How to Get Glowy Skin in 4 Easy Steps

In this article:
Steps for glowing skin
Protect your barrier and microbiome
Exfoliate your skin
Incorporate vitamin C
Paula's Choice vitamin C product spotlight
Wear broad-spectrum sunscreen
Skin care routine for glowing skin

Radiant skin and a natural glow are considered a key part of a healthy appearance. When your skin is luminous its vitality seems to emanate from within, creating a pure brightness others can’t help but notice.

Many of us try to creatively achieve this look with makeup, but it can be even more beautiful when your skin reflects this radiance without any makeup. It all starts with brilliant skin care, so we’re revealing how to achieve that dare-to-go-bare real healthy glow with top, glow-inducing skin care products, tips and ingredients.

Steps for glowing skin

Let’s put it simply – glowing skin is ultimately healthy skin, and the key to achieving glowy, dewy skin is using a beneficial, gentle routine that defends skin from factors that lead to dullness, irritation and uneven tone. Thankfully, doing this is straightforward!

Protect your barrier and microbiome

Nourishing skin’s microbiome and its barrier are integral to achieving glowy skin.

Skin’s microbiome is a delicate balance of microorganisms, also called flora, that live on skin’s surface. While that might sound a bit disconcerting, when these microorganisms are in harmony, they help skin function normally (1). Disruptions and imbalances, however, can lead to a host of problems, including sensitivity, increased redness and a dull tone. Environmental agents, irritating skin care products and other lifestyle choices can disrupt the delicate balance of skin’s microbiome.

When it comes to skin’s barrier, we’re referring to part of the outermost layer of the epidermis, or stratum corneum. It’s skin’s primary defence against external aggressors and helps maintain moisture (2). When it’s damaged, either through irritating ingredients or repeated sun exposure, the result is the same as what you’ll see if you have a microbiome issue – a lackluster skin tone coupled with signs of irritation and misbehaving skin.

The solution to both issues is to follow a skin care routine loaded with ingredients that restore skin to its healthy state. This includes a gentle cleanser, skin-replenishing toner, exfoliant, hydrating serum or vitamin C treatment, moisturiser with sunscreen and a nighttime moisturiser loaded with antioxidants.

Exfoliate your skin

The role of exfoliants for glowing skin truly deserves extra attention. AHAs (like glycolic acid) and BHA (salicylic acid) work to dramatically smooth and soften skin’s texture while banishing dullness—two key elements to attaining radiant skin.

Skin dulls as we age because the rate at which our skin sheds glow-blocking, dead surface level cells slows due to accumulated damage. Routine use of an AHA or BHA product helps the surface layers of built-up dead skin shed as they did when we were younger (3).

The glowing result is that the newer, healthier skin that the dead surface skin covered is now revealed. Not surprisingly this new skin appears plumper, feels silkier and has a brighter luminosity.

An added bonus? The skin brightening products you apply after exfoliation can deeply nourish skin with antioxidants, skin-replenishing ingredients and restoring ingredients because exfoliation removes the dead skin cells that would slow or halt skin care product penetration!

Incorporate vitamin C

The treatments, serums and boosters you choose are pivotal and can help further reveal dazzling, radiant results. Vitamin C, AKA ascorbic acid, is a staple brightening skin care ingredient.

Vitamin C’s role in creating dewy, radiant skin comes from its ability to defend skin from environmental damage that causes dullness and makes skin look ashen or sallow. Vitamin C is a natural antioxidant in skin that needs to be generously topically replenished for it to have a potent impact on skin’s appearance (4). When skin has an ongoing supply of topical vitamin C, it becomes renewed and revitalised, producing a luster from the inside out.

Paula’s Choice vitamin C product spotlight:

• If you’re looking for a liquid dose of glow, we recommend our C15 Super Booster, which has a watery-light texture and features 15% pure vitamin C.
• Vitamin C lovers seeking to stack their routines with lower doses of the radiance-renewing ingredient (5%) might want to consider our C5 Super Boost Moisturizer and C5 Super Boost Eye Cream for everyday brightening. To get a dose of vitamin C during the daytime, try our lightweight tinted base, 5% Vitamin C Sheer Moisturizer.
• If you want a treatment with higher concentrations to tackle more stubborn dullness and uneven tone, look to our 25% Vitamin C + Glutathione Clinical Serum, that targets dark spots and discolourations for inspiring results.

Wear broad-spectrum sunscreen

All of the above is for naught if you don’t regularly apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen. Sunscreen locks in the benefits of your gentle, glow-boosting skin care routine and further protects skin from pro-ageing, dullness-inducing sun damage all at once.

Remember, the sun is one of skin’s greatest enemies. Damaging UVA and UVB rays promote an uneven tone, dullness, fine lines and wrinkles and laxity. Beyond this, research shows these pro-ageing rays can also cause certain types of skin cancer (5).

To best protect skin, apply your SPF of choice as the finishing step of your morning skin care routine and regularly reapply when exposed to the sun, or after two hours. Sun-safe practices, like wearing UPF clothing and avoiding the sun between 10AM and 2PM as well as when the UV index is above 8, helps too!

Skin care routine for glowing skin

Here are the morning and evening routines we recommend to achieve healthy, radiant skin that also looks smooth, even and of course, younger:

Radiant skin routine, AM

1. Cleanse skin with a water-soluble, gentle cleanser
2. Apply a skin-replenishing toner
3. Apply your choice of vitamin C product (serum, booster or treatment)
4. Apply eye cream
5. Apply your daytime glow-enhancing moisturiser with SPF (this is the most crucial step)

Radiant skin routine, PM

1. Cleanse skin with your gentle, water-soluble cleanser (use a makeup remover if needed)
2. Apply a skin-replenishing toner
3. Apply an AHA or BHA exfoliant (do not rinse)
4. Apply vitamin C serum
5. Apply a rich brightening eye cream, formulated for under-eye dullness
6. Apply a barrier-enriching nighttime moisturiser

Adding these products to your daily routine means you’ll love seeing every time you catch your reflection in the mirror. But the routine above isn’t just about brightening: You’re also getting anti-ageing benefits, superior hydration and specialised ingredients that create a visibly more even skin tone. We can’t forget to mention how astonishingly silky your skin will feel, too!

Now when you opt to use makeup, it will amp up your lit-from-within healthy glow, so you’ll love the results even more (and makeup will apply much better). Expect lots of compliments on your skin!

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References for this information:

1. Microorganisms, March 2021, pages 1–19
2. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine, April 2014, pages 1–18
3. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery – Global, December 2016, pages 1–6
4. The Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, July 2017, pages 14-17
5. Acta Dermato Venereologica, June 2020, ePublication