Face washes are one of the places in your daily skincare regimen where things can go off the rails spectacularly and create long-lasting issues with your skin. Ideally, the face wash you use most frequently should be lotion-based, non-foaming, and very mild. It should not contain harsh surfactants like SLS, and should contain anti-inflammatory ingredients like aloe, oatmeal, cucumber, calendula, panthenol, tea extracts, grapeseed extract, bisabolol, allantoin, etc. 1-3X a week, depending on your skin type, I recommend using an exfoliating cleanser to remove dead skin buildup. The exfoliation can be physical (using round scrubby beads to exfoliate) or chemical (using alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) or beta hydroxy acids (BHAs)), whatever your skin prefers. Unless your skin is teenage levels of oily or you work out frequently or you work with dirt/grease/oil, you do not need to wash your face twice a day. Once a day is all you need. Some people prefer to wash their faces at night since they wear makeup and/or sunscreen during the day. They can go through the wash/tone/moisturize steps at night, and the next morning, after their shower, they can do tone/moisturize. Some people prefer to wash their faces in the morning. This is fine. They can either spritz some toner on at night and then moisturize, or they can use an oil-based makeup remover at night instead of washing.

NOTE: if you go the oil-based makeup remover route, don’t apply expensive products afterwards, as oil molecules are very large and will prevent the active ingredients in your products from reaching skin cells.