How to Use Argan Oil on Your Face
The question I am asked most often about argan oil is whether to go and buy a bottle of it. My answer is usually less about the oil than about the form it arrives in, because that is where people go wrong.
A plain bottle of argan is cheap and it does one job well. What it does not do is bring any water with it, and oil on dry skin has nothing to hold on to. That is the whole reason people tell me argan did nothing for them. They were using it correctly and expecting the wrong thing.
We took the other route and built the oil into the formulas rather than selling it beside them. Argan is the highest-concentration active in all three TandheM products, so the water phase, the actives and the oil arrive together, in one step, in the right order. This is how to use them. What argan oil actually is, the fatty acid profile and whether it blocks pores are answered in what argan oil is, so I will not repeat any of it here.
How much of each to use
Pro-Aging Essential Face Serum
A pea-sized amount for the whole face. Bakuchiol on an argan base, so this is the step that carries the active, and it goes on before anything heavier.
Press it in rather than sweeping it across. Pressing spreads it more evenly and does not drag at the skin. It takes about fifteen seconds longer, which is the part most people skip.
Advanced Facial Cream
A pea to a small hazelnut, depending on the season. This is the argan-rich step and for most faces it is the last one needed. It is rich but light, which is deliberate, because a cream that only works in January is not much use.
Active Botanical Eye Contour
A grain of rice per eye, no more. Tap it along the orbital bone with your ring finger rather than rubbing it into the lid. We left fragrance out of this one entirely, which is why it is the formula I point reactive skin towards first.
The order, and why it is not fussiness
Serum, then cream, then eye contour. Sunscreen outermost in the morning.
The serum is the lightest and the most water-based, so it goes first. Put the cream down first and the serum lands on a layer it cannot cross. You lose nothing from the cream and most of the serum, which is the expensive step, and that is the part that stings.
Apply the cream while the serum is still slightly tacky rather than waiting for it to vanish. Oil holds on to water that is already there, so give it something to hold.
The eye contour goes last because it is the most targeted and you do not want the other two migrating into it.
Adjusting the amount for your skin
Whether argan suits you at all is a separate question and I answer it on the main argan page. This is only about quantity.
Oily and combination
Serum everywhere, cream only where the skin feels tight, usually cheeks and jawline. Skip the T-zone if it already shines by lunchtime. Argan on oily skin does not make it oilier, but half a teaspoon of anything will.
Dry
Both steps, generously, and never the cream alone. Oil with no water underneath does very little, because there is nothing there for it to keep.
Reactive
Start with the cream on its own for a week before adding the serum. This is the advice I give most often and the one most often ignored. If two things are new at once you will never know which one your face objected to.
Mature
All three steps, and expect the first change to be comfort rather than appearance. Skin that has lost lipids over the years feels tight in a way no water-based cream quite fixes, and that part usually settles inside a week.
Alongside other actives
With a retinoid
Retinoid on dry skin first, wait until it has gone in, then the cream. Argan over the top often makes a retinoid feel considerably milder, which is worth knowing if you have abandoned one before. Our serum uses bakuchiol instead, and which of the two is kinder to reactive skin is a longer argument I have made in bakuchiol versus retinol.
With acids
Same principle, but be more patient. An acid needs time against the skin to do anything at all, and anything oil-rich straight over it cuts that time short. Twenty minutes is a fair gap.
With vitamin C
No conflict, and you may not need a separate one. There is Kakadu plum vitamin C in the cream already.
With sunscreen
Under it, never over it. Anything oil-rich on top of a chemical filter can shift the filter around and leave you protected unevenly, which is worse than it sounds because you cannot see it happening.
A weekly treatment, using what you already have
Treatment is a grand word for something very ordinary: more product than usual, left on longer, then back to normal. It changes nothing permanently. What it gives you is a few days where skin feels noticeably better, and I think that is worth a Sunday evening.
The cream, overnight
Twice your usual amount of the Advanced Facial Cream over the serum, on skin still slightly damp. Leave it. By morning the surface looks more even and the skin feels softer, and it holds for two or three days.
It will transfer to your pillow, so change the pillowcase more often if this becomes weekly. A bamboo pillowcase helps for the same reason it helps on any other night: the surface is smoother, so it takes less of what you just applied and pulls at your face less while you sleep.
What I would not promise is transformation. Tight skin stops feeling tight and the dry patches beside the nose stop showing. Fine lines read as less obvious, because dry skin emphasises them and soft skin does not. Pigmentation will be where you left it, pores will be the same size, and deep creases are not going anywhere.
The serum as slip for a gua sha
A stone needs something to glide on, and this is the one job where the serum beats the cream. A cream sinks in and then the stone starts to pull, which is the opposite of the point. Rather more serum than you would normally use, enough that the jade gua sha moves without catching. What to actually do with it once it is gliding is set out in our three minute evening ritual.
Three reasons skin looks shiny rather than soft
In the order I actually encounter them:
- Too much cream. Go back to a pea for a week.
- Too much face. Apply the cream only where it feels tight.
- Too close to makeup. Give it ten minutes before foundation, or it will slide.
How long before anything changes
The feel changes the first evening. How your skin looks takes longer. In our own testing, 96% reported calmer-looking skin at thirty days, and that timeline matches what I hear: two to four weeks, and what you see is a more even surface rather than a different face.
If it still feels tight after three weeks then argan was not what was missing. In my experience it is usually too much cleansing, or too many actives introduced at once. And if it has started stinging from products you used to tolerate, stop adding things altogether and read what I wrote about a damaged skin barrier instead.
Three questions I get
Can I skip the cream and use a plain oil?
You can, but you will need something hydrating underneath it, which usually means buying two things instead of one. The cream exists so that the oil, the water phase and the actives arrive at the same time.
Can I use the face cream around my eyes?
You can, but the Active Botanical Eye Contour is the version made for it: same argan base, no fragrance, and dosed for skin that thin. Use the cream there if you have run out, not as the plan.
Which do I start with if I only want one?
The Advanced Facial Cream. It is the argan-richest of the three and the one step almost nobody skips. If you want the pair in the order they were designed to work, that is the NeuroBalance Duo.
