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Daily hacks: ‘Skin cycling’, the best nighttime routine for your skin
In our 'Daily hacks' series, we bring you the latest beauty and home tips, trends and tricks to transform your life and save you money.
A woman doing her nighttime skincare routine. Picture: iStock
Mind-blowing, impressive or plain crazy, the beauty tips randomly picked up on TikTok are often amusing.
But sometimes they are innovative and effective, especially when delivered by professionals. That’s the case for “Skin Cycling”, a nightly beauty routine that has won over the hearts of our favorite TikTokers.
Morning and night, you probably go through more or less the same beauty routine.
You cleanse your skin or remove your makeup and apply serum, day or night cream adding exfoliation and a mask once or twice a week. Classic!
But what if we told you that there was another beauty routine that would shake up this little daily ritual?
A host of TikTok users now swear by ‘Skin Cycling,’ a nightly routine that promises healthy, glowing skin.
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Whitney Bowe, a renowned dermatologist from New York, is responsible for this beauty ritual which is essentially based – as its name suggests – on the skin cycle.
And while the health professional has been practicing it for a long time with her patients, ‘Skin Cycling’ has recently gone viral on the Chinese social network.
The hashtag dedicated to this new kind of beauty routine has generated no less than 34 million views to date, with a plethora of comments, each with rave reviews.
A four-night programme
As opposed to the layering approach, “Skin Cycling” is a minimalist beauty routine that consists of alternating between skin care and recovery periods.
It’s not about piling on layers of skin-care products, but about devoting two days to the benefits of their active ingredients, then letting the skin rest so that it doesn’t feel stressed.
Specifically, Dr Bowe recommends one night of exfoliation, one night of retinoids, and two consecutive nights of recovery. A ritual to be repeated meticulously.
Don’t be mistaken. It’s not about skipping the ‘cleansing’ and ‘moisturising’ steps, which remain essential, but about modifying your daily ritual to reduce the risk of irritation and inflammation.
The first night should be devoted to exfoliating the skin with a chemical exfoliant to get rid of dead cells, while the second night should be dedicated to the application of retinol, one of the three forms of vitamin A.
The third and fourth nights are dedicated to recovery, without any active ingredients.
All you have to do is clean your skin and apply a moisturiser – two steps that should not be neglected on the two previous nights.
For a few weeks now, TikTok users have been swearing by this new beauty routine, exchanging tips and product names to accomplish it in the best way possible.
The dermatologist recommends it especially for mixed and oily skin, as it can be irritating for the most sensitive skin.
@drwhitneybowe Skin cycling for beginners: how to get started. And how to layer with Bowe Glowe #skincycling #thatboweglow #dermatologist #skintok ♬ original sound – Dr. Whitney Bowe
