3. MOISTURIZE DAILY

Having cleansed and then toned your face, you're going to need to do a little mending. Those first two stages can be a little rough on the skin and even if you use products especially designed for your face's chemistry, you may nevertheless have dried it out a little. In any event, you will want to erect a protective barrier on your newly pampered skin before you march out into the world to show it off. This is where moisturizers come in. Think about it: dry skin feels like ass and causes premature aging and wrinkles. Moist skin is happy skin. Remember, moisture does not equal oil—you want to keep the water in your skin without blocking your pores and thereby defeating the whole process of cleansing. Thankfully, there are plenty of products out there smart enough to keep the good moisture trapped but not the seething contents of your next zit.

Moisturizers do their thing in two ways: by throwing up a barrier that traps water in your skin, and by pulling water out of the air. One kind acts like a dam (occlusive moisturizers), the other acts like a humidifier (humectant moisturizers). The most famous occlusive is petrolatum, i.e., Vaseline. So if you really want to have moist skin, and don't mind looking like a child molester, slather a dollop of that on your face. On the whole, this set of products contains a few unlikely fountains of youth; for example, urea (a.k.a. piss) and hyaluronic acid (a protein from umbilical cords). Just try not to visualize a really messy childbirth when you're applying the stuff.