Washing your face!

What is double cleansing? It’s quite simply washing your face twice, but with two different cleansers (or just a makeup remover swab as your first cleanse) meant to accomplish one thing: actually clean skin. “The first cleanse removes surface debris such as makeup, oil, and even pollution, while the second cleanse is considered a ‘true cleanse,’ ensuring that everything accumulated on the skin has been adequately removed, providing a pure canvas for all products that follow, ultimately allowing for maximum penetration,” say Kim and Zoe Roebuck, founder of Australian skincare line Dr. Roebuck’s.110317_CG_BeautyStillLives_2017_01-4crop.jpg Photos by Cody Guilfoyle. Washing your face seems rather foolproof, right? I mean, just grab some soap, lather between your palms, massage on, and rinse off. Do you really need a whole article on how to wash your face? Actually, yes, yes you do. Because as simple as it might sound, washing your face is complicated business. Or more specifically, washing your face correctly is complicated—turns out we’ve been kind of slacking on washing. Not removing our makeup entirely, washing too often or too little, messing up the pH balance—yikes! Let’s do a quick 101 just to be on the safe side. One of the most beneficial washing techniques—for skin, makeup removal, and pH wellbeing—is the practice of double cleansing, something skincare obsessives have been doing for centuries. “In the Miyakofuzoku Kewaiden [basically the bible of Japanese beauty], the 1813 beauty book that our collection is based on, skincare is the first chapter, and cleansing is the very first step of the ritual,” says Victoria Tsai, founder of Tatcha. “Unburdening the skin and bringing it back to its most pure, fresh state is crucial in properly caring for it.” What is double cleansing? It’s quite simply washing your face twice, but with two different cleansers (or just a makeup remover swab as your first cleanse) meant to accomplish one thing: actually clean skin. “The first cleanse removes surface debris such as makeup, oil, and even pollution, while the second cleanse is considered a ‘true cleanse,’ ensuring that everything accumulated on the skin has been adequately removed, providing a pure canvas for all products that follow, ultimately allowing for maximum penetration,” say Kim and Zoe Roebuck, founder of Australian skincare line Dr. Roebuck’s. And not to gross you out, but your face is pretty damn dirty at the EOD. “Did you know that your face is the dirtiest place on your body?” asks celebrity esthetician (and Domino favorite) Renee Rouleau. “Yes. You touch your face all day and transfer bacteria directly onto the skin.” “It may not look like it, but by the end of the day, there’s a lot on our skin: makeup, sunscreen, pollution, sweat, even dead skin cells,” says Tsai. “Double cleansing helps to reduce the look of pore size, diminish the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, and sun spots, and refine the surface texture of the skin.” And it’s a pretty old school practice of skincare, too. Leave it to the brilliance of Asian women to master the double cleansing technique to remove heavy makeup, sunscreen, and city grime. “The double cleanse started in South Korea and Japan, and then came to Europe and US,” says Verso founder Lars Fredriksson.