What is a good skincare routine for rosacea?
Okay so the routine first. Morning is a cream cleanser or just water, a moisturiser and SPF. Night is a cream cleanser, one redness treatment if you're using one, and a moisturiser. That's the lot.
Why I keep it this short
I've got rosacea, and the temptation with it is to keep adding things because it isn't fixed yet. Four products your skin tolerates will do more than nine it's arguing with.
The cleanser is where I'd start. If your face squeaks after washing, that squeak is your barrier gone, so nothing foaming. A creamy cleanser or a non-foaming one with ceramides in it does the job, and on the days your face can't cope with being washed at all (rosacea has those) a micellar water is fine.
The redness treatment is the only active in the whole routine. Pick one and don't stack them. Azelaic acid at 10% is the obvious place to start because it's one of the very few over the counter actives with real evidence behind it for rosacea. Go slowly, two or three nights a week, and stop if it stings past the first few minutes. Then give it eight weeks (nothing aimed at redness works in a week).
SPF goes on every morning. UV is one of the most consistently reported rosacea triggers, so it's the one step I wouldn't drop.
What to leave on the shelf
Fragrance, essential oils, alcohol denat high up the ingredient list, menthol, witch hazel and physical scrubs. If a product tingles when it goes on, that's usually one of these.
One thing I'll always say with rosacea. All of this is over the counter. If yours is the kind with bumps and pustules rather than just flushing, a cream off the shelf isn't going to sort it and it's worth getting it looked at by a GP.
All the actual products, what each one is like and whether to get it from Boots or Superdrug, are in Best Cream for Rosacea UK: Boots and Superdrug Picks. If you'd rather go the Korean route, centella and heartleaf are excellent for this and I've written up ten Korean skincare products that helped my rosacea. And if azelaic acid is the bit you're weighing up, I've compared the Anua and Skin1004 azelaic acid serums side by side.