Do You Really Need a 10-Step Skincare Routine? Here's What Your Skin Actually Needs

There was a time when a skincare routine meant a cleanser, a moisturiser, and maybe a sunscreen. Simple. Then came the 7-step routines, the 10-step routines, the 12-step routines — and somewhere along the way, looking after our skin started to feel like a full-time job. Cleanser, toner, essence, serum, another serum, eye cream, moisturiser, face oil, sunscreen, sleeping mask and so on.

There's nothing wrong with a long routine if it genuinely works for you. But I often wonder whether we actually need ten different products to have healthy-looking skin and my honest answer is no. Your skin doesn't count what's sitting on your bathroom shelf. It doesn't get healthier simply because your routine has more steps — sometimes the opposite is closer to true.

You know I've worked with makeup and beauty products for years now, and one thing I've learned is that good makeup starts with the skin underneath it, not with a complicated routine on top of it.

So let's talk about what your skin actually needs.

Why Did Skincare Get So Complicated?

We now have products for almost everything — hydration, pigmentation, dullness, pores, fine lines, acne, glow, barrier repair, dark circles and the list go on. That's genuinely a good thing in a lot of ways. The problem starts when we assume we need all of it at once, and social media doesn't help — it makes a fifteen-bottle shelf look like the baseline for "taking care of yourself."

But skincare isn't a competition, and more isn't automatically better. Your skin has its own needs, and those needs shift with your age, your environment, the season, even how stressed you are. What works beautifully for someone else may do nothing for you.

So What Does Your Skin Actually Need?

For most people, a basic routine is a lot simpler than the internet makes it look. Think of it as a foundation you build on, not a checklist you have to complete.

Cleanser

Your skin deals with sweat, oil, dust, pollution, makeup and sunscreen all day, and a suitable cleanser can help remove that without leaving your skin tight or stripped. If your face feels uncomfortably dry right after washing, that's usually a sign the cleanser is too harsh — not a sign you're doing something right. Choose based on how your skin actually feels, not what's trending.

Serum or Treatment, if You Actually Need One

This is where things get interesting, because you don't need five serums just because you have five concerns. Ask yourself what your main concern actually is right now, and start there. You don't have to use every active ingredient you've seen recommended online — sometimes your skin needs one thoughtful addition, not an entire chemistry experiment.

Moisturiser

Oily, dry, combination — the type and texture of moisturiser you need can differ depending on your skin. Oilier skin usually prefers something lighter, drier skin something richer, sensitive skin may do better with a simple formula. One of my own go-tos when my skin needs extra hydration is the Cetaphil DAM Daily AdvanceUltra Hydrating Lotion — I've written about my experience with it here on Scenario of Life. The point isn't that everyone needs my exact moisturiser. It's that moisturising shouldn't get skipped just because your skin is oily, or because a serum is already doing some of the work.

Sunscreen — the one step I wouldn't skip

You can have the most expensive serum and the most luxurious moisturiser in the world, but if you're consistently skipping sun protection during the day, you're missing something that actually matters. Look for broad-spectrum coverage in a formula and trust me you'll actually enjoy wearing, because the best sunscreen isn't the one sitting unopened in a drawer — it's the one you'll actually use consistently. Dermatologists generally recommend broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher, along with other sun-protection measures.

I've tried and reviewed a few on the blog, including the Ekran Soft Silicone Sunscreen Gel SPF50+ PA+++, and finding one that feels comfortable on your skin genuinely makes it easier to stick with.

What About Toner, Essence, Eye Cream, Face Oil and Masks?

They can absolutely have a place in your routine. If a toner makes your skin feel good afterward, use it. If you love a weekly face mask, keep doing that. The problem isn't the extra steps themselves — it's the belief that skipping them means you're not taking care of your skin properly. You are. A routine doesn't become more effective just because it has more bottles in it.

The Problem With Doing Too Much

In our eagerness to fix everything at once, we often end up doing the opposite of what we intended — introducing several new products together, layering strong actives, exfoliating too often, switching things out every time something new goes viral. Then the skin gets irritated or unpredictable, and because five things changed at once, there's no way to tell which one caused it.

That's part of why I prefer a slower approach: introduce one thing at a time, give your skin a few weeks to actually respond, and pay attention to what it's telling you.

A Simple Routine, Morning And Night

Mornings can genuinely be this short:

Cleanser → serum, if your skin needs one → moisturiser → sunscreen.

That's it.

You don't need thirty minutes in front of a mirror just for a skincare routine, and if your skin doesn't need a serum today, you don't have to force one in.

Evenings are just as uncomplicated:

Cleanser → treatment, if you're using one → moisturiser.

If you've worn makeup, make sure it actually comes off before bed, and remember that a stronger active isn't automatically a better one. Skin usually responds better to consistency than to constant experimenting.

It Also Depends On "Your Skin," Not Just Skin

I think this is where a lot of routines go wrong from the start. We ask what the best skincare routine is, when the better question is "what's the best routine for my skin?" Dry, oily, combination, sensitive, acne-prone — they all behave differently, and even your own skin won't stay the same forever. It responds to the weather, your hormones, stress, travel, and simply getting older. So don't be afraid to pare your routine back when your skin is clearly asking for less.

You Don't Have To Buy Everything You See Online

This might be my favourite reminder in this whole post. A product trending doesn't mean you need it. Someone else's glowing skin after using a particular serum doesn't mean that serum is what your skin needs. And someone following a 10-step routine doesn't mean your 4-step one is somehow not enough. Before you buy something new, ask what problem you're actually trying to solve. If you don't have an answer, you probably don't need it yet. Your wallet will thank you too.

My Take As a Makeup Artist

Working with makeup for years, and seeing how differently skin behaves underneath it, taught me something simple: good makeup starts with the skin, not with more products on top of it. And taking care of your skin was never really about trying everything available.  It's usually just consistency, hydration, sun protection, and paying attention to what your skin is actually telling you, rather than chasing whatever's trending next.

So, do you really need a 10-step skincare routine?

No — not unless you genuinely love the ritual of it and your skin responds well.

Start with the basics: cleanse, treat what actually needs treating, moisturise, and protect from the sun. Add anything else based on what your skin needs, not what's trending. It was never really about how many products sit on your shelf — it's about how well you understand your skin and how consistently you show up for it.

If your bathroom shelf currently looks like a mini beauty store, I promise I'm not judging — mine has looked that way too. But the next time a 10-step routine online makes you wonder if you're doing enough, remember that you don't need someone else's routine to take good care of your own skin.

Listen to what it's telling you, and let it guide the routine — not the other way around.

Disclaimer: This article is for general skincare information and personal experience only. Skincare needs vary from person to person. If you have persistent or concerning skin issues, consult a qualified dermatologist or healthcare professional.

Stay Blessed, Be Happy..!! :-)

With Love,

Preeti

The Unpaid Job Nobody Put on Your Resume

What if the most demanding job you ever had came with no salary, no designation, no weekends off, and not even a line on your resume?

You remember everyone's appointments. You know when the groceries are running low, which child needs what for school tomorrow, whose birthday is next week. You notice when someone's gone quiet at dinner and know it means something. And when something goes wrong in the family, somehow everyone already knows whom to call.

You. But nobody calls it work.

A Court Judgment That Made Me Stop And Think

A recent Karnataka High Court order has been doing the rounds, and for good reason. The case involved a husband challenging a Family Court direction to pay ₹9,000 a month in maintenance to his wife and daughter. His argument was that his wife hadn't done enough: she didn't handle the housework properly, didn't look after his parents, and once visited her own parents without asking his permission

Justice Chillakur Sumalatha rejected that line of reasoning. She said a husband cannot command his wife to do household work or care for his parents — that housework should be shared, and that caring for parents is primarily the job of their own children, sons and daughters both. And then she asked the question that's stayed with me since:

"Why should a married woman need anyone's permission to visit her own parents?"

The court went on to say something even bigger — that marriage isn't a license to control, command, or conquer another person's individuality, freedom, or will.

That's not a small thing for a court to put in writing. It's also, if you think about it, a fairly damning comment on how ordinary this expectation has become — ordinary enough that a woman actually had to go to court to say it out loud.

The Job Nobody Applied For

Nobody hands a woman a contract before her wedding. There's no interview, no job description, no discussion of working hours. And yet somewhere between the rituals, the new surname, and the pressure to be a "good wife" and a "good daughter-in-law," a whole list of duties just appears. Cook. Remember. Adjust. Host. Forgive. Don't complain. I mean why?

And if you do complain, someone will eventually ask, in that mild, wounding way: but what exactly do you do all day?

That question stings because so much of this work is invisible by design. There's a real difference between doing a task and being the one who remembers it needs doing at all. Someone might spend an hour helping a child with a school project. But who remembered it was due? Who bought the chart paper, checked the school group for the deadline, lay awake the night before worrying about it?

That mental tally never really switches off. It's running quietly in the background even while you're watching TV, even after everyone else has gone to sleep — did we buy milk, when's the doctor's appointment, did she submit that form. Nobody sees it happening. But it still costs her something.

She's usually the household's official cook, too, and when guests show up unannounced she quietly turns into a ten-minute delivery service — except there's no app, no delivery fee, and no option to say the kitchen is closed. On an ordinary day that's cooking, laundry, making the beds, keeping the floors and the fridge and the family calendar in some kind of order. On a festival day, all of it doubles: extra cooking, deep cleaning, sweets to prepare, guests to host, a house to decorate, on top of everything that was already hers to begin with. What looks like a celebration to everyone else is often just more work wearing a nicer outfit.

She's also the default parent for anything that requires remembering — homework, tiffin, PTMs, which exam is next week — and the household's unofficial search engine besides, the one everyone asks when they can't find their socks, their charger, their keys, their glasses. Somehow she always has the answer.

And after all that, she may still hear the question that started this whole piece: but what do you do all day? Maybe partly because she's never kept a timesheet for any of it — never counted the meals, the loads of laundry, the reminders, the number of times she put her own rest aside because someone needed her. She doesn't keep an account. Which may be exactly why the rest of us have gotten so comfortable pretending there's nothing to add up.

I'd rather call her a homemaker than a housewife, because what she runs is a great deal more than a house — routines, people, moods, schedules, a thousand details nobody else notices until they're missing. And a homemaker, unlike almost anyone else who works, has no fixed hours, no lunch break, no weekend, no leave, no salary, and no official moment when the job ends. It just runs quietly in the background, all day, every day.

Then there's the part that's even harder to put into words — the emotional labour. Knowing someone's upset before they've said a thing. Knowing your child needs a hug and not a lecture tonight. Making the phone call after a fight to smooth it over. Being the person everyone brings their feelings to, and somehow having nobody left to bring yours to at the end of the day.

Caring Isn't The Problem — Obligation Is

None of this is an argument against caring for your family. Cooking for someone you love, looking after an ageing parent, showing up for your in-laws — none of that is the issue. Giving isn't the problem.

The problem starts the moment giving becomes a duty attached to your gender rather than a choice that comes from you. "I want to do this for my family" and "you're the woman, so this is yours to do" might look similar from the outside, but one comes from love and the other from entitlement, and they are not the same thing. The Karnataka High Court made almost exactly this point — that caring for in-laws should be voluntary, not imposed on a daughter-in-law as a condition of the marriage.

A woman marrying into a family doesn't automatically inherit responsibility for everyone in it. She can love her in-laws, cook for them, take them to the doctor, treat them like her own — but it should grow out of an actual relationship, not out of an assignment she never agreed to. The moment affection turns into obligation, resentment tends to follow close behind. And a woman's goodness was never something that should be measured by how quietly she puts up with things.

This gets even harder to sit with when it comes to her own parents. Somewhere along the way it became normal for a woman to need to explain how often she calls her mother and father, or to feel she has to ask permission to visit the house she grew up in. Marriage adds a relationship to her life. It was never supposed to erase the ones she already had.

Marriage Should Add To You, Not Replace You

Marriage should mean partnership, mutual respect, and understanding — not one person abandoning their own life to follow the other's.

Somewhere in all of this, women are quietly taught that becoming a wife means becoming less of themselves. The home changes, the routines change, the priorities change, and slowly, if you're not paying attention, so does your sense of who you are underneath all those roles. Wife. Mother. Daughter-in-law. Everyone's emotional support system.

But underneath all of that is still a woman who had dreams before any of this started. She had friends, hobbies, ambitions, a career she wanted, a habit of reading or writing or dancing, a relationship with her own parents, and perhaps the simple wish to sit alone sometimes with a cup of tea or coffee.

She didn't disappear when she got married. She's still there.

The court called marriage a relationship between equals. Maybe that's what we should be aiming for — not a marriage where one person serves and the other is served, but one where both people are allowed to remain whole.

A woman should be allowed to say, I need help. I don't agree. I want to see my parents. I want to work. I have a dream too — and still be loved.

This isn't a men-versus-women argument. There are plenty of marriages where the load is shared without anyone keeping score — husbands who cook, fathers who show up, sons who care for their own parents, and daughters-in-law who genuinely adore the family they married into.

That's not a favour. That's partnership.

Maybe the question worth asking isn't how much does she do for her family? Maybe it's simpler than that: how much room does she still have to be herself?

Stay Blessed, Be Happy..!! :-)

Preeti.