The skin on your face is special -- it's like no other skin on your entire body. The facial muscles are connected directly to the bones of the face, without ligament. That’s why your face and your body age in two completely separate ways. Here's some special secrets to keeping your face young, youthful, and sexy:

1. Shave in the shower, guys

If you still shave with a razor, try shaving in the shower. A minute or two after you’ve started showering, the warm water and moisture will have helped to soften your hair bristles. Add a little shaving cream as you always do, and you’ll be able to shave with almost NO skin irritation or ingrown hairs… ever! Adult acne that occurs as the result of skin damage and ingrown hairs will greatly lessen.

If you’re worried about hair clogging the shower drain, you can keep a cup of warm water in the shower to rinse your razor with. Or, if your shower happens to be next to your sink, you’re all set, now aren’t you?

2.  Save face while sleeping

If you sleep on your stomach instead of on your back, you're making yourself ugly. Sleep on your back instead.

Research has shown that those who sleep with their faces stuffed into a pillow have more wrinkles, facial irregularities, and blemishes than those who sleep on their backs. 

If you have trouble switching from on-stomach, face-in-pillow-sleeping to on-back, face-saving sleep, put an additional pillow under your knees. The additional tactile content helps to supplement for similar bodily feelings you get while sleeping on your stomach.

3. Tone and alpha hydroxy-acidize your face

Personally, right after showering, I use a dab of toner and aftershave -- I put a dab of each on my hands, mix them together, and apply. If you're a guy, you're probably familiar with aftershave, but not with toner. A toner basically helps to minimize your pore size. It's funny, because almost all women know what a toner is, but we guys are clueless -- yet we need them the most. It's us who, when we had acne as kids, would be most likely to turn a little pimple into a crater. This damage stays with us, and generally, only a toner will help. Shrinking those pores makes you significantly more attractive, and not just to those who are picky about pores, either. Your face will look better in general, whether or not people will be able to pick up on why.

Now, aftershave actually is a mild toner, since it contains alcohol. However, better toners will contain a significant amount of witch hazel.

The toner I use is multipurpose. It's Freeman's "Facial Gel Toner" from the SkinControl(tm) line of products. It costs something like a pithy $3 for a four ounce tube that lasts me about a year. You can find it in most stores and drugstores in either the acne-control area, with products like "Oxy", or in the general facial care area. Along with alcohol and witch hazel for toning, it also contains salicylic acid and triclosan, two of the best substances for bacteria control. They help minimize adult acne, which pops up occasionally, especially at times when exercising heavily.

The aftershave I use is from Alpha Hydrox. I use the oil-free free gel. It contains 8% of the glycolic alpha hydroxy acid.

Frankly, I wish I could've found all of the ingredients of each product in the same package. Instead, I simply use half as much of each as I'd used independently, and apply them together.

Update

Please note that I'm finding myself performing this step less and less these days. I'm down to doing it maybe twice a week. It seems that what I'm doing in step 5 seems to vastly reduce the need to regularly use a toner or aftershave anymore -- even with the anti-acne and alpha hydroxy aspects of the particular ones I recommend.

4. ALWAYS use sun block on your face

After the toner and aftershave have dried, I always apply a sunblock, and recommend -- no, insist -- that you do, too. Studies now show that even if you live in an area where it's snowy all year round, your skin still gets damaged by ultraviolet rays. It's important to always wear a sunblock, year round. The sun block I personally use is Durk Pearson and Sandy's Shaw's "Solar Max 17", which is one of the only skin protectants that comes in an easy to apply spray pump. It absorbs right away into the skin; it's pretty cool.

5. Moisturize and protect

After I apply sun block, I use Durk Pearson & Sandy’s Shaw’s Smart Skin II moisturizer and Look & Feel II treatment combined together. These brainiacs have created the most incredible skin care system I've yet to use -- it's truly one of the ultimate secrets in skin scare.

I haven't been able to find anything that even compares. In fact, most off-the-shelf moisturizers and other skin treatments I've found have actually worsened my skin. Ultimately, they made my skin dryer and give me acne, etc. Yick. For whatever reason Smart Skin and Look & Feel don't do this -- they actually do improve your skin noticeably and yes, irresistibly, just like you want! They're pretty cheap, too -- especially when you consider the results they give. About $12 for each bottle, both of which should last you about a year. You can read a mind-blowing interview with Durk & Sandy, as well as some other useful information on Smart Skin by clicking here, or on Look & Feel by clicking here.

For my skin, I've found that 4 drops of Smart Skin and 3 drops of Look & Feel, combined together, work best. You should try this ratio -- but, of course, your results may vary, so try other combinations, as well. Actually, for me, 4 + 3 drops actually is more than enough to cover my face. But it's not like I could use 2 drops of Smart Skin, and 1.5 drops of Look and Feel -- drops just don't work like that! Instead of obsessing over it, I simply use any excess to cover other parts of my body. 

Update   March 29, 2000

As a cleanser, I'm now using something on my face that I've only been too lazy to try before: Witch hazel. And nothing but witch hazel. (While showering, I even try to not get too much water on my face -- more than a little water, alone, tends to dry the skin, as it washes away protective oils without replacing them with anything equivolent in faction.)

Now, why was I too lazy? It was because the only way you used to be able to clean your face with witch hazel was to buy a big bottle of the stuff, and these horrible little 'puffs' of cotton. Puffs! The most ridiculous things on earth. Not to mention that they're definitely something most guys shouldn't get caught with. They're just too unmasculine. (not to mention a little bit too retarded! They're way too slow and hard to use, for what they are. Pfffft to puffs! Puffs be damned!).

To my happy surprise, I recently noticed that puffs are actually rare now! They've been replaced with a number of different cotton products, the most exciting being little cotton discs -- similar to what you'd find in certain Oxy and Clearasil products. But now that you can buy them alone, well, ha! You can apply anything you want to them. Not just obnoxious, destructive, skin drying, addictive chemicals (ala the Oxy line of mostly useless acne products).

I chose many a thing to put on my skin, and after careful research, found plain old Witch Hazel, from T.N. Dickinson to be something OF A MIRACLE. I mean, what a truly ancient, dinosaur like product. Yet, for the $2 or $3 for the witch hazel and $2 for the cotton pads, I swear, I've never found a better cleanser... even the stuff for rich, naive people in $100+ range. It's ridiculous, really. Sometimes old dogs are the new tricks!

My skin regiment now consists of:

1. Cleaning and toning my skin with Witch hazel.

2. Apply sunblock (which I only wish I could skip, as it smells wretched, and no sunblock is completely skin  friendly -- then again, sun damage, even in winter, is far worse without any protection)

3. Finish off with a mixture of Smart Skin and Look & Feel.

I use it as mentioned above, except that I'll use a lot of this version of Smart Skin (with carotenoids). Up to 15 drops at one time, when I really need it (i.e., I looked like a humanoid from the Land of the Dead).

4. Looking in the mirror agog, and going... "Wow, is that really me?", with a big dumb grin on my face!

It's a simple sequence that has pretty much been a skin miracle in my own, and most of my client's lives. Which is like a life miracle and social miracle rolled into one, as far as I'm concerned.