Although skin care involves a stigma of expensive masks and an arsenal of essential oils, this simply isn’t the reality. The process of skin care can be as simple as a bar of soap and some water, and while it may not be for everyone, it also can be a game changer for others. 

For people with acne, skin care products can be essential to use at least some sort of cleanser to wash your face daily to prevent pimples from recurring. While skin care can be considered unrealistic for some people, just taking the step to wash your face can come a long way. 

A study from the Skin Center of South Miami showed a list of benefits as to why taking care of your skin is important. Washing your face helps it stay in good condition because it washes away the residue and oil build-up experienced on a day-to-day basis that can lead to acne. Therefore, it’s important to have a good and stable routine to help prevent blemishes before they appear. 

Skin care also helps with self-confidence. When you have unhealthy skin, it can make you feel unappealing and lower your self-esteem. Improving your skin care methods can make you feel more confidence within your appearance.

Even though skin care is good for everyone’s health, it’s still often seen as a feminine habit. To be clear, using a cleanser or toner to make your skin feel more alive does not make you any less masculine, it just means you’re taking care of yourself. It’s been embedded into society that beauty is reserved for women only, so if a man wants to clear his blackheads by using a charcoal mask, he is considered feminine. In advertising, product lines like Olay have commercials with only females, which gives the notation to men that they can’t use the product because it’s for women only. As a result, brands like Axe have created a market that only supports men’s products to assure their masculinity is not “tainted upon” by using skin care products. That social construct needs to be diminished. Skin care is for anyone and everyone, nobody has the right to judge you for caring about yourself. As long as you feel like it’s good for you, then go for it.

For me, skin care is a necessity. I have severe acne, so I need to wash my face daily or else my skin breaks out. However, I can’t use any cleanser on my face, it has to be a specific, targeted treatment. I use a 10 percent benzoyl peroxide wash that gets the bacteria out of my face so it cleans it, and afterwards I moisturize with Jergen’s Ultra Healing lotion because the treatment is very drying.

Although they’re effective in their intended use, many of the more intense treatments are not over the counter. For example, the benzoyl peroxide wash I use is not over the counter. You can’t go into the pharmacy and get it, it has to be requested by your doctor. When experimenting with typical drugstore brands, I’ve used face washes such as including Neutrogena and Clean & Clear, but those proved unsuccessful with helping my acne. 

Despite my experiences with those products, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t good washes. Rather, it just means those products aren’t good for me, and that’s okay because there are many different skin types. In the end, not every product will work for everyone, and skin care is just about what works best for you.