Sleeping beauty: night-time skincare

When you employ an effective night-time skincare regimen, you can rest assured your face will glow with health and vitality. By Nikki Goldstein.

Your skin doesn’t ‘breathe’ overnight. Lots of sleep doesn’t necessarily make you more beautiful (although it can make you feel better). Your skin doesn’t rest while you’re resting and your nails don’t grow faster while you sleep. All these so-called maxims are merely old wives’ tales. Now we’ve set the record straight, it’s worth noting your skin does perform differently while you sleep, and a good night-time routine can improve how your skin looks and feels the next day. With our step-by-step skincare regimen, you’ll be able to rest easy knowing you’re doing something beneficial for your skin.

Step-by-step: Night-time skincare

1. Take it all off

Before you go to bed, use a gentle cleanser to remove the build-up of grease, grime and make-up. In her book, The Skin Type Solution (Viking, 2006), dermatologist Dr Leslie Baumann says it’s essential to select the right products for your skin type. She believes there are roughly four different skin types and recommends cleansing morning and night  with a skin-type-specific cleanser.

• Oily sensitive skin: Use an exfoliating cleanser to help reduce the risk of acne, clean pores and diminish the appearance of pigmentation. Try Neutrogena’s Oil-Free Acne Wash, $13.99, or Dermalogica’s Anti-Bac Skin Wash, $46, which contains salicylic acid to clarify the complexion. 


• Oily resistant skin: Use a cleanser that will help control oil, reduce enlarged pores and minimise the appearance of dark spots. Try Jurlique’s Foaming Facial Cleanser, $38, which contains lavender and tea-tree oil to balance and gently cleanse the skin. 


• Dry sensitive skin: Dr Baumann recommends Dove’s Essential Nutrients Deep Cleansing Cream, $8.99, which is pH balanced to maintain moisture levels in the skin. Alternatively, try L’Occitane’s antioxidant-boosted Olive Harvest Olive Daily Face Cleanser, $26.95. 


• Dry resistant skin: MD Formulations Facial Cleanser – Sensitive Skin Formula, $80, hydrates the skin and at the same time sloughs away dead cells.

2. Slick on a serum

Not so long ago, rich night creams were seen as the real beauty workhorses, doing all the anti-ageing hard yakka while you slept. Today, serums carry most of the load by delivering a host of ingredients to the deeper layers of the skin. “Serums are lighter and more easily absorbed by the skin, so they make great delivery systems,” says Lise Jorgensen, vice president global skincare product development for Estée Lauder. “Far from being dormant at night, the skin is doing a great deal of repair work. We now know that the optimal time to maximise the skin’s natural repair mechanisms is at night.”

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