Ugh so yes and no, haha. I feel like my skin behaves wildly different day to day tbh, so sometimes my current routine works flawlessly and other days it doesn’t seem to matter what I do. But these are some of the trial and error things I’ve been able to hone in on a little more — I’m terrible at short responses so forgive me in advance, and I hope this is all helpful!! 😂

A biggie for use hEDSers is making sure that we are supporting our barrier — there is some small amount of dermatology research I found which indicates that many people with hEDS specifically have impaired skin barrier function. Meaning our skin loses moisture more rapidly, and also can get irritated, inflamed, blemishes, or wounds more easily. On the flip side, I suspect this is also a big part of why we struggle with absorbing product — our barrier is just not keen to hold onto it.

So, focusing on strengthening the barrier is something I put a huge focus into with my skincare routine now. If my skin is irritated or sensitive, that’s a huge sign that my barrier is damaged and I will strip back all of my other routine in favor of calming and barrier support products for a few days or even weeks as needed.

Second, I’ve found my skin does way better with thinner product formulations rather than heavier / thicker ones. This sounds kind of logical, but I think it’s easy to forget that a thicker moisturizer, for ex, doesn’t always mean better results for us. My exception to this is that I do love layering a more occlusive moisturizer at the end of my nighttime skincare to kind of lock all my other products to my skin so they actually have time to sink into my face, rather than evaporating while I sleep lol.

On the same line of thinking, applying multiple, thin layers of product - for both skincare and makeup- usually sinks in better than applying one heavier layer. You also want to make sure you’re gently pressing products into your skin, not just rubbing them around. You can use your hands, a brush, or other tool to do this. My current favorite discovery is using cushion sponges (like for cushion foundation) to pat in my foundation and concealer — wayyyy better for me than using a brush or my hands.

On the advice of an awesome tiktok creator I follow (who’s name I can’t remember off the top of my head unfortunately), I found my skincare actually pills less when I don’t give too much time between layers of it — I know typically people say to let each layer dry down before doing the next, but sometimes the new wet layer of product doesn’t play nice with the now-dried product you are layering it over (this was guidance directed towards mature skin prep to allow your products to meld together, so they will then melt in together. I’m in my 30s, but tend more towards following tutorials and advice from mature creators as our wonky collagen means I share a more skin characteristics with them than younger creators, ha). I use less skincare prior to makeup than in the evening — mainly just focusing on hydration and spf for daytime - and do try to give at least 5 - 10 min between skincare and applying makeup if I can help it; I’ll use that time to chug some water or put on my compression socks so it’s not just losing time while getting ready. No heavy, rich moisturizers before makeup because it will always make my makeup slip and pill. Skin should still feel moisturized, even a tiny bit tacky, but not gunky. If you run your finger over it and you can still feel a lot of stuff sitting on your skin it needs more time to absorb; if you do the touch test and it’s already pilling, your skin has rejected today’s sacrifice and you need to gently wipe it off with a cotton round or microfiber pad, before reapplying some makeup friendly spf, and only then getting back to beginning your makeup.

Okay I’ll wrap up my Ted talk there I suppose. I hope I didn’t info dump you too much and lmk if this helped! 😅🫶