How Product Cocktailing Can Transform Your Beauty Regimen

Product cocktailing is a big deal right now—custom skincare tailored to your own specific skin issues and needs; who wouldn’t want that? While natural beauty brands are beginning to offer custom blends to customers, the good news is you can also create your own skincare cocktails at home.

Whether you choose to have an expert do the blending or DIY, this new trend is going to make your skin very happy.

Product cocktailing is the art of blending two or more products to amp up the beauty benefits, and streamline your beauty routine by combining steps. This can be done by combining similar products, or adding one product to a different type of product.

For example, a toner becomes more emollient when a moisturizing serum is added, and you can boost a facial serum by adding specifically targeted ingredients, like skin clearing solutions or a redness banishing treatment.

Combining toners, serums, and skincare treatments is therefore an easy way to begin with DIY skincare cocktailing. The idea is to marry different skincare benefits into one step. For instance, merging a calming serum with a skin clearing treatment addresses both inflammation and clogged pores at once.

While most similar products work well together, certain items don’t mix. “While most [skincare cocktails] are liquid, some do have an oily consistency. These do not blend well together, and will quickly separate,” said Higgins. “By shaking them well before use, they will combine long enough to use on the skin.”

The first step in creating your own skincare cocktail is to determine the skincare issues that need addressing—maybe you’re looking to fade dark spots or tone down redness, or perhaps your skin requires a boost of moisture with anti-aging properties. Acne, dry patches, roughness, and a sallow complexion can all be treated with skincare cocktails. Higgins suggests starting with a toner, and then mixing in some favorite oils.

“Ingredients with thicker consistencies, like creams, are not the best choice for a cocktail, as they are intended to be used on top of thinner products to lock essential moisture and ingredients into the skin,” said Higgins. So, if you want to add some oomph to your daily moisturizer or facial cream, try blending a few drops of facial oil into a dollop of moisturizer before applying it to the skin.

Homemade skincare cocktails are a fun way to experiment with custom blends, but it’s important to make sure you’re using facial oils safely. “Take caution when using oils that are particularly potent,” advises Higgins. “You will want them to be properly diluted before adding them to the skin. That’s why it’s a great option to be able to buy a cocktail that has been mixed by professionals—it’ll contain the perfect balance.”

If the whole DIY skincare cocktailing thing sounds like a lot of work, let the pros create a custom blended serum. Source Vitál starts with Algae Serum—a marine hydration system made with nutrient rich seaweed, aloe vera, green tea, and cucumber that acts like a superfood for skin—plus Sea Tonic toner.

Next, they add facial oil infusions designed to target specific skin conditions, like oily, sensitive, or aging. Customers can also choose corrective “shots”—a few drops of an additional nutritive oil, such as argan, hemp seed, prickly pear seed, or chlorella gold (algae).