It’s a hot summer afternoon. You come home after a long outing. And you are asked NOT to drink water. How would you feel? You will be left feeling thirsty; right? Now apply this same logic to your cleansing-toning-moisturising regime.
No matter how much we emphasize on cleansing-toning-moisturizing (CTM) regime, your toner takes a back seat on most occasions (read daily). The problem here is not just the laziness (admit it; we all are lazy when it comes to skin care) but the lack of knowledge too. What drinking water does to you after a long outing is exactly what toner does to your skin after cleansing it. It is extremely essential for restoring the pH balance. It provides the moisture back to your skin (if it has become dry) or simply gets rid of the traces of your cream cleansers.
Don’t overlook the importance of toner just because you don’t notice results overnight. Nobody does. Toners refine and shrink the size of our pores if and only if used regularly.
A lot of these results depend on what type of toner you use? Yes, there are various types and these types have good and bad ones too.
Toners essentially come in three variants
Wondering which one to select? No problem, we have divided different types of toners for different types of skin.
Alcohol-free toners are the mildest and best suited for people with dry skin. But they have a drawback when it comes to other skin types. They cannot keep your skin oil-free. They actually inject back the moisture that was lost. Whereas the alcohol found in skin tonics and astringents, remove all the oil from your skin surface and balance its oiliness.
[Read: Toner for Dry Skin]
The answer would be ‘bad’! Why? Well if you remove all the oil from your skin surface, the skin is tricked into thinking that it has gone dry. Now in order to balance this dryness, it starts producing excess oil – making skin oilier. Again, alcohol is a dehydrating agent; it might give you the feeling of being oil-free for some time. But in reality it would rip off all the natural moisture from your skin and eventually bring about premature ageing.
So it’s better to stick to the alcohol-free toners or the ones containing mild amount of alcohol. It is better to combat oiliness instead of going about with wrinkles and with a skin that looks more dead than alive!
But ‘to each, his own’ is the mantra here. We all differ from each other. So the best would be to consult your dermatologist and go by his/her recommendation.
Why not transfer alcohol-free toner in a spray bottle and use it as a freshener on hot sultry days or in dry winters? Just a spritz or two and you are good to keep going again!
Which toner do you swear by? How has your toner helped you? Share your experiences of using skin toners regularly and leave your comments below.