The science of skincare: Part 1 - A practical guide to ingredients, formulations and confident recommendations

You can memorise that salicylic acid is a BHA, retinoids support cellular turnover and hyaluronic acid is a humectant.

But then a real client sits in front of you with closed comedones, dehydration, an impaired barrier, pigmentation and five products they're already using.

Now what?

Because skincare isn't a checklist of:

Acne = salicylic acid.

Pigmentation = vitamin C.

Dry skin = hyaluronic acid.

Ageing = retinoid.

Real skin is more complicated than that.

And that's exactly what The Science of Skincare is designed to teach you.

We'll start with the fundamentals; understanding the ingredients themselves, where they come from, how they interact with the skin, what they're capable of doing and how the formulation they're sitting within can completely change how that ingredient behaves.

But we're not stopping there.

Because knowing the science means very little if you can't apply it to the skin sitting in front of you. We'll take that fundamental knowledge and put it into real clinical scenarios, looking at acne, closed comedones, maturation arrest, oily skin, dryness, damaged barriers, rosacea-prone skin and ageing concerns.

Instead of me simply telling you “use this ingredient for this condition,” I'm going to teach you to ask:

What is happening within this skin?

What does this skin need right now?

What is the priority?

Which ingredient could influence that process, and why?

Is the formulation appropriate for this particular client?

And what would make me choose something completely different?

We'll explore cleansers, exfoliating acids including AHAs, BHAs and PHAs, retinoids, humectants, vitamin C, niacinamide, azelaic acid, moisturisers, SPF and barrier-supporting ingredients, from their fundamental science through to their practical application.

This isn't about teaching you what to recommend, it's about giving you enough understanding of the fundamentals that you can work out what to recommend yourself.

So when a client presents differently from the textbook...

When their skin isn't responding how you expected...

When your favourite product is discontinued...

When you're faced with a formulation you've never used before...

you don't need someone else's protocol to tell you what to do.

You can go back to the science, assess what's in front of you and think outside of the box.

Because that's the difference between knowing skincare ingredients and understanding skincare 🪽