‘Can Your Skin Get Used to a Product?’ Jordan Samuel Answers
Main image – Katarinaradovic/Stocksy
Jordan Samuel Pacitti is an aesthetician, skincare founder and regular Live That Glow columnist. He is a go-to source of beauty advice for skincare fans across the world. Here, he advises a reader on whether your skin can get used to a particular product.
Is it true that your skin can ‘get used to’ a product or skincare routine?
Jordan says:
There are many reasons why you might feel your skin has become “used to” an individual product, product category or type of ingredient, etc. However, it isn’t that black and white.
For example, it is common to see a pronounced positive result when someone first comes to see me by simply having them incorporate a few simple steps and products into their routine, especially if they hadn’t been taking great care of their skin beforehand.
Even after the more noticeable changes that occur within the first few weeks and/or months, their skin will still improve with continued use, but the result will become less and less pronounced—not because their skin is getting used to their products, but because they have gotten their skin to a very happy and healthy place.
Once a client has gotten their skin to that really great place with topical cosmetics, it is not uncommon for them to experience a perceived ‘plateau.’ Though the products are still working to maintain their skin health and produce smaller incremental changes, they may now need to seek out in-office treatments to achieve a more pronounced result.
Now, after saying all this, there are two types of ingredients—vitamin A (retinoids) and alpha hydroxy acids—that you may want to level up as your skin becomes more tolerant to them and adapts to handle them at higher strengths. Again, I want to reiterate that this isn’t a case of your skin getting used to the product. Instead, your skin is just becoming more tolerant of the strength.
So, if your skin can handle it, you may want to level up on the strength of these ingredients in the products in your routine to see a more pronounced result—but if, and only if, your skin can tolerate it. And once you start the leveling up process, always go slow and steady so it isn’t one step forward, two steps back.
Jordan Samuel Pacitti
Founder & CEO, Jordan Samuel Skin
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