Check Your Routine
Your serum is probably fine. Run these five checks to find where your routine actually fails.
1. After cleansing, does your skin feel tight or squeaky?
Tightness can mean your cleanser is stripping. Over-cleansing may leave skin feeling tight and can contribute to an imbalanced, oilier feel — and the products that follow may have more work to do. Cleansing should clear the way — not sand it down.
2. Does your serum leave a film on your skin?
A film can mean it's sitting on top instead of absorbing the way it's designed to. That's rarely the serum's fault — it's more often about what was, or wasn't, cleared before it.
3. Is your skin dry again an hour after moisturising?
Moisture may be escaping. Without a seal step at the end, what you applied can evaporate instead of staying in the skin.
4. Did you switch to "stronger" products but see less?
Strength doesn't fix sequence on its own. A stronger serum on uncleared skin may not perform any better — sequence often matters more than potency.
5. Does your routine have more than five steps?
More steps means more chances the sequence is off. Three steps, in the right sequence, can outperform ten in the wrong one.
The fix is the sequence, not the strength.
Step 1 — Cleanse without stripping, so skin feels clear and calm.
Step 2 — Treat on cleared skin, so actives are designed to absorb.
Step 3 — Seal it in, so what absorbed is more likely to stay there.