not medical advice. Please consult a board-certified dermatologist or healthcare professional about persistent irritation or sudden skin changes.
Reference:
Hughes MCB, Williams GM, Baker P, Green AC. Sunscreen and Prevention of Skin Aging: A Randomized Trial. Ann Intern Med. 2013;158(11):781–790.