Grooming Habits to Start in Your 20s

· Updated on May 29, 2018

For most guys, your 20s are for exploration, finding out who you are, and working on who you will become. It’s also a prime time to start developing healthy habits and routines, and learning how to balance the good choices with the not so good ones. It’s perfectly normal to have no clue what you want to do with your life in your 20s, but at least you should start to invest in staying handsome longer. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Get to know your face

Not all mugs are designed the same. Everyone’s skin is unique and requires different maintenance. The most common categories are dry, oily, normal, and combination. Check out this Wikihow site to figure out your skin type. For most people, the basic maintenance will be same, but the details involving the products you choose will slightly vary.

2. Clean up your act

The most important thing to remember is that your skin is more like a sponge and less like a shell. Skin is covered in pores and all your pores really want is to star on the show Hoarders. You collect everything in your pores: dirt, sweat, oil, and all of the free radicals floating around the environment. It’s important to choose a face wash that doesn’t over dry your skin but also cleans it thoroughly. Give Youth to the People Age Prevention Cleanser ($36) a try.

3. Exfoliate

Your skin is a flesh factory that produces cells. Every day your body is making new healthy skin cells and getting rid of old dead ones. When old skin cells start to pile up, it can leave the skin looking dry and dull, and can cause blackheads and breakouts. In order to keep the production flowing smoothly, it’s crucial to exfoliate a few times a week. Exfoliation can be done either chemically or with a manual scrub. Take a look at Baxter of California Facial Scrub ($19).

4. Moisturize and protect

Moisturizer is key to creating balance in the skin. Even if your skin is oily, it still needs positive moisture to stay hydrated and firm. Applying a moisturizer is like giving your skin eight glasses of water, and usually have other benefits like anti-aging or anti-inflammatory. It’s imperative you wear a sunscreen, and an easy way to do that is to select a moisturizer that already has one in it. The sun is anti-aging’s Voldemort. Not only does the sun burn and cause cancer, it also makes the skin produce excess melanin which creates age and sunspots. A study by the American Society for Photobiology found that most Americans receive 18% of their sun damage before the age of 18, and then 10% each decade after. Wearing sunscreen now is like putting change away in your handsome face piggy bank. Try out MD Solar Science Daily Anti-Aging SPF 30 Moisturizer ($68).

5. Keep your eyes on the prize

One of the first places you’ll start to see aging is around your eyes. This area of the face shows a lot of expression. All the smiling, eye rolling, and WTF facial expressions will start to create “crow’s feet” or wrinkles. Part of this is genetic, and part of this preventable. Your skin is built like a mattress and box spring, and it has several layers and springs to help keep it firm. But after a while, the coils start to loosen, the box spring starts to crack, and the bed starts to sink in where you normally sleep. The same thing goes for the delicate skin around your eyes. If you start using an eye cream now, it’s like investing in a quality bed (instead of the one you most likely have from Ikea, since you’re a 20-something). Eye cream can also have other great benefits, such as de-puffing and brightening. Start with something lighter, and then each decade step it up for more maintenance. A great starter eye cream is Clinique All About Eyes ($32).

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