Reactive skin finally calming down after simplifying everything.
I’ve been rebuilding my routine after completely wrecking my barrier last year and I think my skin is *finally* starting to calm down a bit.
For context, my skin became super reactive during pregnancy redness, flushing after showers, random irritation, and melasma that seemed to get darker anytime I tried adding actives again.
Current routine is really basic:
* gentle gel cleanser only at night
* water rinse in the morning
* centella + PDRN serum
* squalane oil moisturizer
* mineral sunscreen daily
The biggest difference honestly came from stripping everything back. I stopped chasing exfoliation and “brightening” products for a while and focused more on barrier support.
The centella/PDRN step was the first thing I added back in and surprisingly my skin tolerated it well. Around a few weeks in, I noticed my redness wasn’t hanging around as long and I wasn’t reaching for color corrector every morning.
Still not perfect though. Wind and hot water still make my face angry sometimes lol.
Curious what product or ingredient other reactive-skin people reintroduced first after damaging their barrier?