Most of what a skincare routine does well comes down to three steps in the right order: cleanse, apply a serum, moisturize. Other products can earn a place later, but they work best on top of a routine you already keep. Here is the order we use ourselves, with the small timings that make a difference.

The rule behind the order

Go from thinnest to thickest. Watery textures first, creams after, oils last. A thin serum can’t spread evenly through a layer of cream, but a cream sits comfortably over a serum that has settled. If you remember one thing from this article, make it that.

Step one: cleanse

In the morning, your skin has spent the night under the covers, not out in the city. A splash of lukewarm water is often enough, or a quick, gentle cleanse if your skin feels oily on waking.

The evening cleanse does more work. It has to lift sunscreen, makeup and the day. Our Oat Cleansing Milk is made for this. Massage one pump into dry skin for thirty seconds, so the squalane (2%) can loosen sunscreen, then add a little water and rinse with lukewarm water. If you wear a water-resistant sunscreen or long-wear makeup, cleanse twice.

Skip anything that leaves your face squeaky. A tight feeling after cleansing isn’t a sign of clean skin. It’s a sign the cleanser took more than it needed to.

Step two: the serum

The serum is the most concentrated step, so choose it for what you’d like to see change. For uneven tone and visible redness, there’s the Alpine Rose Serum, with niacinamide at 4% and alpine rose at 2%. For skin that feels tight, there’s the Edelweiss Hydrating Serum, with hyaluronic acid at 1.5%.

Press three drops into skin that is still slightly damp from cleansing or from a toner mist. Pressing is gentler than rubbing, and damp skin gives a hyaluronic acid serum water to hold on to.

Then wait about a minute. It’s the most skipped step in skincare and the easiest to fix. A serum that hasn’t settled gets dragged around by the cream that follows, and it can pill.

Step three: moisturize

A moisturizer helps keep in the water your skin and serum are holding. Warm a pea-sized amount of the Everyday Oat Moisturizer between your fingertips and press it in. If your skin is dry or the air is cold, a denser cream such as our Rich Barrier Cream can take its place, especially at night.

Morning and evening

The order stays the same. The job changes.

In the morning, the routine gets your skin ready for the day: a light cleanse, a serum, a moisturizer that sits well under sunscreen, then sunscreen. Done this way, it takes about four minutes.

In the evening, the routine clears the day away and gives slower formulas the whole night. This is where a night serum belongs. Our Bakuchiol Night Serum, with bakuchiol at 1%, is made for evenings and is gentle enough for nightly use. If you use two serums, keep one for the morning and one for the night rather than stacking both.

Three steps done every day will do more for your skin than seven steps done when you remember.

Where sunscreen goes

Sunscreen is always the last step in the morning. Give your moisturizer two or three minutes to settle, then apply sunscreen generously and evenly, including your ears, neck and hairline. Most people use less than the amount sunscreens are tested with, so follow the label for how much to use.

Reapply through the day when you’re outdoors, and after swimming, sweating or towel-drying. Sunscreen is one part of sun care, not all of it. Shade, a hat and sunglasses do a lot of the work, especially around midday.

When to add an oil

A face oil isn’t a fourth step everyone needs. It helps when your skin still feels dry after moisturizing, in cold or windy weather, or in rooms with dry indoor heat.

Oil goes last, because it spreads over everything beneath it. At night, press two or three drops of the Sea Buckthorn Face Oil over your moisturizer. In the morning, either skip it or mix a single drop into your moisturizer, so your sunscreen still has an even surface to sit on. The oil always goes before sunscreen, never after.

Give it four weeks

Introduce one new product at a time, and try it on a small patch of skin, such as the side of your neck, for a few days first. Then give it four weeks before you judge it. Skin takes time to show change, and a routine you keep long enough to see results is worth more than a new product every week.