Combination skin - what is your skin care routine?

[Rainybo]

I have combination skin, it seems quite extreme to me and so I get very spotty on my chin, nose and forehead and have patches of dry flaky skin on my cheeks and under my eyes.

I've never been brilliant at following a skincare routine, but I would really like to try something simple to improve the condition of my skin. I'm particularly thinking of the marks left behind by spots.

I've been working really hard on my self care recently, and stopped drinking alcohol/started taking vitamins/increased water intake. This feels like the next step in this. I might need a step by step guide! Should I be washing my face every morning and evening? Do I need a toner? Will a face mask help?

I don't have a lot of money spare and would like to use products that are easily available and natural-ish where possible. What do you do?

I have very similar skin and have tried just about everything over the past few years. In the past 3 months I've been using clinique skin type 2 soap, toner and moisturizer and honestly my skin has never been better. No longer dry and flaky cheeks, no longer Shiney forehead and chin, no break outs. It's just worked. I bought the miniatire set first to try it out and bought the bigger sizes as soon as they were finished. It's not cheap, but it doesn't break the bank either. A little goes a long way and frankly after years of suffering with bad skin I'm really happy to spend a little to feel good in my skin.

Mine is combination too and I've tried Clinique and Liz Earle over the years. Currently I use simple micellar water to cleanse and no.7 night and day cream for sensitive skin. I still get some spots at certain points of my cycle, but no more flaky cheeks. And no.7 is frequently on 342 :)

Forgot to say I do this every evening but not always in the mornings as I'm lazy I often splash with cold water in the mornings and then moisturise and it seems to do the trick.

I have dry skin but also itchy red spots on my chin and other areas. Really don't know what to do about this!

Thank you all, I think I will try the Clinique 🙂

If it helps sweeten the deal of spending a bit of money, boots have a deal on clinique where there are some decent freebies when you buy 2 things and then another one when you buy a third!
I've not run out yet but thought I'd take advantage and was quite impressed with the free stuff too :)

Ooh thanks Barry, I'll have a look at that!