If you feel out of place in the beauty community because you love skincare but hate how long it takes to complete a 10-step routine, ‘skinimalism’ is totally for you. It’s a beauty practice that emphasizes a minimalist approach to skincare and makeup in celebration of your skin. It’s not completely antithetical to the shelfie trend that we have seen a lot of in the last few years. You can still share your pretty shelfies, but this time your minimalist assemblage might encourage someone else to take a good, hard look at their beauty habits, and make a change for the better.

It sounds well-intentioned and balanced on its face, but is it really all that?

Skinimalism is one of the better trends I’ve seen in a while, and I believe that it does have a number of benefits. For one, it can influence the sustainability practices of the conglomerates who make the products we use, as far as ethical ingredient-sourcing, environmentally-friendly packaging, and responsible marketing. They will see how consumers are pivoting towards brands who employ those practices, or learn through consumer research, and then implement processes that are better for the public and the environment. That plus better shopping habits leads to emissions and consumer carbon footprints that gradually reduce with every unnecessary, skipped delivery.

Skinimalism is not only gentle on your skin, but your wallet as well. It encourages enthusiasts to consume beauty products ethically, buying only what is truly needed instead of splurging on the latest picks a well-placed ad told you that you needed. Skinimalism extends to makeup as well, favoring natural-looking, minimal step looks that let the beauty of your skin shine through rather than hiding under layers of product. Less steps and a rudimentary regimen mean fewer products and thus less money spent.

Having only a few steps to work with will force you to put more time and effort into curating your skincare wardrobe, as you’ll want to get the most out of every single product. You will begin to do more research about the ingredients that work best for your skin, as well as best practices both general and according to different skin conditions. Understanding the benefits of a product before purchasing by looking through its list of ingredients will become second nature, and you will learn a lot about how to attain and maintain healthy skin.

If you’ve been suffering from one bout of irritation after another perhaps from using too many products or using them incorrectly, adopting skinimalism will give your skin the time and nourishment it needs to recover. If you ever decide to add more steps to your routine in the future, a skinimalist skincare approach will provide a solid foundation upon which to build other goals, all while bearing in mind the lessons you’ve learned about what constitutes good beauty habits.

Hopefully, you will also develop a better relationship with your skin during this experience, since you’ll spend more time learning how to care for it properly, rather than covering it up. We live in an age of photo-retouching where we are slowly conditioned to believe that the unattainable beauty standards we see on our screens is what we should aspire to. The time you spend caring for your skin will re-orient your perspective of what skin really looks like, and teach you about factors that could potentially affect its condition, as well as how to manage them.

Skinimalism is the perfect introduction to skincare for newbies, as it eases them into the practice rather than presenting a confusing laundry list of steps and products, the function and benefits of half of them unknown to these novices, or poorly understood. For beginners, skinimalism also enforces good skin care habits such as substance over trendiness, how to spot truly beneficial products, and how to avoid overspending.

It seems pretty obvious that this new trend was born of the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, a new awareness of how little we need to thrive, the drastic decrease in the number of opportunities to get glammed up, and a need for comfort as we made our way through a difficult time. We are adapting, and this is hopefully one of the many changes for the better that we make.