Skin First. Everything Else Can Wait.

Know Your Skin

Before you buy another serum because somebody on the internet said it changed their life, spend a moment looking at your own face.

Skin generally falls into four familiar types: dry, oily, combination and normal.

Dry skin can feel tight, rough or uncomfortable, particularly after cleansing.

Oily skin tends to produce more sebum and can become shiny through the day.

Combination skin is exactly what it sounds like — often an oilier T-zone with drier cheeks.

Normal skin is generally balanced and comfortable.

Then there is sensitive or dehydrated skin, which isn’t quite the same thing as skin type.

Sensitivity describes how your skin reacts. Dehydration describes a lack of water.

And either can happen alongside dry, oily or combination skin.

The other thing to remember?

Your skin is allowed to change its mind.

Cold weather, central heating, travel, hormones, stress, air conditioning and an overenthusiastic new product can all change how it behaves.

London in February is not Ibiza in August.

Your skincare routine doesn’t have to pretend otherwise.

Koda’s rule: don’t build a routine around what everyone else is buying. Build it around what your skin is actually doing.

The First Cleanse: Oil or Balm?

At the end of the day, your face has had quite enough.

Makeup.

SPF.

Sebum.

Sweat.

The general residue of having lived in the world for several hours.

This is where an oil or cleansing balm earns its place.

An oil-based first cleanse helps break down makeup, sunscreen and excess oil before your regular cleanser does the finer work.

It’s called double cleansing, but don’t let the name make it sound complicated.

It is simply two different jobs.

First cleanse: dissolve what’s sitting on the surface.

Second cleanse: properly cleanse the skin.

For most people, this makes the most sense in the evening, particularly if you’ve been wearing makeup or SPF.

Oil or balm?

Honestly, either can work.

A cleansing oil is fluid, silky and wonderfully easy to massage across the face.

A balm begins as something richer and more solid before melting into an oil against the warmth of your skin.

So the choice is less about finding the correct answer and more about finding the texture you actually enjoy using.

That matters.

Because the most sophisticated skincare routine in the world is useless if you quietly dread doing it.

The Koda Cleansing Edit

Then Cleanse Properly

Once the oil or balm has done its job, rinse and move on to your regular cleanser.

This is the part where skincare marketing sometimes gets carried away.

You don’t need your face to feel squeaky.

In fact, squeaky-clean isn’t really the goal. Comfortable skin is.

A gentle gel cleanser can work beautifully for oily or combination skin.

Dry or sensitive skin may prefer something creamier or more cushioning.

Foaming formulas can be perfectly good too — provided the formula suits you and doesn’t leave your skin feeling tight afterwards.

The objective is simple:

Clean skin. Happy skin. Nothing stripped for the sake of it.

Give Your Skin Something to Work With

Once your face is clean, you can decide whether it needs anything extra.

This is where the skincare cupboard tends to become ambitious.

Toners.

Essences.

Serums.

Ampoules.

Treatments with names that sound like they belong in a laboratory.

You can use them.

You don’t have to.

A toner is optional.

A serum can be useful.

And moisturiser is still moisturiser, no matter how creatively the beauty industry renames it.

The point isn’t to collect steps.

It’s to choose the ones that make a difference to your skin.

The glow step

Moisturise. Yes, Even If You’re Oily.

This one still needs saying.

Oily skin needs hydration too.

Oil and water are not the same thing, and stripping oily skin in an attempt to make it less oily can leave it feeling uncomfortable without necessarily solving the problem.

Think texture rather than punishment.

A lightweight gel or lotion can feel lovely on oily and combination skin.

Dry or dehydrated skin may prefer something richer.

Sensitive skin often benefits from keeping things simple and choosing a formula that feels comfortable rather than chasing every active ingredient available.

There is no prize for using the richest cream in the bathroom.

There is also no prize for refusing to moisturise because your forehead gets shiny by lunchtime.

Your skin doesn’t need to be disciplined. It needs to be understood.

SPF Is the Non-Negotiable

There are plenty of skincare steps we can debate.

Oil or balm.

Toner or no toner.

Serum or no serum.

This one is rather less complicated.

Wear SPF during the day.

Sun exposure contributes to premature skin ageing and pigmentation, so protecting your skin is considerably easier than trying to undo years of exposure later.

The trick is finding one you actually enjoy wearing.

Lightweight.

Comfortable.

No obvious white cast.

No pilling underneath your makeup.

No texture that makes you want to skip it.

Because the best sunscreen is ultimately the one you will use consistently.

And yes, even when London is doing that particular grey thing where the sky appears to have forgotten the sun exists.

Keep the Routine You Can Actually Live With

There is something slightly absurd about a skincare routine that requires a spreadsheet.

If you genuinely enjoy a complicated ritual, by all means.

But you don’t need one.

A perfectly sensible evening might be:

First cleanse → second cleanse → serum → moisturiser

And morning:

Cleanse → serum if you want it → moisturiser → SPF

That’s enough.

Everything else is optional.

Your skin doesn’t know that a product went viral.

It doesn’t care how beautiful the packaging is.

It doesn’t know that somebody with perfect lighting and suspiciously poreless skin said it was life-changing.

It only knows whether it likes the formula you’re putting on it.

And consistency will usually take you further than constantly replacing half your bathroom cabinet with whatever launched last Tuesday.

Once the skin is sorted, the same editing applies to what goes on top of it — that’s the whole case in The Makeup Bag, Edited.

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