The Best Anti-Aging Skincare Routine for Beginners (Morning & Night!) | Dr. Sam Ellis

a great anti-aging skincare routine does not have to be complicated so I'm going to show you how to build one for both morning and night if you're new here welcome otherwise welcome back I'm Dr Sam Ellis I'm a board certified medical and cosmetic dermatologist in Northern California and I'm here to help you understand your skin and find products that work for you so if that sounds good give this video a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to the channel this video contains a partnership with first aid Beauty and in a little I'm going to

talk more about their new retinol product that I think is an amazing addition to a nighttime skincare routine especially if you have sensitive skin so I really wanted to build both a morning and a nighttime skincare routine for you here I have never done that in a YouTube video before but I feel like we're at the beginning of the year a lot of people have made resolutions to take better care of their skin but sometimes taking that first step of putting the routine together can be the most intimidating so I really wanted to break it

down for you especially if you're new to skin care or new to incorporating anti-aging skincare into your your routine I'm going to start off with my nighttime skincare routine and then I'm going to meet you back here in the morning and do the morning skincare routine for you I feel like calling this an anti-aging skincare routine can be a bit triggering for people I'm not saying that we shouldn't age truly aging is a privilege but what I run into in my practice is that people come in feeling like their outside doesn't match how good they

feel on the inside and that disconnect when you are younger is maybe not so obvious but I've seen it in my patients as they get into their 40s 50s 60s and Beyond it starts to become really frustrating so I don't think we have to have this hyperfocus on looking youthful but I do see the toll it takes when your skin doesn't reflect how good you feel and so when I'm talking about putting together an anti-aging routine it's really to maintain the health of your skin so you can be confident in what you're walking around the

world in so every nighttime skincare routine is going to start with a cleanse we need to prep the canvas there is a lot of stuff that accumulates on our face during the day some we purposely put there like skin care and makeup some is just the sweat and grime and pollution from the day and regardless all of that needs to come off so that whatever we are putting on to leave on overnight can work its best effects and isn't fighting with anything else that's been left on our skin from the day and I'm going to

be doing a double cleanse tonight I do this almost every night so if you are newer to skincare or building a routine a double cleanse involves either like an oil or a jelly cleansing step to remove the vast majority of the residue and then it's usually followed with a water-based cleanse to just get the rest off and some people might say that's not a simple routine why wouldn't you just give me one cleanser but I find a big mistake that people make is that they think their one cleanser is removing all the residue from their

skin so one way you can test this is you can wash your face with your favorite cleanser and then take like a very clean white towel afterward and wipe your face and if you have no residue on the towel for example if you were wearing makeup that day then that one cleanse is probably doing the trick but I can tell you anytime I try to get away with a single cleanse if I have makeup or water resistant sunscreen on it's not happening the first cleansing step that I'm going to use tonight is the Crave beauty

makeup rewind transforming jelly cleanser this was like one of my absolute favorite products that I used in 2023 and I've brought it with me into the new year so you can see it's kind of like a gel and then I'm going to warm it up in my hands and then I'm going to apply it to my face and let it sink in and massage it in to kind of start breaking down my makeup I'm going to take some more onto my eyes as well and just slowly and gently work that in if you care about

anti-aging be delicate with your skin now skin is fairly resilient I mean touching your skin is not going to be a problem but sometimes I see people like really working it in around their eyes and like if you want your your eyes to look good now and 10 years from now be [Music] gentle now that that is all massaged in I'm going to rinse it off and then go in with my second cleanse I feel like that first cleanse did a really good job at removing the majority of my makeup but I still see some

little traces so I'm going to go in with my second cleanse now I'm using the cavey hydrating facial cleanser when you are putting together an anti-aging skincare routine or a new skin skare routine you don't always have to have everything in your routine be new so if you've been using a drugstore cleanser for a long time and you like it bring it on into the new routine this is a really nice gentle cleanser so I'm just going to give a little water in that I recommend it all the time to my patients who have more

sensitive skin still really effective but non-stripping nice and nourishing just going to work that into the skin doesn't sting around the eyes and and then once I've sort of done that we're going to rinse it off okay so now the canvas is fully prepped we are ready to go in with the Heavy Hitters for anti-aging and if someone were to ask me like what is the number one anti-aging skincare ingredient that you need in your nighttime skincare routine and I don't care where I am if I'm at a cocktail party talking skincare if I'm in

clinic talking skincare 10 out of 10 times I'm going to say a topical retinoid retinoids are molecules derived from vitamin A and when applied topically they signal the skin to do so many wonderful healthy anti-aging things like improve skin cell turnover so that your skin may look less dull improve pigmentation in your skin help build collagen within your skin which is going to help with fine lines and wrinkles so really they do so much when it comes to anti-aging for being just one thing now that may sound too good to be true and sometimes it

is because on the flip side of being very helpful for anti-aging skin things retinoids can also be quite irritating they can cause flaking peeling dryness redness stinging I mean I cannot think of a more problematic skin care ingredient in that respect I have so many people who come into my office as dermatologist who are saying hey Dr Ellis like I want to incorporate aoid but I just can't because I can't get my skin to tolerate it and that's where the product I'm using tonight really comes in so this is a newer launch from first aidid

Beauty and it is their 0.3% % retinol complex serum and I love this for a lot of reasons this is a retinol product that is actually years in the making and what makes it so special is that it's really designed for sensitive skin the goal with this is to be able to use it regularly and consistently enough without irritation that you actually get to see the benefits of using a topical renoid over time also just a shout out for the texture of this I'll put it on my face in a second but I have to

show you so it is a serum but it is a very lushy plushy serum like do you see how juicy that is like I actually cannot wait to put that on my face and I also think that is part of generating like a good skincare routine it has to be something that you actually look forward to doing and I I genuinely am looking forward to putting this on my face I also really like that this is a pump dispenser because the pump is a perfect serving size for your face so you do not need a

big amount of retinoid to get a lot of improvement I find a huge error that people make is they over apply their retinoid and that's going to lead to more irritation granted you could probably slather your face in this and it won't cause irritation because of how it's formulated but just in case we'll just use exactly what we need and I do my tiny dot method which helps you spread it very evenly over the entire surface of the face without wasting it and without needing to use too much I'm going to grab another pump for

my neck and my chest so the 0.3% retinol complex in here has retinol but it also has a vitamin a derivative that you might be less familiar with called retinol propionate and the advantage of using retinol propionate in a formula is that you can get the same effects of retinol as shown in some clinical studies but with less irritation so why wouldn't you want equivalent results with fewer side effects of course as a dermatologist I am always giving skincare recommendations and I would say one of the things I get asked about the most is a

ret Noid that is not going to be problematic for sensitive skin or retinoid that someone could potentially use with their rosacea or their eczema or a retinoid that they can use as a beginner step in an anti-aging skincare routine and this one from first aid Beauty it is so good I mean not only is it gentle and effective but also experientially like just how my skin feels right after putting it on and what it's done for my skin over time like I feel very good about it now I'm a dermatologist I also use prescription strength

retinoids but I can't always always especially if my skin is really irritated or acting up also I have a partner who is very stubborn and does not like to use retinoids and he has been asking for this I mean to have my husband ask for any skincare product is the highest compliment so if you have someone in your life who needs to start on a retinoid maybe try this one the fourth and final step of this nighttime skincare routine is going to be applying a moisturizer and the moisturizer I'm using tonight is one of my

absolute favorite moisturizers of all time this is probably one of the very first skinc care products that was ever holy gril for me it's the first aid Beauty Ultra Repair Cream this texture like you know your skin is going to be so moisturized after that and I love it because it has oatmeal so it is very soothing I'm a big oatmeal gal it can help with irritation it can help with a disrupted Skin Barrier so I'm just a huge fan of this moisturizer all around I recommend it to so so many people you can use

it on your face and your body which I also like a multi-purpose type of product and if you are really prone to dry skin flaky skin even without like a renoid in your routine if that's just something that you deal with because you might have mature skin or eczema or you're just dry this is an excellent excellent moisturizer I went in with layer number two and I actually bring a lot of my moisturizers over my lips as as well I usually go in with some type of Vaseline at night right before bed but I actually

like to bring my moisturizer onto my lips that is it for my nighttime skincare routine I will meet you back here in the morning to show you exactly what I put on my skin during the day to protect it and help it Thrive all day long see you soon good morning it is nice to see you again it is quite early but I like to get my skincare routine in before my son wakes up because once he's up you know it's unle leashed we don't know if I'm going to have time to Circle back to

do a routine so finding time in your day to be consistent with your routine whether it's an anti-aging routine whether it's an acne routine is so so important consistency above all else is what's going to help you find success and my skin feels great from last night it is hydrated it is not irritated it's not bright red and you know for someone like me who has sensitive skin who has rosacea there are a lot of products that can really set my skin off so for me to wake up with just very happy skin is such

a win and with that let's get into our morning skincare routine this is going to be simple straightforward efficacious this is actually just a two product routine you could expand it from there but I am really kind of taking this down to the Bare Essentials and this is actually quite representative of what I do on a typical workday I don't have a ton of time in the morning to get ready or I don't want to get up earlier to do a more protracted skincare routine so these are the things I stick with just like in

a nighttime skincare routine the first thing we're going to do in a morning skincare routine is prepare our skin for any leave on products that we are going to be applying you can do that by washing your face with a cleanser and often times you can use the same cleanser that you used in the evening or you can just do a water cleanse Splash a little bit of water on your face to prep the skin this is what I do most days I feel like for a very long time people were sort of indoctrinated with

the idea that you had to wash your face with a cleanser twice a day but for people who have dry skin super sensitive skin washing twice a day with a cleanser can actually be too much and it can be overly stripping to the skin even if you're using a gentle cleanser so if you've been struggling with dry or sensitive skin I totally encourage you to just give water cleansing in the morning a try so what that looks like for me is I'm just grabbing a little bit of water in my hands and we're just going

to kind of Splash it on the face rub it around make sure I'm getting out any little eye boogers that uh formed overnight and after that I'm just going to take a clean towel and Pat my face dry we don't want to be scrubbing or rubbing especially if we're introducing a renoid product our skin is going to tend to be more sensitive and so you don't want to be doing added exfoliation with a rough towel so I'm just patting dry leaving it the tiniest bit damp for the next step and we're going to move on

now if someone told me I could only use one product in the morning for an anti-aging skincare routine or really any type of skincare routine it would absolutely be sunscreen when it comes to anti-aging when it comes to skin Health in general sunscreen and sun protection is really doing the heavy lifting but if I got to pick a second thing to use in my routine it would absolutely be a topical antioxidant and specifically vitamin C in the evening a skincare routine is really focused on correction correction of whatever bothers you whether that's fine lines and

wrinkles dehydrated skin pigmentation irregularities damaged Skin Barrier nighttime is for correction daytime skincare is really focused on protection as we go through our day our skin gets assaulted by environmental exposures whether that's UV radiation from sunlight or pollution and so we are doing a morning skincare routine to protect against damage of course you can have corrective steps during your morning skincare routine but I think if we are prioritizing and simplifying a routine focusing on protection against skin damage is the way to go obviously sunscreen is great for that but so is Vitamin C the vitamin

C I'm using today is by my brand prequel it's called lucency so there are many benefits to topical vitamin C one being a protection Factor so it protects you against free radical damage so as your skin is assaulted during the day these little oxygen-free radicals form in the skin and they can bump around on important structures in your skin and prematurely break them down so vitamin C guards against that scrubbed a little bit here I'm going to rub it between my palms and then just press it into the skin and like any anti-aging skincare we

are going to be bringing this down on the neck pardon me onto the chest chest um and onto the back of the hands as well I always find it so satisfying to get that First skinc Care step on my skin in the morning it's like okay the day is happening but aside from the protective abilities of vitamin C it also has these other benefits like brightening the skin helping with hyperpigmentation also helping support collagen synthesis so anything that's going to help us make new collagen make new structural support proteins in the skin is going to

help anti-ag us and again anti-aging means something different for everyone I know that word doesn't sit right with some people but really what I'm thinking about is having healthier skin skin that you feel more confident in skin that is stronger and more robust and that's really the ultimate goal after the vitamin C has dried down on the skin which really just takes a few seconds I'm going to be moving onto my second and final step of my morning skincare routine which is sunscreen now a lot of people will want to put on other serums in

the morning or maybe even apply a Moisturizer in the morning and you can always use the same moisturizer that you used in the evening if you feel like it's light enough but in my case I find that a lot of sunscreens I use tend to be moisturizing enough a lot of sunscreens are formulated in more moisturizing bases so unless you're really struggling with super dry skin or lots of sensitivity you actually don't necessarily need a moisturizing step in the morning and the sunscreen I'm going to be going in with today is a Korean sunscreen by

a brand called Paro it is the daily soft touch sunscreen it is SPF 50 so nice high levels of sun protection of both UVA and UVB rays so as a reminder UVA radiation longer wavelength penetrates deeper in the skin more so contributes to premature skin aging wrinkles things like that and then UVB radiation shorter wavelength hits the top of the skin more likely to cause things like skin cancer I'm almost done with this tube so I hope I can get enough out this is one of my favorite sunscreens ever just goes in so effortlessly to

the skin kind of like a yogurty texture when I think of anti-aging skincare like when I'm talking to patients in the office and counseling them when they're like Dr Ellis can you just make me a routine like what do I need what are the essentials I talk about the anti-aging Holy Trinity which is a retinoid which we used in our nighttime skincare routine vitamin C which we just put on and sunscreen if you have those three things you are so so set if you do them consistently so sunscreen is just kind of the final piece

of that puzzle you'll also see that I'm bringing the sunscreen very up close under my eyes and onto my eyelids not everyone can tolerate that if you have really sensitive eyes and you can't put sunscreen around your eyes just wear big sunnies when you're outside if you're getting a little bit of sun or you know sun exposure while you're inside I'm not too worried about it it's really that sun damage that happens when you're outside in harsh sunlight that is going to cause the greatest problems when it comes to skin health and uh causing damage

to your skin all right so I mean look at the finish on that like so stunning and that's the other thing if you starting a skincare routine you're more new to Skin Care finding products that you love not just what they do for your skin but the texture the application even the packaging is so important I feel like you need to be motivated to use your skincare it's a habit and you need to be inspired and so finding the sunscreen that you love the vitamin C that you like the retinoid that works for you and

that you enjoy using those are all such important factors when it comes to being consistent over time and seeing results and with that final skincare step we are done here thank you so much for joining me for both my nighttime skincare routine and my morning skincare routine I hope you picked up a tip or two if you learned anything or you have any additional advice for sensitive skin definitely put it in the comments below I always love when you share your insights don't forget to like this video And subscribe to the channel and I'll see

you next [Music] time