Does the army of expensive products you’ve bought need a closet all its own? If so, it’s time to pare down. Great skin at midlife can be as simple as 1, 2, 3…4, er, 5.
Paring Down
Courtesy of fluctuating hormones, your skin changes a lot after 40. All that sunbathing you thought you'd gotten away with starts to deliver results in the form of dark spots and uneven tone. The blue troughs under your eyes don't go away with a good night's sleep. Your face cries out for moisturizer, even if you've always had oily skin. And your complexion seems to have forgotten how to glow on its own.
To cope, you've assembled an arsenal of products that may overlap and even cancel one another out. But even if they don't, is all that rubbing and wiping and re-creaming really necessary? "I'm an advocate of a pared-down approach," says Lance H. Brown, MD, a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at the New York University School of Medicine, and we agree. Great skin at midlife is actually simpler than you think, so follow this easy strategy: Use just two or three products when you get up, and three before bed. Do that -- and see the dermatologist occasionally -- and we guarantee that you'll age better than gracefully.
Gentle Cleanser
When to use it: Morning and night
Washing your face is necessary, but many women claim to be too tired, stressed, busy, or ______ (insert your favorite excuse) to bother before they collapse into bed. However, if you can make time to pour a glass of wine and curl up to watch TV, you can manage to scrub off the makeup, pollution, and grime that have accumulated during the day.
Solutions: The truly time-crunched can go for premoistened face wipes (use them while you watch Grey's Anatomy on DVR); try Olay Daily Facials Express Wet Cleansing Cloths ($6; drugstores) or Skyn Iceland Glacial Cleansing Cloths ($15; sephora.com). Or use an oil-based cleanser like Lancome Huile Douceur Deep Cleansing Oil, above ($35; lancome-usa.com), which removes all your makeup (concealer, long-wear lipstick, even waterproof mascara) and cleans your skin in just one step. (Despite its "oily" name, it won't clog pores.) Note: If you can only bring yourself to cleanse your face once a day, do it in the evening, when skin is dirtiest. But starting the day off with a wash is worth the time it takes. You'll slough off dead cells, making the skin look smoother and enabling better penetration of your daytime products.
