Smooth skin - it sounds like an impossible goal, but smoothing out skin texture caused by dryness and congestion is easier than you think. Smooth, even skin happens when you’ve got the perfect balance of the right skincare ingredients coming together to make your skin baby-butt smooth.

What Do You Need for Smoother Skin?

Knowing how to get smoother skin starts with knowing what your skin needs to happen in order to become baby-butt smooth. The recipe for smooth, even skin has two crucial components: regular exfoliation and limitless hydration. 

How to get smoother skin and smaller pores naturally starts with exfoliation - this vital skin step buffs away dead skin cells that dull radiance and block pores. Studies have found that regular exfoliation impacts your skin’s cell turnover, which in turn leads to more polished and smoother skin. While you could go with physical or chemical exfoliation for this step, we highly suggest using chemical exfoliation - it’s just so much more effective at getting the job done!

La Prairie Cellular Mineral Face Exfoliator
If you’re not sure about exfoliating acids, this gentle yet effective facial scrub from La Prairie is ideal for polishing away dead skin for a smooth, flawless glow.

The second part to this recipe is hydration - and I mean intense, long-lasting hydration. When your skin is fully hydrated, it’s plumped up full of water. This means it fills out any fine lines and wrinkles, and also wards off any potential dryness that might come along with regular exfoliation. 

While exfoliation hugely benefits skin and skin texture by polishing away dead skin cells, this process temporarily makes skin a little bit more prone to hydration loss, which makes using hydrating skincare ingredients crucial after exfoliation. 

Lancôme Hydra Zen Nuit Night Cream
This night time moisturiser uses the power of ceramide with glycerin and hyaluronic acid to smooth and moisturise skin.

5 Best Skincare Ingredients for Smooth, Even Skin

So now that we know the two crucial components for how to get smooth skin at home, here are our top 5 ingredients to help your skin get there. Smooth, even skin is only a skincare routine away!

Exfoliating Acids

When it comes to instantly smoothing out skin, there isn’t a group of skincare ingredients that does it better than exfoliating acids. How to get smoother skin naturally fundamentally starts with these handy little molecules! AHAs, BHAs, and PHAs all fall under this category. 

Exfoliating acids are able to gently loosen the glue that holds any lingering dead skin cells to your skin’s surface, instantly giving you a feeling of smoothness. Some types of exfoliating acids such as salicylic acid are especially good for smoothing out skin texture caused by congestion. 

Why?

Salicylic acid has the unique benefit over all other acids of being oil-soluble. This means it targets anything that’s sebum-based on your skin - including blackheads and other kinds of congestion that are formed of a blend of hardened sebum and dead skin cells. 

SK-II Facial Treatment Clear Lotion
Sample available!
This exfoliating essence from SK-II uses the power of AHAs and BHAs for smooth, crystal clear skin.

Ceramides

These superhero molecules are a must have for anyone who wants to know how to get smoother skin! They’re great for all skin types and work hard to give your skin some serious glow. Ceramides are critical for helping get smoother, softer skin - here’s how.

These lipid based molecules are perfect for filling in the microscopic gaps between your skin cells, instantly making your skin look and feel much smoother. However, this isn’t the only way ceramides help you get smooth, even skin! By performing this crucial function of filling in these tiny gaps, ceramides help your skin hold on to hydration. 

Remember how we said hydration was crucial to smooth, glowy skin? Ceramides are one of those extra steps that will take your skin from dull and drab to super smooth because of how it boosts your skin barrier function, increasing your skin’s ability to hold onto that super vital hydration. 

Elizabeth Arden Advanced Ceramide Daily Capsules
Potent ceramide capsules from Elizabeth Arden help to smooth skin texture and support healthy skin barrier function. 

Humectants

We can’t talk about hydrating skin without bringing up humectants! This group of ingredients includes a lot of your (and our) favourite ingredients, such as hyaluronic acid, glycerin, honey, and panthenol. The reason we love humectants for getting smooth, even skin is because of their crucial role in hydrating skin.

Hydrated skin instantly improves skin texture by temporarily filling out fine lines and wrinkles, smoothing away these lines for plump, flawless skin. Humectants also help to restore any hydration that’s lost due to exfoliation, taking that smooth, I-just-exfoliated feeling to the next level. 

Clinique Moisture Surge Intense Skin Fortifying Hydrator
This ultra-hydrating, yet lightweight moisturiser from Clinique locks in hydration for smooth, even skin.

Facial Oils

Like ceramides, facial oils have a role to play when it comes to locking water into your epidermis - your top layer of skin. How to get smoother skin naturally is super simple with facial oils! Oils work as occlusives, preventing trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL) from causing dryness and dehydration, leading to skin flakes and exaggerated wrinkles. 

Oils are also able to soften your skin - like ceramides, they can pass in the little microscopic gaps between your keratinocytes (skin cells) to make your skin feel flawless and you guessed it - smooth and even!

Guerlain Abeille Royale Youth Watery Oil
Sample available!
This lightweight, anti-ageing oil is perfect for keeping skin flawless, soft, and smooth.

Retinol

Ok, so technically this isn’t exfoliation - but retinols act in a similar way on your skin as the exfoliating acids that I mentioned above. When it comes to how to get smooth skin at home, retinol shouldn’t be overlooked! Skincare products with retinol are excellent at speeding up your skin cell turnover, which, as we already know, is a huge part of making skin look smoother and more refined. 

However, retinol does have a bit more of an adjustment period, especially compared to chemical exfoliants! When it comes to retinol and chemical exfoliation, it’s better to choose just one to go with than to go with both - so choose just one of these amazing skincare actives for tackling your skin texture!

Elizabeth Arden Retinol Ceramide Capsules Line Erasing Night Serum
These combination capsules contain retinol and ceramides to keep skin looking flawless and smooth. 

How to Get Smoother Skin: Tips & Tricks

Now that we know which ingredients help us on our journey towards super smooth, practically poreless skin, here are our best tips for actually getting there!

1) Commit to Your Active
Whether you choose to go with retinol or exfoliating acids as your key skin-smoothing ingredient, it's important to stick with just one to avoid unnecessary irritation to your skin - and that's a whole other issue that you'll have to spend time fixing.

2) Start Slowly
When it comes to getting baby-butt smooth skin, you might think that the best thing to do is to go all out with the exfoliating acids - the more you exfoliate, the smoother everything will get, right?

Unfortunately, no. Both exfoliating acids and retinol are pretty powerful skincare ingredients, and with great power comes great responsibility. If you over exfoliate your skin, you’ll have the opposite of smooth skin: dry, flaky, irritated skin. Not what we’re trying to achieve here!

3) Stay Consistent
The best tip for how to get smooth skin at home has to be consistency - slow and steady wins the race here. Daily use of exfoliating acids or retinol isn’t necessary for smooth, even skin - just consistent application!

Start with using your exfoliant (or retinol, if that’s what you’re going with instead) just once or twice a week and see how much that impacts your skin texture.
You’d be surprised how effective these skincare ingredients can be - just remember, the key is consistency!

Now that you know how to get smoother skin, we hope we’ve helped you get your Beauty Affairs in order!

If you’re still stuck trying to create a beauty routine in the first place, try our skin quiz!

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