1.  Cleansing Daily

Women, in general need to cleanse their faces twice a day because they need to remove their makeup at night.  Men can often get away with once a day cleansing but cleansing in the evening will prepare their faces for application of skincare products. We recommend that everyone have an aggressive cleanser and a gentle cleanser on hand.  Most of the time you would be using your aggressive cleanser in the morning and the gentle cleanser in the evening to remove your makeup. Also, if your face were ever irritated you would have a gentle cleanser on hand. We also recommend that you use the Clarisonic skincare brush system with your cleanser.

2.  Exfoliate Daily

Daily exfoliation helps to remove the layer of dead skin we are constantly shedding. This is a powerful stimulus for the epidermis to continually renew itself which is critical for the health and appearance of the skin.  Exfoliation can be aided by use of products which contain Alpha Hydroxy Acids or Glycolic acids.  Many products, including cleansers, contain these acids. They work, in part, by breaking up the bridges between the dead skin cells so they shed more easily or are more easily removed when you cleanse.  Another way to exfoliate is to use products which contain small microbeads which will mechanically remove the dead skin.  The Clarisonic Skin Care Brush can be used with the Clarifying Cleanser above once a day safely in my experience but you should not use more abrasive cleansers with bits of grit or shells with the brush.   More aggressive exfoliation can be obtained with periodic use of Diamond Microdermabrasion or the VI Peel.  The Retinols and especially the Prescription Level Retinoids will also enhance cell turnover and exfoliation.

'Without question, the most important measure we can take to protect our skin is daily protection from harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun.  See my comprehensive review of this topic "The Dark Side of the Sun."  Briefly, we need to protect from the UVB "Burning" rays and the UVA "Aging" rays. The UVA rays are especially harmful as they penetrate deep into the dermis and damage our collagen in part through production of Free Radicals.  Free Radicals are neutralized by things called Antioxidants, like Vitamin C and E.  You can't take enough of these by mouth to totally protect your skin, but they do indeed make a difference, especially the Vitamin C, so take 1-2gm a day of Vitamin C orally.  Therefore, any good skin care program will have a topical antioxidant serum which you use daily in addition to a sunscreen/sunblock.  We recommend two SkinCeutical products and a Copper AntiOxidant made by Procyte and any of the Sunscreen/Sunblocks made by Skinceuticals.