Step Zero, Forever

Before I could pick any products, I needed to know my skin type. Before I could know my skin type, I needed… more quizzes, apparently. I spent years on step zero.

Every beginner-focused skincare guide I came across, years before I actually started any kind of routine, said roughly the same thing first: figure out your skin type, then choose products suited to it. This seemed like reasonable, even responsible advice — don’t just buy random things, understand your skin first. So that’s what I tried to do, repeatedly, for a few years, without ever getting past it.

I took online skin type quizzes. More than once, the same quiz gave me different results on different days. Different quizzes from different sites gave me different results from each other — oily, then combination, then “normal with occasional dryness,” depending on which one, and seemingly depending on the day. Every result came with the same instruction: now that you know your type, choose products for it. I never felt like I actually knew, so I never moved past that instruction.

The Comment That Finally Moved Things Forward

What eventually got me unstuck wasn’t a better quiz — it was a comment from a friend, in passing, when I mentioned I was “still trying to figure out my skin type” before starting anything. She said something like: skin type isn’t really a fixed thing you diagnose once and then know forever — it can vary by season, by age, by what you’re currently using (or not using), and the most useful way to find out what your skin needs is usually to use some basic, gentle things for a few weeks and see how it responds, rather than trying to determine the answer in advance.

This reframed the entire thing for me. I’d been treating “skin type” as a prerequisite — a piece of information I needed to acquire before I could responsibly choose anything — when it was apparently more like an observation that emerges from using things, not a fact that exists independently and just needs to be looked up.

What I Actually Changed

The change was starting with products gentle and basic enough that they weren’t likely to cause problems regardless of what my skin type turned out to be — fragrance-free, minimal ingredients, nothing aggressive — and then actually paying attention to how my skin responded over a few weeks. Did it feel tight after cleansing? Did it look shiny by midday? Did the moisturizer feel like too much, or not enough?

Those observations — which took weeks to gather, not a quiz to generate — turned out to be far more useful than any quiz result had been, mostly because they were about how my skin responded to something specific, rather than an abstract category. “This moisturizer feels slightly heavy by the afternoon” is something I can act on directly. “You’re a combination skin type” is something I then have to translate into action, with plenty of room for that translation to go wrong.

The Products That Actually Earned Their Spot

Same format as the rest of this series — chosen specifically because they’re gentle enough to start with regardless of skin type, which was the whole point.

La Roche-Posay Toleriane Hydrating Gentle Cleanser

This was a starting point precisely because it’s formulated to be tolerated broadly — minimal lather, fragrance-free, designed for sensitive skin generally. As a first product, its job wasn’t to be “right for my skin type” in some specific sense; it was to be unlikely to cause a reaction regardless of what my skin type turned out to be, so that anything I noticed afterward was more likely to be informative rather than just irritation from the cleanser itself.

CeraVe AM Facial Moisturizing Lotion SPF 30

I started with this partly for simplicity — moisturizer and sunscreen in one step, which meant fewer things to evaluate at once while I was still in the “just observe” phase. It’s also light enough that if my skin turned out to be on the oilier side, it wasn’t an obviously bad starting point, and if it turned out to be drier, it wasn’t aggressively wrong either — a reasonably central option while I figured out which direction, if any, I needed to adjust.

CeraVe PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion

The evening counterpart — slightly different from the AM version, without SPF, for nighttime. Using a similar product morning and night, with one small difference (SPF vs. no SPF, since I obviously don’t need sun protection while sleeping), meant I wasn’t trying to evaluate two very different products at once. If something felt off, it was easier to guess which one might be responsible when they were this similar to begin with.

What I Actually Learned About My Skin (Eventually)

After a few weeks of the above, a few things became noticeable that no quiz had told me: my skin tends toward oilier by midday specifically around my nose and forehead, but not really my cheeks. It doesn’t react badly to fragrance-free products generally, but I hadn’t tested fragranced ones, so I genuinely don’t know about those. It gets visibly drier in winter in a way it doesn’t in summer.

None of this resolves into a single “skin type” label that I could now confidently state — and I’ve come to think that’s fine, maybe even more accurate than a label would be. “Combination, leaning oilier in the T-zone, more so in summer, currently untested with fragrance” is a lot more specific and useful than “combination,” even though it took weeks of basic products and paying attention to arrive at, rather than a five-minute quiz.

Two Habits I Had to Unlearn

Treating online quizzes as authoritative

Different quizzes gave me different answers, which in hindsight should have been a bigger signal than I treated it as — instead of concluding “these quizzes aren’t very reliable,” I concluded “I must be doing something wrong by not getting a clear answer,” and went looking for a better quiz. The quizzes weren’t the problem and weren’t the solution; they were mostly beside the point.

Treating “I don’t know yet” as a reason not to act

This is really the core of it — not knowing my skin type felt like a legitimate reason to not start anything, as if starting without that knowledge would be reckless. Starting with things gentle enough not to require that knowledge in advance was the thing that actually let me find out, which is roughly the opposite of how I’d been thinking about the order of operations.

What My Routine Actually Looks Like Now

Questions I Get Asked a Lot

So skin type quizzes are useless?
I wouldn’t go that far — they might be a useful starting conversation for some people. For me, specifically, they became an obstacle because I treated their output as something I needed to resolve before acting, and the conflicting results made that resolution feel impossible. If a quiz gives you a quick general sense and you move on, that’s different from what happened to me.

How long should I “just observe” before choosing products based on what I notice?
For me, a few weeks was enough to notice the patterns I mentioned — oilier T-zone, seasonal dryness. I don’t think there’s a precise number that’s right for everyone, but “long enough to notice a pattern, not just a single day” seems like a reasonable rough guide.

What if the gentle starting products don’t seem to do anything?
For me, “doesn’t seem to do anything dramatic” was actually a fine outcome at the starting stage — the goal wasn’t a dramatic result, it was a baseline that let me notice how my skin behaved without that baseline itself being the source of any reaction.

Is it bad to start with the “wrong” products for your skin type if you don’t know it yet?
Based on my experience, starting with broadly gentle, fragrance-free basics seemed to reduce how much this mattered — they weren’t strongly “for” any particular type, which meant there wasn’t really a wrong choice to make at that stage in the way there might be with something more targeted.

The Actual Takeaway

“Know your skin type first” turned out to be advice that, taken literally, has no real starting point — the knowledge it asks for is generated by the thing it says should come after it. I don’t think the advice is wrong exactly, but I think it’s incomplete in a way that cost me years: starting with something gentle enough not to need that knowledge in advance is how the knowledge actually gets generated, not a workaround for not having it yet.

If “I don’t know my skin type” has been part of why you haven’t started anything, it might be worth considering that the not-knowing isn’t really the obstacle it feels like — it’s closer to the starting condition that basic, gentle products are designed for in the first place.

Check out the products I mentioned →

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Day One: Ten Steps. Day Five: Zero.

My very first skincare routine had ten products and took almost an hour. By the end of the week I’d quit entirely — and didn’t try again for months.

The first time I tried to “get into skincare,” I did what a lot of beginners apparently do: I found a detailed routine online — the kind with numbered steps, specific product categories for each one, and a recommended order — and bought everything on the list in one go. Double cleanse, toner, essence, two different serums, a sheet mask, eye cream, moisturizer, a overnight treatment, and sunscreen. Ten things, used in a specific sequence, morning and night.

Day one, I did all ten steps. It took close to fifty minutes between the morning and evening versions combined, and I remember feeling genuinely accomplished — like I’d finally “started” something I’d been meaning to do for a long time. Day two, also all ten, though it felt like more of a chore. Day three, I skipped the sheet mask because I was tired. Day four, I skipped two more steps. By day five, I did the same single cleanser-and-moisturizer thing I’d been doing before any of this started, and didn’t touch the other eight products again for months.

The Part That Actually Surprised Me Later

I want to be clear about what happened next, because it’s the part that took me a long time to notice: those eight unused products sat in a drawer for months, and during that time, nothing about my skin got worse. I’d expected — without really articulating it — that abandoning “the routine” meant abandoning progress, going back to square one, undoing whatever the four days had done. Nothing seemed to undo. My skin was just… the same as it had been, the same as it was before any of this.

When I eventually came back to skincare — a separate post in this series covers the specific reason, a trip where I borrowed a friend’s cream cleanser — I started with something much smaller: a cleanser and a moisturizer, used consistently, with sunscreen added not long after. Three things. Within a few weeks, I noticed more of a difference from those three things, used consistently, than I had from any of the four days of the ten-step version.

What I Actually Changed

The honest version of “what changed” is almost entirely about starting point, not about any specific product being better than another. Instead of researching “the best beginner routine” and assembling everything it recommended, I started with whatever felt sustainable enough that I genuinely couldn’t imagine skipping it — which, for me, turned out to be just two things at first, with a third (sunscreen) added once the first two felt automatic rather than effortful.

I also stopped thinking of the eight abandoned products as “wasted” or as evidence I’d failed at skincare. A few of them, much later, did end up getting used — not because I’d “graduated” to needing them, but because by that point I had a baseline routine that was genuinely automatic, and adding one more thing to an established habit felt completely different from adding one more thing to a routine that was already at its limit on day one.

The Products That Actually Earned Their Spot

Same format as the rest of this series — and this time, specifically the three that survived being a complete beginner, not the other seven.

Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser

This is about as unglamorous a starting point as skincare gets, and that’s sort of the point — it’s mild, it’s been around forever, and it was never going to be the product I’d feature in a “routine reveal.” As the first of three steps, though, it had one job: be simple enough that washing my face didn’t feel like the beginning of a longer process I needed to brace for. It did that job completely, every single day, which turned out to matter more than anything more specialized would have.

Vanicream Moisturizing Cream

Fragrance-free, minimal ingredient list, and — like the cleanser — not something that shows up in exciting routine content. As a second step, it asked nothing extra of me: no waiting for absorption before the next thing, because for the first few weeks there wasn’t a next thing. Just cleanser, then this, done. The lack of anything notable to say about it is, I think, exactly why it was the right product to start with.

Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch SPF 100+

This came a bit after the first two, once cleanser-and-moisturizer felt automatic rather than like “doing my routine.” Adding a third step to an already-automatic two-step habit felt completely different from the original ten-step list — it was one new thing layered onto something that no longer required any willpower, rather than one-tenth of a long list that required willpower for every single piece.

What Happened to the Other Seven Products

For the sake of completeness: most of them, I never went back to. A couple did eventually get used, much later, once the three-step routine had been automatic for long enough that adding something extra felt like an addition rather than a replacement of the whole system. None of this happened according to any plan — I didn’t “graduate” to a four-step or five-step routine on any schedule. Some products just sat there until either I had a specific reason to reach for them, or I eventually accepted I wasn’t going to and didn’t feel bad about that either.

Two Habits I Had to Unlearn

Treating step count as a measure of seriousness

I think I associated a longer routine with being more committed to “taking care of my skin,” in some general sense — as if starting small meant I wasn’t really trying. Three things, done consistently for months, ended up being a more serious skincare routine by any practical measure than ten things done for four days, even though it would have looked less impressive as a list.

Treating the first attempt as a referendum on whether skincare was “for me”

When the ten-step routine fell apart after four days, I didn’t think “that specific routine was too much” — I thought “I guess I’m not someone who does skincare,” and didn’t try again for months. The actual lesson was much narrower than the conclusion I drew from it.

What My Routine Actually Looks Like Now

Questions I Get Asked a Lot

Is a multi-step routine ever a bad idea for a beginner?
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with more steps — my issue was specifically with starting there, before any of it was habitual. If someone genuinely enjoys a longer routine from day one and it sticks, that’s a different situation than mine was.

How do I know when to add another step?
For me, it wasn’t really a “when” I planned — it was more that adding sunscreen happened to occur to me once cleanser and moisturizer no longer felt like a task. I don’t think there’s a specific timeline that’s right for everyone, but “the current steps feel automatic” seemed like a more useful signal than any number of weeks.

What should I do with products I bought but don’t use?
Mine mostly just sat there, and a couple eventually got used much later. I don’t think there’s anything productive about feeling bad about unused products, beyond maybe being a bit more cautious about buying a lot at once next time — which, in my case, was the actual lesson.

Is it normal to “fail” at skincare the first time you try?
Based on my own experience — I think “fail” might be the wrong word for what happened, even though it’s what it felt like at the time. A specific routine didn’t fit my life. That’s different from “skincare isn’t for me,” even though those felt identical for a few months.

The Actual Takeaway

The ten-step routine wasn’t wrong because of anything about the products in it — it was wrong because it was the starting point, for someone with no existing habit to attach it to. Three steps, done every day, turned out to be a bigger commitment in practice than ten steps done for under a week, even though it looked like less on paper the entire time.

If you’re starting from nothing, it might be worth resisting the urge to start with everything — not because more steps are bad, but because “everything, starting today” and “everything, eventually, built on something that already happens” are very different things, and only one of them has much chance of still being true in a month.

Check out the products I mentioned →

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