Skincare after a workout: wash, moisturise or leave your face alone

ROUTINE

Should you wash your face after a workout?

Yes, after a workout that has left you properly sweaty, a quick wash is worthwhile – but not because sweat is dirty. Sweat consists mostly of water and salts and is not a problem for the skin in itself. The tricky part is the mixture that sits on your face after an hour of exercise: sweat, sebum, sunscreen or make-up, plus dust from training outdoors and residue rubbed off your headband, helmet padding or towel. If this film stays on for hours, the salt dries on, your skin feels irritated, and pores have a harder time wherever there is pressure and friction. The American Academy of Dermatology recommends showering straight after training, particularly if you are prone to spots, and using a mild, oil-free cleanser. After exercise, you do not need a more thorough cleanse than usual – at most an extra, gentle one. When it comes to the basic question of what kind of cleanser your skin really needs, the same rules apply after training as on any other day.

The easiest way to do this is in the shower after your workout. There is no fixed number of minutes after which it becomes a problem. What matters is that the film of sweat and sunscreen does not stay on your skin until the next morning. During your workout, a clean towel helps: dab the sweat away rather than wiping it off, as the AAD also advises.

Is lukewarm water enough, or do you need a cleanser after a workout?

Lukewarm water is enough after a workout if there was nothing on your face beforehand apart from your usual skincare. Sweat is water-soluble and comes off with water. It is a different matter if you trained outdoors in sunscreen or had make-up on. Sunscreen and make-up are designed to stay put even when you sweat, and water alone only removes them partially. In that case, a mild cleanser is the right step – once, without a brush and without an exfoliant. Hot water or a second round of cleansing will not get your skin any cleaner; it simply strips more oil than necessary, which you usually notice as tightness after towelling dry. The table shows how to approach the most common situations.

When should you moisturise your face after a workout, and what do you really need?

You can moisturise after exercise as soon as your skin has stopped sweating – in other words, once your pulse has come down and your forehead feels dry. If you apply serum and cream while sweat is still coming through, it dilutes your skincare and the cream feels greasy. After an ordinary workout, your skin does not need a special product. It has lost moisture and may be a little stressed where something has rubbed, and a normal routine of hydration and a barrier-supporting cream is designed for exactly that. Intense heat is a different story: how to handle your face before and after the sauna is covered separately. Here, the focus is on movement, sweat and friction.

With The Duo of serum and cream, it looks like this: cleanse your face with water, then apply 3 to 6 drops of The Essential with hyaluronic acid in three molecular sizes, niacinamide and zinc PCA, followed by The Shield with ceramide NP, squalane and jojoba oil. The Duo contains 5% niacinamide and 1% zinc PCA. If your skin is still shiny after your workout, stick to the lower amount. If you train in the evening, this is your evening routine, not an extra round. In her review on Judge.me, Sabine B. writes about the serum and cream: “Especially now in the heat, it feels very fresh and light on the skin, yet still richly nourished” (review translated from German).

What should you put on your face before a workout, and what is better left off?

Before a workout, as little as possible belongs on your face: sunscreen outdoors, at most your light morning skincare indoors, and preferably no make-up. The AAD advises removing make-up before exercise and wearing an oil-free sunscreen with at least SPF 30 outdoors. On the subject of make-up, there is now a small study in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology. In it, 43 students wore foundation on one half of the face and ran on a treadmill for 20 minutes. Measured with a skin analyser, the oil value rose in the areas without make-up and fell in the made-up ones, while the sebum value rose in the made-up areas. The authors conclude that foundation can dry out the skin and clog pores during endurance exercise, and they advise people with dry skin against it. This is a short measurement in young, healthy people rather than a long-term finding, but the direction matches the professional body’s recommendation.

You only need to wash your face before exercise if you are wearing make-up or a thick layer of cream. If you applied your skincare in the morning, there is no need to cleanse again before a lunchtime workout. If you want to put make-up back on after training, the article on skincare before make-up will help. Which SPF you need day to day, and how much of it, is explained in the article on sunscreen for your face. For training, the main thing is that you wear it at all – and that you reapply it after sweating for a long time.

Why does sweating give you spots, and what can you change in your training?

Spots after exercise are rarely caused by sweat alone; they usually come from pressure, friction and heat under kit that sits against your skin. In dermatology, this is known as acne mechanica. The term goes back to a paper by Mills and Kligman in the Archives of Dermatology. It describes local flare-ups caused by pressure, friction, rubbing, squeezing or stretching, triggered for example by clothing or sports equipment. In their experiments, covering acne-prone skin with adhesive plaster for two weeks regularly led to new inflamed spots. Applied to your training, this means that headbands, helmet padding or chin straps matter more to your skin than how much you sweat. If you always break out in the same place along your hairline, exactly where your headband sits, you are looking at this pattern. If blemishes also appear on rest days, looking into the causes of blemish-prone skin will get you further than a new workout routine.

• Dab sweat away with a clean towel instead of rubbing, and do not use the same towel to wipe down equipment.
• Wash headbands, caps and helmet padding regularly, and do not put a damp headband back on.
• Wipe down shared equipment before use, as the AAD recommends, and keep your hands off your face while you train.
• No make-up and no thick layer of cream on your forehead and cheeks before a workout.
• After training, change out of sweaty clothes and wash your face.

If you keep getting inflamed spots, nodules or scars, that is acne, and it calls for a dermatologist’s appointment, not a tweak to your training.

Why does your face go so red during exercise, and when is it more than a workout effect?

A red face during exercise is, in most cases, thermoregulation: your body releases heat through the skin, the blood vessels widen to allow this, and you see it particularly clearly on your face. A review by Kenney and Johnson in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise describes how blood flow to the skin increases as soon as body temperature rises, so that heat can travel from the body’s core to the skin. How pronounced this is depends on factors such as intensity, duration, fitness, heat acclimatisation and age. Some people turn bright red on an easy jog, others barely change colour at all. That says nothing about your fitness or the quality of your skin. It is normal for the redness to fade once you have cooled down. Cooler training times, shade and airy clothing help against overheating; a cream makes no difference here.

It is more than a workout effect if hives, itching, swelling of the lips or eyes, shortness of breath or dizziness appear during or after exercise. In that case, stop training and have it checked by a doctor – straight away if you are short of breath or feel faint. If the redness lasts for hours, stings, or is accompanied by pustules and visible small blood vessels, see a dermatologist. What skincare can do cosmetically for facial redness, and where its limit lies, is covered in a separate article.

Frequently asked questions