The ritual of the hot cloth

A Japanese friend, on a long evening in our apartment several years ago, mentioned in passing that she always placed a hot wet cloth over her face for one minute before doing any other skincare. The cloth was wet with hot water — almost as hot as the hands could comfortably bear — and was kept on the face until it had cooled to room temperature. She had been doing this every evening since her teens, on her mother's recommendation, and she felt that it was the single most important thing in her skincare routine.

I have, in the years since, adopted the practice. Most evenings, the first thing I do after washing my hands and pulling back my hair is to run a small face cloth under hot water, wring it out, and lay it across the face for about a minute. The cloth is too hot at first. It cools quickly. By the time it has cooled to barely warm, I have begun the rest of the routine.

What the hot cloth does

Opens the small pores. Softens the small accumulated sebum and surface dirt. Increases the blood flow to the surface of the face. Provides a small one-minute sensory pause that is, in itself, a small pleasant evening ritual. The next products — the cleanser, the oil, the moisturiser — all work slightly better on a face that has been prepared this way.

The cloth itself is not special. Any small face cloth will do. The hot water is just hot tap water, allowed to run for thirty seconds to reach maximum temperature. The whole addition to the evening routine is one minute. The cost is approximately nothing.

If you are looking for a small one-minute addition to a skincare routine that has stopped feeling like enough, try this. The hot cloth is the kind of small generations-old practice that the modern skincare industry has, by and large, replaced with expensive products that do less. The simplicity is the practice. The simplicity is, also, what makes the practice sustainable across years.