Getting acquainted with male skincare.

Whether you’re a skincare newbie or you’ve been using the same face cream for years, here’s the message we need you to know: taking care of your skin matters. This isn’t just marketing speak. Your skin is your largest organ. It helps to protect your insides, prevent infection, prevent premature ageing, and help you to keep healthy. Therefore, looking after your skin is essential to living a healthy lifestyle. 

Using the proper skincare can also have a great impact on the way you look. It can help to reduce sun damage, reduce the look of wrinkles, prevent breakouts and keep dryness at bay. 

But navigating your way into all the products available can be overwhelming. Hopefully this article can act as a guide for you and make shopping for men’s skincare a little less intimidating and confusing.

Getting started with a men’s skincare routine 

The good news is you really don’t need to spend hours in the bathroom to start taking care of your skin. Most skincare regimes take no more than a few minutes maximum. 

You also don’t need to spend millions on men’s luxury skincare to get decent results. Especially if you don’t currently have any skincare regime at all, or only have been using only a very basic selection of products. You’ll really notice a difference once you invest a few pounds more in each product. Cheapest isn’t always best when it comes to skincare - the ingredients need to be of good quality to have a noticeable effect on the skin. 

If you’re new to skincare, begin by choosing 1-2 men’s skincare products to add into your routine. Once you’re in the habit of using them daily, you can start to add more. If you buy loads of new products all at once, the likelihood is you’ll not use any of them and believe skincare is a waste of time and money!

For a basic skincare regime, start by using a men’s face wash or cleanser every morning and/or evening and follow this up with a moisturiser. Ideally, choose a moisturiser with SPF to use during the day. 

If you’re looking for the next level, add an eye cream and a night-time product. Eye creams are great because they’re made specifically to care for the thinner skin around our eyes. While we sleep, our skin is busy combatting the damage caused throughout the day. Using a product specifically for while you’re sleeping is an excellent way to support your skin’s natural renewal process. 

When you’re ready for something more, you can add in a targeted serum. We’ll go into more detail on what the hell this is later. But basically they’re really good if you’ve got a specific concern you’d like to tackle.

Men’s face care

One of your most important assets is your handsome mug, so be sure to give it the care it deserves. You can choose a skincare regime based on your skin type, and you can also target any areas you’d like to improve. 

For example, if you have dry skin, it wouldn’t make sense to choose men’s facial products for oily skin. The ingredients probably wouldn’t be hydrating enough for you, and you won’t get the desired results. 

Similarly, if you’ve got sensitive skin, you’ll want to find men’s face products specifically for your skin type so that you’re hopefully improving the condition of your skin and not making it any worse. 

If you’re not sure what skin type you have there’s a simple test you can do to find out. Wash your face with lukewarm water and a gentle cleanser (if you have one). Then wait 20 minutes and see how your skin feels. Is it dry or tight? If so, you probably have dry skin. If it looks shiny, you probably have oily skin. If it feels comfortable and normal, lucky you, it sounds like you have a normal skin type. If you have a mix of some shiny areas and some dry areas, you have what’s called combination skin. If you tend to get red areas, or have reactions to certain products you probably have sensitive skin so should take extra care to use products made for your skin. 

Men’s body care

Do you go to the gym and eat well to look after your body? Have you thought about men’s body care too? It’s a good idea to care for your skin all over. We’d recommend using a moisturiser specifically made for the body because the skin is thicker on the rest of your body than on your face, so it requires a slightly thicker texture to provide the amount of hydration needed. 

If you can’t be bothered to moisturise everywhere, focus on the commonly dry areas, such as elbows, ankles and hands. Taking care of these areas will help them to stay in better condition for longer.

And here’s a top tip if you experience dry skin on your body: don’t shower with extremely hot water. While it may feel nice at the time, it actually dries out your skin. Not ideal. Instead, shower with lukewarm water and use a hydrating body wash.

What about men’s beauty products?

You may not have heard about men’s beauty products before or even considered them for yourself. While skincare is great and can be really effective, it takes time to see results, and you may still have areas you’d like to conceal or even out. Using men’s makeup is a great quick fix that goes hand in hand with your skincare regime. 

If you’re new to men’s beauty products, the two products we’d recommend you look into first are:

1. Concealer: This conceals blemishes, spots, scars, imperfections and dark circles.
2. Tinted Moisturiser: This is a hybrid between moisturiser and foundation. What it does is help to even out skin tone while keeping you hydrated so that your skin just looks that little bit fresher. 

This powerful duo will help to boost how your skin looks. And if you’re worried about people knowing you’re wearing makeup, you can rest assured that all War Paint men’s makeup is formulated to look natural on the skin. 

If you’d like to learn more about men’s makeup. We have a handy guide you can read here. 

Different types of men’s skincare and men’s cream

There are a lot of different types of men’s skincare to choose from. Let’s go through some options for facial care products and what they’re good for.

Facial oil

You might hear the word ‘oil’ and immediately think ‘greasy’. Well, skincare oils aren’t the typical oil you might use for cooking or in your car. They’re specifically designed to be lightweight and not clog pores. Facial oils are great, particularly for people with dry skin because they help prevent water loss and soften the feeling of your skin. 

If you’re thinking about trying a facial oil, you could start by adding a few drops into your moisturiser to see how you get on. After a week or so of this, you can try applying it directly. An extra benefit is that most facial oils tend to be very natural and are often organic, so if that’s something you’re into, it’s a win-win. 

Serum

Serums have a thinner texture than creams, which means they can penetrate the deeper layers of your skin. A serum tends to be the most potent skincare product you might use in a regime. 

Serums are suitable for anyone to use, with any skin type. The great thing about them is that you can get targeted serums for different skin concerns. For example, if anti-ageing or skin dullness is your biggest concern, something with Vitamin A, Bakuchiol, or Vitamin C could be exactly what you’re looking for. Try the War Paint Night Serum in this case.

If dryness or sensitivity is your biggest skin concern, you can look for rehydration serums. A great ingredient to look out for is Centella Asiatica, also known as Tiger Grass.

In terms of when to use it, it’s best to use it after cleansing but before your moisturiser.

Face cream

Face cream for men is the same as a moisturiser. The primary aim of a moisturiser is to hydrate your skin. Having hydrated skin is essential, not just aesthetically, but because it helps to keep your skin in good condition, which is vital for our health. 

Many moisturisers have secondary purposes as well. For example, brightening, fighting spots, or anti-ageing. Using a good moisturiser that suits your skin concerns is a must-have for anyone at any age. 

You can use your moisturiser as the last step in your skincare regime each morning and evening. If you like, you can use a different moisturiser day and night. This is because our skin tends to have different needs during the day compared to while we’re sleeping at night. 

During the day, we need to stay protected against the sun’s harmful rays. Whereas at night, our skin is repairing from the damage caused throughout the day. While we’re sleeping we can therefore boost what our skin is already doing with the help of a night-time face moisturiser.

Hand cream

Is using a hand cream necessary? Well, maintaining healthy skin on your hands is important for stopping infection and dermatitis. Damaged skin is more likely to run into problems. Unless it’s important to have rough skin on your hands for work (e.g. playing guitar) generally you’ll do better with softer hands that don’t crack and feel uncomfortable!

Eye cream

Using a men’s eye cream is important because the skin around our eyes is different to everywhere else. We need to be more gentle with it. It also has different concerns compared to the rest of our face, such as dark circles and puffiness. The ingredients in eye creams tend to combat these specific issues. 

Here’s a top tip for applying eye cream: use your ring finger to apply it and gently massage it in all around the eye socket. This is because your ring finger applies the least pressure.

SPF  

Last, but not least, SPF. It’s really important to wear SPF every single day. 

That’s right. Every. Single. Day. Whether it’s raining, cloudy, blaring sun, or snowing outside. 

SPF stands for sun protection factor. Wearing SPF protects us from premature ageing caused by sun damage, but most importantly from skin cancer too. 

Wearing an SPF of 30 or above is preferable, but you can wear lower too as long as you reapply a couple of times throughout the day. 

And don’t worry, face moisturisers with SPF aren’t the same as the usual sun cream you’d use on holiday. They feel great on the skin, are super lightweight, and don’t leave a greasy or white cast on the skin.

Skincare set

What’s in the perfect skincare set for men? Well, we so happen to have a super simple men’s face set; The Skin Kit. It features our 3-step skincare regime of Moisturiser, Eye Cream and Moisturiser. Everything you need to up your grooming regime and enjoy healthier-looking skin without spending hours in the bathroom. It also makes a great gift set for men if you’re looking for present ideas. 

If you’d like to take it to the next level with a men’s face care set we have another great option combining skincare and makeup to help repair and fix. The Daily Essentials Kit features our 3-step skincare routine, our Tinted Moisturiser and Concealer Pen, plus a Face Sponge to apply and blend it all with. 

Best men’s skincare. 

Now that you’ve got a better understanding of the skincare basics, you might be wondering what the best face care for men is. Well, that’s up to you to decide. Obviously in our humble opinion our skincare is the best. But the most important factor when finding the best routine is finding one that you’ll stick to and enjoy doing.