If the year 2020 has taught us something, it is chiefly about a minimalistic approach towards life. Be it our sartorial choices, food recipes, home cleaning or even skin care, minimalism was a significant trend. Looking back at the year 2020, if something grabbed the most eyeballs, it is DIY skin care essentials and natural beauty routines that were an everyday update by most celebrities in their social media accounts.

Although, we have somehow managed to survive the unprecedented year 2020, even in the year 2021, when the pandemic is still high on the rise, skin care is still at the forefront. After years of double cleansing and going through the seven-step skin care routine, a year of relatively makeup-free, quarantine living has set us up perfectly towards a minimalistic approach in the current year as well.
With stress-induced breakouts and maskne still being reported by many, several beauty experts believe that “Skinimalism” is going to be the trendsetter for the year 2021!

What Is Skinimalism, You Ask?

Skinimalism, popularized mostly by beauty experts at Pinterest, is all about, minimalism or a minimalistic approach in your beauty and makeup routines that promotes embracing the skin’s natural texture and finding skin care essentials that will ensure that your skin glows naturally without much layering. It all started with the Korean trend of ‘skip-care’ that made its debut in June 2019. This trend chiefly laid emphasis upon skipping the laborious 10-step skincare routine in favour of employing multi-purpose products. Later, even a beauty brand in Japan popularized the practice of skin fasting where one goes without applying any product for a specific period of time to let the skin rejuvenate on its own.

Thanks to the immense amount of time spent indoors while adjusting to the quarantine lifestyle, people are trying to downscale their skincare routines and hence Skinimalism is the emerging trend.

How Does It Work?

Skinimalism chiefly works on the basic principle of reducing the steps or the products while performing a skin care regimen or simply give a complete break from skin care products for a few days if you are mostly indoors. Truth be told, in today’s time of skin care, less is considered more when it comes to the best beauty practices. In fact, overdoing it with caked-on makeup or layering on too many beauty products can worsen existing skin issues or create new problems by disrupting the skin’s natural barrier and eventually lead to breakouts, dryness, peeling, flaking, tight skin, redness, itching and overall skin sensitivity.

How Does It Benefit?

The result of adopting this minimalistic beauty approach not only saves time and money but also protects you from trial and error, all the while being more nature friendly, i.e., less usage of product, leads to less wastage of packaging and dumping. Additionally, Skinimalism mainly focusses on banishing caked-up beauty ideals and the very idea of fixing flaws and cover-ups. It literally inspires one to be the unfiltered natural self and embrace the real, graceful ‘You’!

How To Practice Skinimalism?

Real skin has a particular texture and pores. Any interpretation of a glamourous picture-perfect skin portrayed on the various social media platforms are just an artistic rendering of the truth that literally leads us down to a never-ending pursuit of perfection that in reality doesn’t exist. Obviously, it is not realistic to simply ask someone to accept all the flaws as some skin conditions are valid concerns and may require medical supervision. But we need to understand the difference between real skin issues and those that we simply get to know by following some beauty influencer.

Well, for starters, to adopt to Skinimalism, you don’t necessarily have to toss away every other beauty product you have in your stash. Rather opt for the ones that benefits your skin in the long run and doesn’t just hide away your imperfections. Try incorporating multi-ingredient beauty essentials instead of a product with one active ingredient. For example: While selecting a serum, instead of just Vitamin C serum, try opting the one that contains Vitamin C along with hyaluronic acid and niacinamide for additional benefit.

Also Read: DIY Facial Serum: Homemade Skin Tinctures For Flawless Dewy Skin

Follow These Simple Tips To Be A Skin Minimalist

Incorporate Facial Yoga:

This time-less approach offers a natural way to boost oxygen in the skin cells, increase blood circulation, release facial tension and grace you with that ultra-glow naturally.

Pro Tip: If you are a beginner, learn the basic yoga poses from a yoga instructor and then carry it out regularly at the comfort of your home.

Minimize Skin Care Steps:

To start the skin purge, instead of the usual prolonged skin care routine starting with CTM (i.e., Cleansing, Toning And Moisturizing), go for CMS. The CMS routine typically consists of a Cleanser that rids the skin of debris, skips the Toner, has a Moisturizer that offers a healthy skin barrier and then a Sunscreen that protects the skin against skin cancer caused by UV radiation and arrests the various signs of ageing. Now instead of the moisturizer you can even go for vitamin C rich facial serums that boosts the skin with antioxidants and prevents free radical damage and breakouts.

Pro Tip: If you have sensitive or acne-prone skin, do visit a dermatologist to get skin care essentials depending upon your skin concerns.

Go For Natural Remedies:

If skin care was the trending topic of the year 2020, it was basic DIY’s and home remedies for skin care that was most searched for. Even in the current year, people are still relying on natural ingredients and easy to whip skin care products over chemical imbued ones. So, find out what suits your skin and try whipping your very own skin care essential.

Also Read: Missing Beauty Parlour? The 3-Step DIY Facial Ritual To Try Right At Home

Pro Tip: Ensure you use fresh ingredients that suit your skin and doesn't cause any rashes.