A Simple Guide How To Use Face Serum

Face serums are everywhere, but few of them include an in-depth tutorial to use them correctly, let alone explain where you should use a face serum with your other skincare routine products! Should you use face serum before or after toner, and how often should you apply it?

Not to worry – we’ll break down how to use face serums step-by-step in this simple guide.

What To Do Before Using a Face Serum

Remember – it’s not enough to just use a face serum. You also have to use other facial skincare products to maximize the serum’s benefits. With that in mind, you should actually use several products before applying a face serum to your skin. Specifically, you should:

  • Apply a cleanser first. Facial cleansers scrape away dirt, debris, and some dead skin cells from the surface of your skin, clearing the way for toner and face serums to penetrate deeper into your pores and provide their specific benefits.
  • Apply toner after cleanser. A toner cleans away a little bit of extra gunk deep in your pores but, more importantly, evens out your skin tone and can help reduce the onset of blemishes or aging spots.
  • Additionally, you should exfoliate between two and three times a week depending on how sensitive your skin is and the advice of your dermatologist. An exfoliating product scrapes away dead skin cells, which generally pile up over time. Rubbing away these skin cells helps your skin look and feel younger and healthier and gives it a radiant, warm glow.

After doing the previous steps, you can then move on to applying a serum of your choosing.

How Much Serum To Apply?

This answer is heavily dependent on the exact facial serum you purchase. However, most facial serums only require you to apply one dropper or a single pump of facial serum to your fingertips at maximum.

Because facial serum has all of its vitamins and nutrients concentrated in a small amount of liquid, you don't need to use a ton to maximize your benefits. If you are using a facial serum for the first time, it may take a little while for you to get the proportion down perfectly.

Applying Face Serum Properly

Once you have squeezed on a certain amount of facial serum to your fingertips, it’s time to massage the serum into your skin.

To do this, only use your fingertips and progressively rub your fingers in small, concentric circles across your face. You should only use your fingertips because this will allow you to apply targeted pressure and rub the serum deep into your skin’s pores.

You should rub your fingers in concentric circles because it stimulates blood flow and may help your skin absorb the serum a little more readily. When you apply a facial serum, start by rubbing on the highest parts of your cheeks, then rub across your cheeks and around your eyes.

This skin is most likely to accrue wrinkles and showcase the signs of aging more quickly, so it needs the facial serum benefits more than other areas of your face.

Continue to rub the serum into your skin until it is all gone. Don’t over rub your face, as you could irritate it by accident.

Once you’ve rubbed the facial serum into your skin, you’re not entirely done! Then you need to finish off your routine with a quality skin moisturizer. A moisturizer not only restores lost moisture to your skin (which can be scraped away by exfoliation and toning). It also seals the facial serum nutrients into your skin’s pores by helping to rapidly nourish your skin barrier.

Without a moisturizer, some of the nutrients in your chosen serum may be lost over time.

When To Apply Face Serum

For many, this will be once per day, usually at the beginning of the day after taking a shower. You generally don’t need to apply facial serum twice per day to see excellent benefits.

Your skin can only absorb so many vitamins and nutrients before bioavailability maximizes and caps out. In other words, if you apply facial serum twice per day, the second application will not be nearly as useful as the first application.

So, you can just get in the habit of using face serum each time you do a full facial skincare routine.

Do You Always Need a Face Serum?

No, but it’s a recommended edition for a thorough skincare routine for several major reasons:

  • Other skincare products don't include the full range of vitamins and minerals that face serums do
  • Face serums can give your skin the nutrients it needs to retain its strength and youthful look for much longer than normal.

In general, face serums are more important as you enter your 30s or become even older. Around this time, your skin will become less capable of fully regenerating itself, and you may see some of the earliest signs of aging.

Face serums are also especially important for older folks who want to reduce the appearance of aging like wrinkles, blemishes or aging spots, or skin splotches.

Hope Health’s Nourish serum contains vitamins C, B, and E alongside ferulic acid to help reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles while also nourishing the skin for a brighter complexion.

What To Look For in a Face Serum

That depends on what skin type you have and what ingredients you need to target. For example, if you have overly oily skin, face serums with glycolic acid or salicylic acid could be great choices since they can reduce the excess oil and smooth out your skin as well.

If you have overly dry skin, you’ll want a facial serum with hyaluronic acid: a key moisturizer and an excellent antioxidant that can help support the skin barrier. Hyaluronic acid is included in Hope Health’s Nourish serum.

Other common face serum ingredients include vitamin C, vitamin A or retinol, and so on.

It’s no coincidence that many of these ingredients are often found in versatile gummies or supplements like our Organic Greens Supplement. Many of these ingredients perform multiple functions in the body, ranging from acting as antioxidants to giving your body and its cells energy for regeneration and daily activity to boost your brainpower.

Ultimately, simply finding a face serum packed with vitamins and minerals may do wonders when it comes to maximizing your skin health and giving it everything it needs to regenerate itself every day.

Summary

Face serums are a vital part of a holistic skincare routine – and they’re not one you should skip! While cleaning your skin is important, giving it exactly what it needs to repair itself is just as important. Fortunately, face serums make this easier than ever.

Of course, you should also make sure that you give your body plenty of vitamins and minerals through your diet, as well as health supplements. When it comes to supplements, you’re best off choosing organic, non-GMO supplements just like the kind we offer at Hope Health. Check out our online store today and see what we can do to help you!

Sources:

Skin serum: What it can and can't do | Harvard Health

How to safely exfoliate at home | AAD.org

The efficacy of glycolic acid, salicylic acid, gluconolactone, and licochalcone A combined with 0.1% adapalene vs. adapalene monotherapy in mild-to-moderate acne vulgaris: a double-blinded within-person comparative study | NCBI