Beauty
17.07.2026
Why your bedtime routine is probably doing too much
words by lara daly
Consistency, not complexity, is what your body responds to
I’m not sure when it became a competition to do as much as possible before going to bed. At first, I was fascinated by those ‘morning shed’ TikToks, watching nighttime rituals of 21-year-old influencers involving face tape, heatless curlers and peel-off lip liners
Slowly, my own bedside table, which previously held only books, notepads and untouched mugs of peppermint tea, became a second beauty cabinet
Want to snoop inside the beauty regimes of other creatives? Head here
No matter how tired I was, I would reach for my LED face mask, cuticle oil, mouth tape, barrier cream, lip mask and magnesium body butter before my head hit the pillow. Eventually, the whole thing became exhausting (and, probably, quite draining to be around if you were my boyfriend)
@.m.egan morning shed is so satisfying😩 #morningshed#heatlesscurls#wonyoungism#glassskin#kbeauty♬ Lovefool – ✩°｡ ⋆⸜ 🎧
Somewhere along the way, I’d replaced ‘winding down’ with an obsession to optimise every minute before drifting off. I’d forgotten that the best thing for beauty sleep is actually sleep
According to Dr Kat Lederle, a sleep and circadian rhythm specialist, our skin is already programmed to make the most of those hours. “During sleep, the skin and the body as a whole restores itself – it is a time of regeneration and repair: collagen synthesis and cellular repair take place, skin barrier function is restored.”
“Basically, at night when we sleep, the skin isn’t exposed to any damaging factors and it’s not busy with the need to ‘defend’ itself,” she explains. “Instead, it has the opportunity to do all the repair work to be ready for the next day.”
The best nighttime routine is the one you actually do
While skincare products can support healthy skin, Dr Lederle says the routine surrounding them may be just as valuable. “From a sleep and circadian health perspective, the regularity of behaviours is one of the most powerful habits that can support sleep and circadian rhythms.”
Completing your skincare routine at roughly the same time each evening gives your body clock another predictable cue that sleep is approaching. She recommends treating those few minutes as a non-negotiable act of self-care. “[It’s] something that is important for the health of my skin, my appearance, and how I feel about myself. And that in turn can have a positive impact on sleep,” she explains. “Less worry, less self-criticism equals less thinking.”
Skincare as a ritual of rest
If your evening routine feels rushed or like a slog, try to reframe how you think about it. Rather than another task to tick off, Dr Lederle sees evening skincare as part of her gentle wind-down time. “I let go of the busyness and speed of the day and replace daytime signals with night-time signals.”
She suggests keeping light levels low while you cleanse and moisturise, so your body clock isn’t receiving mixed messages. She also recommends paying attention to the sensory experience of your routine, noticing the texture, scent and temperature of your products, along with the feeling of your hands on your skin. This mindful approach can help quieten a racing mind and encourage the shift from sympathetic (“fight or flight”) to parasympathetic (“rest and digest”).
PM skincare actually helps us shift from ‘doing’ mode to ‘being’ mode, she explains. “Perhaps seeing evening skin care as your final ‘action’ of the day, but one that you look forward to, something you do for yourself. Because it signals that after that comes sleep time, the time where you have to do nothing at all. Sleep is a natural biological process after all.”
As is often the case with skincare, once I started doing less, my skin started behaving better. These days, my evening routine is simple: a gentle cream cleanser, a spritz of Tower 28 SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray and a generous layer of Raeso Lunar Veil Chrono-Active Sleep Mask, which smells heavenly. Twice a week, I’ll swap the sleep mask for prescription retinol. I still use my LED mask, but mostly because those 10 minutes have become a form of forced meditation.
My bedside table has started looking like itself again. There are books, half-finished cups of tea and only a handful of skincare products. It turns out consistency, not complexity, is what my body responds to
For more on sleep hygiene, try this.
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