At our last pop-up, we were doing hot takes when one of our customers, Josephine, shared something that has stayed with me. She bikes everywhere, through the city, in the heat, and her hot take for skincare? Embrace the dewy look. Stop trying to fix it. Lean in.
The room laughed. Then nodded. Because she was right. And the science backs her up.
1. What changes when the seasons shift
Sweat contains lactic acid, urea, and natural moisturizing factors that gently exfoliate and hydrate the skin surface. The problem is not sweat. It is the products layered on top of it, and the reflex to wipe everything away.
2. Heat brings blood to the surface
When your body temperature rises, circulation increases and blood moves to the skin. That is the flush. That is also what every highlighter and blush is trying to replicate. You already have it. It just comes with the inconvenience of being warm.
3. Matte was never the goal
Blotting papers, oil-absorbing primers, mattifying SPFs. The whole category exists to undo what your skin is naturally doing. Healthy skin reflects light unevenly. It has texture. It moves. Dewy is not neglected. It is well-hydrated skin left to do its job.
4. How to work with it
Go lightweight on moisturizer. Heavy creams in the heat block everything. A water-based gel or serum followed by SPF is enough. Choose an SPF that finishes dewy, not matte. And mist instead of blotting. Constant blotting strips moisture and signals your skin to produce more oil in response.
How Skindays Can Help
On a personal note...
I have been thinking a lot about imperfection. Specifically about how much energy we put into avoiding it, and what we lose in the process.
With Skindays, I spent a long time wanting everything to be right before it went out. The right words, the right products, the right moment. And there is something I have had to learn, slowly, which is that the things that actually land are not usually the polished ones. They are the ones where we said something we genuinely believed, or admitted we got something wrong, or just showed up as we actually were. That is when people write back. That is when it feels like something real is happening.
It is more fun, too. Genuinely. Less pressure, more room to just be curious and try things and see what connects.
Josephine on her bike already knew this. She decided her skin doing its job was enough. And she looked absolutely radiant.
xx,
Diana
P.S. We had our team offsite and we visited an incredible makeup bar called Beam. It could not have been more aligned with this newsletter. Their whole philosophy is not about mattifying or covering, it is about illuminating what is already there. We left beaming. Literally :)