Ask The Expert: How Long Do I Need To Use A Skincare Product Before I Start Seeing Results?

By Holly O'Neill
19th Sep 2017

Ask The Expert: How Long Do I Need To Use A Skincare Product Before I Start Seeing Results?

Be honest, how many products are in your skincare routine? If you clicked here, I’ll presume you’re in the South Korean category; a feverishly long assortment of lotions, serums, mists, oils, masks, cleansers, toners, balms, exfoliators, SPF, day creams, night creams, eye creams etc.

Staying in someone else’s house requires a carry-on suitcase to carry the cacophony of creams and hair products and if that person is a male, you’ll need everything right down to shower gel, because shower gel marketed at females comes in delicious flavours like Energising Silver Birch, Refreshing Tropical Fruits and Regenerating Clary Sage. Shower gel for men only comes in masculinity inflating flavours like?Industrial Steel, Arctic Ice and Engineered Darkness. If you’re a man currently showering with a gel labelled Pain and have stumbled across this corner of the internet, I have a beauty hack for you, too; before you are obliterated from this planet by nuclear warfare, an orange race-baiting hatebaby or artificial intelligence, take yourself to Kildare Village, head into Molton Brown and stock up on discounted flavours of Intoxicating?Davana Blossom and Inspiring White Indigo, €14.60. I promise it will improve your life by at least 45% .

Molton Brown Intoxicating Davana Blossom, €14.60 at Kildare Village

While we’re on this path, head to Penneys and buy some fluffy socks too. I also promise you won’t spontaneously grow a vagina.
Back to the point. For months, no, years,?perhaps you, too, have been cleansing (in fact, double cleansing) and rubbing (in a circular motion) a medley of creams, serums, toners, exfoliators, eye creams, small creams, tall creams, I’m calling all creams, into your?face. My pores are drowning in a rotating door of anti-oxidants, hyaluronic acid, fortifying plant oils, restoring, re-texturising, uplifting, brightening, pore-reducing, clarifying, anti-ageing formulas so WHY OH WHY do I not look like a four-year-old yet? How long do I need to religiously use a cream before I start seeing results?
I asked this question to independent skincare expert, Jennifer Rock, The Skin Nerd, Creator of?~~Heaven and Earth~~?the award-winning Cleanse Off Mitt. She’s lectured worldwide and worked with big beauty giants IMAGE, Yon-Ka and Environ and has just launched her new business, theskinnerd.com for convenient online consultations. When it comes to skincare, she is all-knowing.

According to Jennifer Rock, just like how you won’t see instant results and changes to your body after one gym session, your skin takes time too.

How many days do I need to give a new skincare product before I start seeing results??

“28 is the magic number.”

Is there any skincare out there that can help me quickly?

“If you are using a moisturiser, body cream, exfoliator, sheet mask or hydrating product, you will see an immediate difference in the skin as these ingredients are nourishing the skin topically which is, nevertheless, essential.”

What skincare is worth giving more time to for visible improvements?

“If you are truly working the skin out with cosmeceuticals then you are going to have to adopt the virtue that is patience. The skin is being targeted at a cellular level (ie. where the skin cells are made – think of the root of the tree not the leaves and branches). Considering you have potentially been alive for 15 years plus, this damage has been accumulating and your skin will need more than a few minutes to begin to improve! Cosmeceuticals will be worth it as they are more result-driven than traditional skincare techniques.”

What sort of ingredients should we look at for repairing damage done to the skin?

“Ingredients such as niacinamide, kojic acid, vitamin C, retinol and all of the other key ingredients for skin health re-educate the skin cell or repair the damage caused by day to day life.”