Last month, we stripped down to the building blocks of skincare - cleanse, tone, moisturize, repeat! As you’re starting to get into the groove of creating a skin care routine that is catered to your unique skin needs - you may decide you’re ready to step it up and enhance the effectiveness of your trusty basics, this is where our concentrates come in!
Now, all you have to do is pick a concentrate that targets your area of concern. But before you click add-to-cart, it’s important to know which ingredients complement each other and to remember that even with the most sophisticated formulas, some ingredients you should just never mix, like ever.
Retinol + AHA/BHA
Both retinol and AHA/BHA have incredible exfoliating effects on their own, increasing collagen production and speeding up skin cell turnover - leaving you glowin’. Using them together, though, is a big no-no. You can expect drying skin, irritation, redness, flaking, and a damaged skin barrier (the horror!)A simple solution is to alternate days. Pop on your skoah aha mask 1 - 3 times a week, and use retinol on the other days. This adds some variation and excitement to your routine too!
Vitamin C + AHA/BHA
Similar to the duo above, both vitamin C and AHA/BHA are pH dependent to be active, so mixing them means you won’t achieve the desired result which is frustrating enough as is, you might irritate your skin too. Safe to say, plan to use vitamin C in the morning and exfoliants at night.
Copper Peptide + Vitamin C
Both of these powerhouse ingredients are packed with antioxidants that smoothen and firm up the skin. Layered together, this desired effect is sometimes canceled out. This is because copper can oxidize the ascorbic acid and cause it to break down too rapidly, diminishing the benefits and effectiveness of vitamin C.
Of course, you can have the best of both worlds by applying these ingredients at different times, either waiting 30 minutes between applications or opposite times of the day. As a word of caution, it is generally not recommended to copper peptides with retinol and AHA/BHA, as these ingredients may reduce the overall effectiveness of copper peptides.
Niacinamide + Vitamin C… Or Not?
A topic of contention within the skin care community is whether or not niacinamide and vitamin c should be combined. Some believe that layering them significantly reduces the potency of the ingredients. While other camp believes this to be based on outdated research, and thanks to modern formulations, these two ingredients are actually a winning combination.
Skoah's niacinamide concentrate is the perfect complement. Niacinamide is uniquely compatible with any of the products in your skin care routine, including those that contain retinol, peptides, hyaluronic acid, AHAs, BHA, vitamin C, and all types of antioxidants!
