What to Do When Your Skincare Practice Stops Improving
You know that you’ve hit a plateau when you notice that your improvement is slowing down, and every practice session starts to look and feel eerily similar. You’re applying your cleanser, you’re removing your products, your finger motions look almost perfect, and yet something feels off. For a complete beginner, this is frustrating, because your hands aren’t completely clueless anymore, but you’re also not really getting any better. This isn’t a cue to practice more. This is a cue to practice less. One of the reasons that people hit plateaus in their skincare practice is because they’re practicing too many different motions at the same time, and they can’t quite pinpoint which motion isn’t quite right.
The very first thing that you should do is break your practice routine down into smaller micro-skills, and focus on one at a time. Take a really good hard look at how you’re preparing your skin before you cleanse. Take a good hard look at how much product you’re using. Take a good hard look at the amount of pressure you’re applying with your fingers. Take a good hard look at how long you’re cleansing for. Take a good hard look at how you’re moving your fingers around your face as you cleanse. One of these micro-skills is probably your weak link, and masking it with the other motions. Your practice sessions may look mostly fine from start to finish, but you may still be experiencing inconsistent cleansing. You may still be removing your products way too fast.
You may still be applying too much pressure around your nose and jawline. Once you figure out what your weak link is, it’s going to be much easier for you to improve, because you’re not confusing yourself by trying to practice too many skills at the same time. One of the biggest pitfalls of hitting a plateau in your practice is when you start to seek out novelty. You want to try new products, or practice for a longer period of time, or start to incorporate other techniques into your routine, in the hopes that by introducing new material, you’ll start to see new results. Usually, this is just a bandaid over the problem. If you’re having trouble with applying even pressure with your fingers, then switching to a different cleanser isn’t going to help you very much.
If you’re not taking the time to properly prepare your skin for cleansing, then adding in an essence and serum isn’t going to help you very much. Instead of seeking out novelty, the best thing you can do is to repeat and repeat and repeat, with intention. Focus on just one section for long enough to where you can start to see patterns emerging. If you notice that you keep making the same mistake, it’s not a mystery anymore. It’s something that you can work on. Sometimes, all it takes to break up a plateau is a good 15-minute practice session. Spend 3 minutes looking back at your last practice session and identifying one thing that you could improve. Maybe you want to work on removing your products a bit more slowly. Maybe you want to work on trying to get more product onto the center of your face. Spend 8 minutes practicing just that one thing, while keeping everything else as simple and as stripped back as possible.
Spend 4 minutes looking back at your work in a mirror, and making a note of how your last repetition differed from your very first one. This kind of short and targeted work can help you to break up plateaus, because it stops your practice session from feeling so vague. It also keeps you from getting frustrated with your entire routine. If you’re feeling frustrated, try to solicit feedback, but only if that feedback is specific. Telling someone that they’re “doing great” or that they should “just keep practicing” isn’t helpful. Noticing that someone is using a bit more product on one side of their face than the other is helpful. Noticing that someone’s finger motions start to falter when they’re moving from one section of their face to another is helpful.
Noticing that someone’s skin looks a touch over exfoliated after a practice session is helpful. You can also get this same kind of feedback from yourself, by recording yourself with your phone and then watching to see if there are any points where your pace starts to slow down, or where you inadvertently apply more or less pressure. Sometimes, all it takes is getting a view of your practice from the outside to identify where you still need to improve. Plateaus are a normal part of the practice process, and really, this is usually where your technique starts to develop. In the beginning, your improvement comes from just going through the motions and getting used to it.
But as you get more advanced, your improvement is going to come from refinement, and refinement is subtle. It comes from being able to pick up on tiny little inconsistencies in your practice and addressing them before they become a hard habit to break. So if you’re in your practice sessions and you find that you’re not improving like you used to, don’t take that as a sign of failure and don’t take that as a sign that you’re not cut out for this.
Take that as a sign that you’ve hit a plateau, and now things are finally getting interesting. Now is the time when your observation skills are finally getting a little bit sharper. Now is the time when your choices are finally getting a little bit more intentional. Now is the time when your practice is finally shifting from rote imitation to thoughtful and deliberate technique.
