Toners Are Back: 10 to Try Now
Peer inside a properly-stocked beauty cabinet circa 2002 and you’d likely find a skincare staple that has all but disappeared from the modern-day regimen: toners. In the past decade or so, as cleanser formulations have become increasingly gentle and less likely to throw off the skin’s natural pH with skin-stripping detergents, the need for the product has fallen by the wayside. Those who have continued to tone often did so to combat acne; made with alcohol and astringents, drying toners helped strip skin of excess oil with the swipe of a cotton ball.
But in the past year, toners have resurfaced as a must-have skin care tool — with drastically different formulas offering far more than a pH shift or skin-drying benefit. “These newer toners contain a wide variety of ingredients that address other skin concerns, not just acne,” notes Dr. Jessica Wu, a Los Angeles-based dermatologist and author of Feed Your Face. “They offer benefits like skin brightening, anti-aging and hydrating, based on active ingredients.”
By definition, toners have also widened to include essences, adds Dr. Joshua Zeichner, a New York-based dermatologist and director of cosmetic and clinical research in the department of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital. He thinks of the category as, “multifunctional liquid face treatments, jam packed with a variety of [beneficial] ingredients.”
And though the proliferation of gentle, pH-maintaining cleansers may have caused us to ditch toners originally, it turns out that we actually need toners to remove the oil, makeup residue, dirt, and sunscreen that gentle cleansers (like oil and cream-based formulations) can leave behind. This not only makes for cleaner skin, but helps us to get more mileage out of our serums, retinoids and moisturizers.
As Wu explains, by removing makeup and cleanser residue, toners can clear the way for active ingredients in serums and retinoids to better sink into skin where they can best work their magic. Further, “some toners include glycolic and salicylic acids, which remove top layers of dead skin and allow other active ingredients to penetrate better,” notes Wu.
Active-ingredient charged treatments that make our expensive serums and creams perform even better? Count us in! Of course, to get the most from modern-day toners, one must not only find a formula best suited for their skin type (see slideshow above) but consider a new way of applying these liquid face treatments to the skin. “Instead of wiping [them] on with a cotton ball or pad, some are meant to be pressed into the skin with fingertips or sprayed onto the skin and left on,” suggests Wu.
Follow Yahoo Beauty on Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Related:
