The Easy, Full Body Care Routine You Can Do At Home

Skin is the largest organ of the body. It changes with everything from time and diet, to season and location on the body. Further, it's a key and obvious indicator of our health and age so it behooves us to take really good care of it.

However, with the overwhelming amount of products and information available, some might think that “easy skin care” is an oxymoron. Luckily, we here at BAWDY, although specialized in booty skin care, are experts in overall skin care because...well...skin is skin. And, we’ve broken down an easy and comprehensive skin care routine you can do at home.

Face Time

Serums, creams, and capsules - oh my! A daily face care routine can consist of anywhere from one to 12+ products and steps. If you’re on the high end of this spectrum, good for you. For those who are looking for a simple face care routine, we’ve whittled it down to four basic steps and products all skin types can benefit from. And, a big bonus: these products can be used across other age-revealing areas for a full-body skin care routine without investing in an entire drug-store shelf worth of products - win!

First things first: you’ll have to understand that any good face care routine is performed in the AM and again in the PM. Secondly, there are steps that allow the products to work as effectively as they can. Got it? Good. Let’s get to it.

1. Cleanser

Washing your face is key. It rids your face of dirt and excess grime, hydrates your skin, and creates a blank canvas for the products to follow. Be sure to choose a cleanser that, with daily use, won’t irritate your skin type.

2. Toner

After you’ve washed, your skin may need to have some of the good things replenished. Toner provides a healthy layer so the rest of the products are better absorbed.

3. Serum

To repair and protect your skin, use a toner. They penetrate deeper layers of skin which is why they can target specific concerns based on your skin type, such as anti-aging, brightening, or acne.

4. Moisturizer with SPF/Mask

During your AM routine, follow the serum with a moisturizer that has SPF included for a one-two punch of hydration and UV protection. In your PM routine, swap the SPF moisturizer for a hydrating mask that will plump your skin overnight.

Décolletage

Our décolletage is the chest area below our neck and particularly between our breasts. Often overlooked until it’s collected its fair share of wrinkles, this area should be considered a natural yet simplified extension of your daily face care routine.

The area has fewer oil glands so it can easily become dryer, bringing on unwanted wrinkles. Brassieres, or silly contraptions that many women wear each day, smoosh the skin between our breasts together, again, causing wrinkling. Additionally, unless we’re sitting surfside, we might not think about sun protection for this area on a daily basis.

For these reasons, we should carry over step four of our AM face care routine, using your moisturizer with SPF on a daily basis to ward off dryness and stave off wrinkles.

Hand it to Yourself

Did you know that our hands alone contain 27 bones and 20 joints? I was also today years old when I figured that one out. The reason this is important is because the skin on our hands is constantly expanding and contracting when we use those joints - welcome to wrinkle town. Much like our décolletage, we overlook applying SPF to our hands despite the fact that they’re exposed on a daily basis. And, hopefully, we’ve been washing appropriately and, lately, extensively. With that, however, our hands are constantly sucked dry of moisture. 

Thankfully, there’s an easy way to combat this. Utilizing steps three and four of our face care routine is the simplest way. A serum will help brighten and even out skin tone if you’ve already collected some age spots, while a moisturizer with SPF will keep dryness and UV exposure at bay. As a bonus self-care step or to combat seriously dry and cracked skin, consider a weekly deep conditioning mask like this one from Aveeno.

Elbows

Like our hands, the skin on our elbows is constantly expanding and contracting with the movement of our joint. Our elbows, however, are also sensitive to friction from clothing as well as weather. Therefore, the skin on our elbows tends to be super wrinkly, rough, dry, and sometimes thick - yuck.

Because elbow skin is so tricky, the products we use on our face, décolletage, and hands are a bit too delicate to use here. The good news is, two simple steps will take your elbows from ashen to amazing.

Start with a softening cream that contains glycolic acid, like this one from Glytone. Once you’ve worked that in, finish off by applying a moisturizer with ingredients like glycerin, oils such as apricot kernel and avocado, or butters like shea and cocoa. We like this one from L’Occitane.

Bottoms Up

Like our elbows, our behinds are subject to a lot of friction every day from clothing. Additionally, our bums get a little bummed when we wear restrictive clothing, sweat, and then sit round in those sweaty clothes.