Skin streaming: Inside the skincare trend urging you to use fewer products
Do you really need to do that seven-step skincare routine touted by your favourite influencer? Not according to skin streaming, which says that using anything more than four products is superfluous
The secret to perfect skin? All you need to do is cleanse, tone, and apply vitamin C – but only in the morning. In the evening, you need to use retinol instead. Try hyaluronic acid if your skin is dry, and glycolic when it’s oily. Make sure to use eye cream, don’t forget to moisturise, and SPF is, of course, essential. Heed every piece of skincare advice out there and, before you know it, your routine is seven steps long, your wash bag is bursting at the seams, and your bank balance is tragically depleted.
Ten years ago, we took a Boots exfoliator to our faces and called it a day (also problematic, I should stress. Don’t do that.). The point is, skincare is now massive – an obsession in large part inspired by the traditions of Korean beauty, or K-beauty, which entails layering products that contain lists of active ingredients as long as your arm. Skincare has since proliferated online with a plethora of TikTok (or, rather, SkinTok – there’s a special corner of the internet for this stuff) trends, from ‘skin flooding’ (drenching the skin with hydrating ingredients – a ‘drink for your skin’, if you will) to the ‘caveman regimen’ (the practice of cutting out everything – skincare, makeup, even face-washing).
Skin streaming isn’t quite that extreme, but it does lean into the idea of doing less; stripping back the number of products to focus on just the essentials, allowing you to see what is actually working and cutting out unnecessary steps. It’s the antidote to K-beauty and skin flooding.
So how, exactly, does one streamline their skincare? Dr Ariel Haus of Dr Haus Dermatology identifies four ‘essential’ products that “should be at the core of every skincare routine” (unless you have specific conditions like acne or rosacea that need special treatment): a cleanser, an antioxidant serum, a moisturiser and a sunscreen. This is the general consensus among professionals, some of whom also add in an active ingredient, like a retinoid. Toning, exfoliating, eye cream, or individual ingredient serums, such as hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and azelaic acid, are optional extras. As far as neck creams and separate day and night moisturisers go? Forget about it.
Simplifying (or streamlining) your skincare routine can be beneficial for two reasons. Firstly, using too many products can reduce their effectiveness, as only two or three can really penetrate the skin barrier at a time. “It is advisable to avoid mixing hydrophilic (water-based) products with oily products, as these will prevent the penetration of the water-based ones,” says Dr Sasha Dhoat of Harley Street Dermatology Clinic. “Similarly, pairing a toner or moisturiser that contains an alpha hydroxy acid (such as glycolic) with vitamin C destabilises the latter, and sunblock will prevent the absorption of all other products put on subsequently.”
At worst, however, too much skincare can irritate the skin. “Using a combination of too many products, especially ones containing potent active ingredients, can upset the skin’s microbiome and damage the skin barrier, leading to inflammation, irritation and sensitivity,” adds Nicola Moulton, head of editorial and in-house skincare expert at Beauty Pie. “It can also strip away the essential natural oils in your skin, causing sebaceous glands to overproduce more oil to compensate.”
Plus, says Dr Dhoat, certain combinations of products can create negative reactions: “I often have patients coming to me who have complex (and expensive) ten-step routines, and are suffering with eczema due to combining drying and irritant products such as retinoids, acid exfoliants and benzoyl peroxide. Sometimes, less is more.” Some dermatologists have reported rising cases of acne and perioral dermatitis, conditions that can be attributed to using certain or too many products and are easily flared by active topicals.
In an industry that is constantly churning out new stuff, a trend that encourages buying less and better is a welcome change. In recent years – perhaps since the pandemic and its endless GRWM (‘get ready with me’) social media videos – beauty has, in some ways, taken on the mantle of fast fashion. Constant launches ensure consistent bumps in sales, as well as reasons for people to talk about a brand and for influencers to plug it. More and more celebrities are also throwing their hat into the ring, from success stories like Rhianna’s Fenty Beauty and Hailey Bieber’s Rhode to flashes in the pan like TikTok star Addison Rae’s Item Beauty, Jared Leto’s Twentynine Palms and Kristen Bell’s Happy Dance… even JLo Beauty exited Sephora after just three years. The beauty market is oversatuated in a way that becomes confusing and overwhelming for consumers.
That said, as long as there’s a new cleanser on the market, people will buy it. Skincare has the advantage of falling under the beauty and wellness banners, becoming the ‘moral’ incarnation of makeup because participants are ‘looking after their body’. Obsession can border on dermorexia, a damaging preoccupation with skin health which is, alarmingly, increasingly prevalent in teens and children, for whom skincare is the latest fad.
Parents report Christmas lists of Drunk Elephant products, despite the fact that many of these contain active ingredients that are only meant for adults. “Kim Kardashian's daughter North West, ten, and her cousin Penelope Disick, frequently share skincare TikTok content, and the videos amass millions of views,” says Moulton. “While these videos may initially seem harmless, some of the recommendations feature pretty hard-hitting products that could cause problems for young skin.”
The rise of skin streaming may be a sign that consumers are becoming fatigued by the endless ‘-mides’, ‘-ronics’ and ‘-colics’, and see through the parade of supposedly ‘essential’ products trotted out by brands. Or maybe this is simply the latest trend among skincare enthusiasts looking to finally find that silver bullet. Either way, and for what it’s worth, this is a movement we can get behind.
