Skin longevity isn't a revolutionary concept—it's simply taking care of your skin with the focus on the long term rather than relying too heavily on immediate gratification and quick fixes. Of course, many people already practice this concept, whether they refer to it as "longevity" or not. 

This is also not a skin care practice that requires a set regimen, to-do list, or framework of rigid rules. In fact, it's a train of thought that prioritizes individuality, simplicity, and a whole lot of self-knowledge—making finding any universal set of standards almost futile. What someone with sensitive skin will use to keep their skin healthy over time will look vastly different from those with regular, hormonally driven breakouts.    

It's important that you check in with your skin daily. Think of it like how you might make slight tweaks to your diet and workouts depending on how your body feels on a given day. If your legs are sore, chances are you'll focus on another part of your body or even give yourself a recovery day. If you're bloated, you may adjust your eating habits accordingly. Take the same intuitive and thoughtful approach to your skin care routine. 

Some experts even recommend logging a skin care journal as you get to know your skin's needs—so you can chronicle how it reacts to products and even things that happened in your day (such as stress or lack of sleep). 

"Keep track, even lightly, of what's working for you and what's not. Over time, [journaling] gives you a lot of clues as to what really your skin gravitates toward," says Alicia Yoon, celebrity esthetician and founder of Peach & Lily, also noting it can help you identify flare-ups (and keep those flare-ups in perspective.) "When I get flare-ups, I remember it lasting longer than it actually did. I look back to my journal, and it was only three days, when it felt like two weeks." 

You can visit the top spas in the world and have consultations with every celebrity dermatologist in the Rolodex, but if you're doing the work daily it's all for naught. In health and wellness, people often talk about the 80-20 rule: That 80% of weight management is diet and 20% is exercise, explains holistic esthetician Zaida Gordan in this episode of Clean Beauty School. "Think of skin care professionals as your personal trainers—we can help with that 20%, but unless you're taking care of that 80% of daily maintenance skin care, there's only so much change that's going to happen," she says.  

When crafting a routine, you should know what the overall intended outcome is and edit ingredients accordingly. But sometimes even getting to that step isn't easy. Well, behavioral psychologist Perpetua Neo, DClinPsy, spends a lot of time helping her patients identify their exact goals—sometimes skin care included. 

First, she says to write down the top changes you'd like to see in your skin, be it clear up a blemish or improve under-eye circles. "And rank each on a scale of 1 to 10," she says, noting that this framework can provide clarity for people so they're not tempted to tackle everything all at once. "You may say your dullness is an 8 out of 10, so you can strive to get it down to 6, 4, 2. Then you can look to find another goal."  

Additionally, this process helps you avoid another goal-oriented mistake: striving for something unrealistic. "This keeps you from having a big, unattainable goal like 'perfect skin.' Having achievable, moving goals is actually going to help your skin," she says. 

No matter how hard you work on your skin, it means nothing if you're not shielding it from environmental aggressors. Things like pollution, oxidative stress, internal triggers, UV rays, and irritants can unravel all the goodwill you've put into your skin. And this all comes down to free radicals. "Free radicals are unstable molecules that can negatively affect your cells," says board-certified dermatologist Zenovia Gabriel, M.D., FAAD. Free radicals are called "unstable" because they are missing an electron. This is a problem because atoms don't like to have uneven electrons, and when they are unbalanced, they wreak havoc. One way they wreak havoc is they take electrons from healthy cells. Those healthy cells are then turned into, you guessed it, free radicals. The cycle continues.