What is Serum?
A serum is a concentrated solution that will significantly improve your targetted skin problem. They often come in a small bottle and a high price tag that makes people think twice before incorporating one to their skincare routine. But remember, it is packed with potent and effective ingredients that will improve your skin significantly.
How to Use a Serum
After you wash your face, pat on some toner then you can take one or two pumps of serum. Gently and slowly massage the serum on your face until it’s fully absorbed. Serums have relatively smaller molecules that will penetrate deep into the skin. With that being said, you need to follow up with a moisturizer to make sure you bind and lock all the nutrients in your skin.
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Serum Types
Serums are created to resolve your skin issues. We categorize the serums into three main categories. There are definitely more than three categories, but these three categories are the main one in the industry.
Hydrating Serum
Hydrating serum is the one serum that can do no wrong to skin. Who doesn’t like to keep their skin plump and hydrated? Hydrating serum that draws water to your skin and keeps your skin hydrated. It’s extremely beneficial to those who have dehydrated, rough or dry skin.
Brightening Serum
Having skin problems like uneven skin tone, hyperpigmentations, and dull skin? Brightening serum is the answer to solve all those problems. Brightening serums that feature ingredients like vitamin C, niacinamide and licorice bring you an even and radiant complexion. Antioxidants in brightening serums fight signs of aging and refine skin textures. Your dark spots are diminished and your skin looks radiant and luminous.
Anti-aging Serum
An anti-aging serum will prevent your skin from aging and keep your skin soft and firm. Aging skin will show signs like fine lines, wrinkles, and sagging skin. Our skin showed first signs of aging as early at the age of 25. Anti-aging serums can be costly because they reduce fine lines and wrinkles, repair damaged skin cells, and keep skin firm and tight. Ingredients like coenzymes Q10 improves fine lines and neutralize free radicals.
Other Types of Serum
- pre serum
- AHA/BHA serum
- pore refining serum
- repairing serum
How to Choose a Serum for Yourself
We know it’s hard to keep up with the beauty industry, it’s like there are hundreds of good products launched every month. So we want to make this simple for you.
When it comes to choosing a serum for yourself, look at these two aspects.
First of all, undoubtedly, your skin concerns. This will depend on what your skin needs the most at that time. Skin problems like dryness, dull skin and aging skin can be improved when you use the right serum. So, pay attention to your skin.
- If your skin showing signs like tightness, itchiness or flakiness, it’s telling you that it needs some serious hydration.
- Get a brightening serum for radiant and glowing skin.
- If your skin appeared to show early signs of aging skin like fine lines, age spots start using an anti-aging serum immediately.
Secondly, your age group. Our skin is constantly changing as we age. Consider your age as a factor if you have zero ideas what’s going on with your skin. For instance, a 20 years old girl that still studying college, it’s unlikely for her to use an anti-aging serum on her skin. Her skin is still young and strong, instead of anti-aging serum, using a hydrating serum is probably more suitable for her skin.
Your skin will start showing signs like dull skin and fine lines from around the age of 25. With that being said, our collagen production slows down and natural skin cells turnover decreases as well. Thus, you can start using a brightening serum that will improve skin cells turnover rate and keep your skin glowing.
For reference, we think that:
- Use hydrating serum in your teenage years till your mid-20s
- You can start using a brightening serum in your late 20s to early 30s
- Start considering using an anti-aging serum in your mid-30s
Keep in mind that lifestyles and environment can lead to early aging skin. Therefore, we think you can use your age as a reference but if you want to achieve your skin goal, you must know your skin concerns.
Can You Use Two Serums?
Yes, you can. Just make sure that the two serums are safe to use together and you should layer your serums in the correct order.
For example, do not pair vitamin C with AHA/BHA serum. These two ingredients become unstable when paired together. It might disrupt your skin’s pH balance and lead to irritations.
In addition, you should never apply any oil-based serum before water-based serum. Oil-based products form a protective layer on the skin to prevent moisture loss. With that being said, your water-based serum will not penetrate into your skin if you apply an oil-based product first.
Lastly, always apply hydrating serum before brightening serum. Hydration is a key component of good and healthy skin. Hydrated skin will absorb the following product faster and deeper. On the other hand, if you pairing your anti-aging serum with brightening serum, always use your anti-aging serum first. Anti-aging target the inner layer and deepest part of the skin, while brightening serum mostly target problems like hyperpigmentation and skin texture.
Common Ingredients Found in Serum
In most cases, you can easily differentiate the serums and immediately know the serum types. But we would like to include some useful information and hopefully to help you to pick a serum that is effective.
For a hydrating serum, mainly designed to boost your skin’s hydration and prevent moisture loss. It’s common to see ingredients like glycerin, hyaluronic acids, and squalene. All these ingredients attract water to the skin and bind the moisture in your skin.
Next up, brightening serum. It usually infused with powerful antioxidants that will reduce free radical production and help fade dark spots. Your skin appeared to be more energized and vitalized. Free radicals damage your skin cell and make your skin age faster. Ingredients like vitamin C and niacinamide are good ingredients to keep your skin radiant.
Last but not least, anti-aging serum that helps you to slow down signs of aging. Peptides are one of the most notable ingredients among all anti-aging ingredients. Peptides keep skin firm and maintain skin’s elasticity. In addition, the ‘it’ ingredient retinol is also one effective anti-aging ingredient that will accelerate skin cell’s turnover rates.
