How to Apply Your Skincare, and in What Order

The rule that sorts almost every routine: thinnest texture first, richest last, SPF on top in the morning. Here is where each Norva product sits, and what to do when you own more than one.

The short version

Cleanse, tone or mist if you use one, apply your serum while your skin is still slightly damp, eye care next, seal it all with a moisturiser, and add SPF in the morning. A serum is a step, not a replacement for a moisturiser.

Face, step by step

1. Cleanse. The Micellar Cleansing Water, Gentle Cleansing Milk or Sensitive Skin Oil-To-Milk Cleanser. Pat until your skin is damp rather than dry.
2. Tone or mist (optional). The Hydrating Toner or the Microbiome Prebiotics Face Mist. Humectants such as hyaluronic acid have more to work with on damp skin.
3. Serum. Three or four drops, pressed rather than rubbed. Give it a minute to sink in; this is the step that stops products balling up.
4. Eye care. A small amount of eye cream or eye serum, tapped around the orbital bone.
5. Moisturise to seal it in. A serum puts water and actives into the skin; a cream is what keeps them there.
6. SPF in the morning, as the last step. The Tinted Mineral Sunscreen SPF30 goes on over your moisturiser. It is the step with the strongest evidence behind it: in a four-year randomised trial, adults who used sunscreen daily showed no detectable increase in skin ageing (Hughes et al., 2013).

Evening is the same without the SPF.

Morning or evening?

• Vitamin C Serum: mornings suit it best, under SPF.
• Retinol Alternative Serum and Moisturiser: they can be used morning or evening. Bidens pilosa is not a retinoid, so there is no build-up period, but if your skin is reactive start every other day.
• Peptide Ageless AM/PM Cream: as the name says, either or both.
• Ceramide Barrier Night Cream, Marine Anti-Ageing Night Cream and Sensitive Skin Overnight Cream: evenings.
• Hydrogel eye patches: whenever you have 15 minutes, before eye cream.

Layering two serums

Thinnest first: apply the more watery serum on damp skin, wait a minute, then the second. Often the better answer is not to layer at all: use one in the morning and one at night. You get the full amount of each, nothing competes, and if your skin reacts you know which one to blame.

If you are starting a new product, use it on its own for a week before adding anything else, and patch test first.

The routines

The Peptide Routine (Peptide Anti-Ageing Serum, Peptide Ageless AM/PM Cream, Peptide Age-Defying Eye Cream) Serum on damp skin, eye cream around the eyes, then the AM/PM Cream over the top. Morning and evening, with SPF over it in the morning.

Barrier Reset Routine (Sensitive Skin Oil-To-Milk Cleanser, Bioactive Prebiotics Jelly Serum, Ceramide Barrier Night Cream) Cleanse, jelly serum on damp skin, then the ceramide cream in the evening. In the morning use the serum under your usual day moisturiser and SPF.

Sensitive Skin Essentials (Gentle Cleansing Milk, Sensitive Skin Moisturiser, Sensitive Skin Overnight Cream) Cleansing milk morning and evening, the fragrance-free moisturiser by day and the overnight cream at night.

Body

The same principle with more product. The 5% Urea + 2% Panthenol Body Cream and the Sensitive Skin Body Cream go on straight after a shower, while skin is still slightly damp. If you use the Omega 6-9 Body Oil, press it into damp skin and let it absorb before dressing.

If it pills

Pilling is almost always pace, not chemistry:

• Wait longer between layers.
• Use less. Most people use too much serum, not too little.
• Press it in rather than rubbing.

A note on how fast

Hydration is quick to notice. Anything to do with the barrier or fine lines is slower and is measured in weeks rather than days. If you want to know what "barrier repair" actually refers to and why the timescale is what it is, what skin barrier repair means covers the evidence.