When should a kid start using skincare? An Australian parents guide.

Ask your kids friends and don't be surprised if some have five-step routines. Not because their skin needs one. Because their older sister had one, or a friend showed them a list at recess, and it looked like something a grown-up would do.

Parents ask me, what does my kid actually need on her face, and at what age? Here's the reality. Note, the ages below are indicative. You know you kid best.

Under about ten: water is fine

A child's skin normally does a good job without help. Warm water at the basin, a soft towel, and sunscreen when they're outside should be the extent of their routine.

No cleanser. No moisturiser either, unless a patch of skin gets dry and flaky, in which case something plain and unscented on that patch is all it takes.

If your kid wants to be involved because skincare looks fun, give them a face washer and thirty seconds at the sink. The ritual is the appealing part. Not the product.

But it goes without saying that an SPF 50+ sunscreen should be applied when they're heading outside.

Ten to twelve: one thing, maybe two

Somewhere in here it changes. Skin usually starts producing more oil, the forehead and nose might look shiny by mid-afternoon, and rinsing with water stops feeling like enough.

This is the point to add a gentle face wash at night. Not a cleanser and a toner and a scrub. A wash that takes off the day's sunscreen and sweat and leaves skin feeling comfortable rather than squeaky.

The distinction is important. If a face feels tight and stripped after washing, the wash is too harsh for it. Tight isn't clean. It's the sign your kid is using a product that isn't ideal for their skin.

A light moisturiser goes on afterwards if skin feels tight or looks dull. Plenty of kids won't need one yet. But living in Australia with air conditioning running half the year and heating running the other half, means they might benefit from using one.

(And don't forget that SPF 50+ sunscreen every time they leave the house.)

Thirteen and up: clean, moisturise, protect

By the early teens there's more oil, more sweat, sport most weekends, and sunscreen sitting on top of all of it.

A routine at this age has three jobs - to clean, nourish and protect. Wash morning and night. Moisturise after both onto skin that's still slightly damp. Also apply sun protection every single day, an SPF 50+ sunscreen.

Two products plus sunscreen. Five minutes a day, split across two sessions. That's the routine they should get themselves into daily.

Keeping it as simple as possible is key. A routine a fourteen-year-old is still doing in March beats a nine-step one they gave up on in February. Simple wins because simple gets done. Too many steps means the whole thing may fall over, and waste you a bucketload of money too.

The one addition worth making at this age is washing after sport. Two hours of netball or footy leaves sunscreen, sweat and whatever was on their hands sitting on the skin, often for the rest of the afternoon. A wash when they get home does their skin a huge favour.

What they don't need yet

Retinol. Vitamin C serums. Glycolic acid. Anything sold on firming, brightening or turning back the clock.

Not because those ingredients are dangerous. They're solving problems a young face doesn't have. Skin at twelve renews itself quickly already. Strong actives ask it to speed up something it's doing perfectly well, and the usual result is redness, stinging, and skin that behaves worse than before anyone touched it.

Scrubbing belongs in the same category. Congestion isn't dirt, and no amount of grit will change that. Most young skin is scrubbed far harder and far more often than it needs.

Be a bit sceptical of packaging aimed at kids, too. A cartoon on the bottle tells you who it was designed to appeal to. It tells you nothing about what's inside. Turn it over and read the ingredients, same as you would with a snack.

And if a product stings, burns or leaves skin sore, stop using it immediately. It's not helping.

The Australian part

Two things make a real difference here that overseas advice skips entirely.

The first is humidity. Generally speaking in Australia, summer usually means a face that's often damp most of the day with sunscreen and sweat mixed together on it. The instinct is to reach for the strongest wash. It tends to backfire, because skin that's been stripped in the morning is often shinier by lunchtime than skin that wasn't.

The second is winter. Ducted heating goes on at five, showers get longer and hotter, and by July there's a household of tight, flaky faces wondering what changed. Nothing changed except the air.

Same routine both seasons. Lighter moisturiser through summer, a richer one through winter. That's usually the entire adjustment.

If you're the one reading this and it's your face

Decent chance your mum sent you this link.

Short version. You need much less than the internet is telling you.

Wash your face at night, properly, especially if you've had sunscreen or makeup on. Put moisturiser on straight after, while your skin is still a bit damp, because it works better that way. Wear sunscreen. Don't pick, don't scrub, and don't keep using anything that makes your face sting.

Oily skin isn't dirty and it isn't something you did. It's hormones and genetics doing exactly what they do at your age. Being harsh with it doesn't make it improve.

If something's really bothering you, or it's sore, or it's getting worse, say so and see a GP or a pharmacist. That's a normal thing to do and it's a far better move than buying product after product to find a fix.

When to stop reading blogs and see someone

Nothing here replaces a doctor. If skin is painful or spreading, or if it's upsetting your kid enough that they don't want to go to school, book a GP appointment.

Skincare is maintenance. Anything past that is a medical question and deserves a medical answer, not a shopping trip.

Where Young Body fits into this

Young Body exists because my daughter hit her tween years, got interested in skincare, and the two of us went looking together for something that suited her skin and didn't cost a fortune.

We couldn't find it. Almost everything on the shelf was built for adult skin, dressed up as something fancy, priced to match, and carrying an ingredient list neither of us could get to the end of.

So I started questioning every bottle I picked up. Does my daughter actually need to put this on her skin?

Most of the time the answer was no and I started producing ones where the answer was yes.

That's the whole premise for the range. Uncomplicated products, naturally derived ingredients with organic ones where I can get them, made in Australia, and priced so that trying one isn't a big decision.

At fourteen, how it smells matters more than any ingredient list ever will, so our launch ranges, Summer Sunshine and Native Glow hit that mark nicely. Getting them to wash their face at all is most of the battle.