MIA FREEDMAN: The two serums I use every day.

At some point during the past couple of years, I became obsessed with serums. I’ve since learned this makes me a very basic bitch because as the world grappled with the utter lack of control thrust upon us by covid, skincare sales exploded.

Thousands of women like me decided that we may not be able to leave our houses, see our loved ones or send our kids to school but by god, we would control the shit out of our skin.

Or at least try to.

Enter serums.

Despite not really understanding what a serum is or does, prior to 2020, I embraced the serum with my whole mind and my whole heart once the pandemic hit. All the serums. All at once.

Hell, there wasn’t much else to do during those lockdowns other than download an app called House Party which I would use once and never again.

For many of us, skincare became an obsession during that time, probably because wearing (let alone buying) makeup seemed ridiculous when ‘going to work’ or ‘seeing friends’ no longer involved leaving your lounge room.

Simply put, a serum is the most concentrated form of skincare. It’s the hardcore product in your skincare routine if you do indeed have a routine and if you don’t, it’s unlikely you’ll be reading this, so whatever.

Being someone who likes to get the most bang for my skincare buck (and please let us never speak of the bucks I banged on skincare during the pandemic because my soul is ashamed), serums obviously appeal to me because they don’t mess about.

You have your moisturisers and your cleansers to smell nice and take things off and seal things in. But serums? Those bad boys be active.

And since a high level of activity is what I want most from the small yet expensive bottles of stuff I rub into my face, it’s no wonder I’m a serum fan.

Image: Mia Freedman. 

Here’s what I learned quickly: too many serums will make your face fall off.

And before it does, it will hate you. Face skin does not respond well to the overuse of serums which was disappointing to me because I’ve always believed that if one of something is good, 20 of something is fantastic.

Not so with serums.

Remember the active ingredient part? It turns out that putting too many active ingredients on your face is a terrible idea. The result is that it will become red and painful when you try to put anything on it. Even makeup. Even water. Even air.

And so it was with my face in the Great Serum Lesson of 2020.

‘Liberal Slathering’ is the best way to describe my approach to serums back then. Vitamin C, Retinol, Hyaluronic acid, Niacinamide, Peptides… I’d often use up to three serums in the morning and another two or three at night.

I learned there is a scientific name for what I did to my face: disrupting the acid mantle. Beauty guru and host of Mamamia’s You Beauty podcast, Leigh Campbell speaks of it often while wagging a stern finger at people like me. 

It’s a respectable way of saying ‘pissing off your face’. Consider my mantle disrupted and my face pissed off.

After buying lots more products that promised to ‘soothe’ my face (the best one was Avene Tolerance Control Skin Recovery Cream which I just found at the chemist) and taking a weeks-long break from serums, my skin eventually settled down and my mantle was restored.

So what have I learned since then? What’s my approach to serums now?

I’m so glad I asked.

Six months ago, I went to see my dermatologist for the first time in many years for a skin check and we got talking about serums. She told me I only needed two: Vitamin C in the morning and Retinol at night.

Vitamin C is for brightening and pigmentation (it’s the unevenness of our skin tone that makes us look older than we feel, much more so than lines, she explained). And you should apply it in the morning straight onto clean, dry skin after cleansing. 

I then tend to just use a moisturising sunscreen after that in summer because my skin is pretty normal and I don’t like too many layers of product under my makeup. 

In winter, or if my skin is feeling dry, I might use a light moisturiser before my sunscreen. That’s it for my morning routine.

At night, it’s a retinol. 

Image: Skinceuticals.  

Retinoids do a few different things. It can unclog the skin (which is why confusingly, acne-prone teens are often prescribed retinol to help clear their skin and their Gen X mums are prescribed the same ingredient to help with signs of aging). 

Basically, retinoids reduce fine lines and wrinkles by increasing the production of collagen. 

They also stimulate the production of new blood vessels in the skin, which improves skin colour. Additional benefits include fading age spots and softening rough patches of skin. 

It can take your skin a minute to adjust to retinol as an ingredient, so you usually start using it a couple of times a week, then every second night, then every night when your skin can tolerate it.

That’s what I do. And if my skin starts to feel a bit sensitive, red or ouchy, I back off for a few nights and just use an oil or moisturiser.

But which serums EXACTLY do you use, Mia?

Another great question.

It depends. Mostly on how much you want to spend.

Most skincare brands have a Vitamin C serum in their range. 

I personally have used and loved Vitamin C serums from La Roche Posay and Go-To but my spendy favourite is Skinceuticals CE Ferulic which inexplicably smells strongly of ham and costs a small fortune (around $200 for a small bottle but you only need a few drops every morning). 

Image: Adore Beauty. 

I use it all over my face, neck and chest including up to and around my eyes but that’s me. It might be too strong for your eye area. I’m just too lazy to use an eye cream and I would rather use that money to splurge on my face serum.

For retinol/retinoid, I have used Medik8, La Roche Posay and Skinceuticals and like all of them. 

My dermatologist says it can be very hard to compare the strength of various retinol products so she recommends using one until you can tolerate it every night and then when it runs out, switch brands.

Like with vitamin C, I use my retinol serum on my neck, chest and around my eyes. But that might not work for you. You should put your retinol product on clean skin after you cleanse. And then since it’s not moisturising, I like to put an oil or moisturiser over the top once it’s absorbed (I give it a minute or so usually while I brush my teeth).

So there you have it.

The serum advice nobody asked for.

If you want to know more about what I’ve learned about skincare and the changes I’ve made in my 40s, you can read about that here.

But what you should really do is sign up for the free weekly You Beauty newsletter that will deliver the best beauty stories written by experts straight to you just like Uber Eats but for beauty.

And of course, the Mamamia daily podcast for your face, You Beauty, is the top beauty podcast in Australia so you’ll want to get that in your ears too.

Feature Image: Mia Freedman.