The Body Care Products I Swear By for Baby-Soft Skin All Summer Long

Moisturize without feeling sticky in the heat. 

A guest wearing a halter neck top.
(Image credit: Launchmetrics)

As someone born and raised in the Caribbean, it’s comical how much I despise hot weather. Everything about me changes when I have to trudge through a humid summer day: my mood, sanity, and patience, for starters. My beauty routines also tend to undergo a switch-up.

Just like how I change the products in my makeup routine to combat sweltering temperatures, my body care regimen also gets completely upended. From my pre-shower rituals to the items that I use in the shower, my aim is for my body to feel invigorated and refreshed, without having to sacrifice soft, moisturized skin.

It's a big task, particularly because I'm someone who doesn't like the feeling of things sticking to my body. So those heavy lotions I used a few months ago? Gone. The four-step post-shower routine, inclusive of body serums and topical exfoliants? You guessed it—it's just one step now.

Still, as a beauty writer, I get to try products that work for me, not the other way around, and I've found quite a few that are helping me survive what feels like a never-ending heat wave in New York City. From the sauna blanket that kickstarts my routine (sounds counterintuitive, but trust me on this), to the one item that I never thought I would admit to loving out loud, keep reading for the products that have made my summer body care feel more like a luxurious experience and less like a chore.

It Starts Before the Shower

I’ve been attempting to get my body to sweat more, as it's vital to regulate body temperature, and it also (shockingly) provides hydration benefits to the skin. After a good sweat session, I pre-exfoliate (more on this to come).

Rinse It Off

Writing this, I realize that this may be an excessive amount of exfoliation. That said, I don’t do this full routine every single day, and if my skin feels super sensitive, I swap my products as needed (and you should, too).

Oil Me Up, Scotty

Post-shower, I’ve become a stickler for making sure my skin is moisturized, but I want to do so in one step. This is where my favorite body oils come into play.

My Shiny Teeth and Me

I’m brave enough to admit on the internet that I wasn’t the best flosser in the past. Turns out, the type of floss that I was using had everything to do with getting me to look forward to this part of my routine.

Fragrance Is a Non-Negotiable

It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or where I’m going, I will have on a fragrance. It’s become a non-negotiable part of my body care routine that puts me in the right headspace before bed.

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Ariel Baker
Beauty Writer

Ariel Baker is the Beauty Writer at Marie Claire. Previously the associate beauty editor at PS and briefly freelance, she has bylines in InStyle, Forbes Vetted, Women's Health, and more.

Since she started out in the non-profit sector, Ariel enjoys looking at beauty from a sociocultural lens, looking to avenues like politics, music, and the arts, to inform her views on the space. That being said, as a true beauty-product obsessive, testing the latest items to hit the market, keeping up with trends, and meeting industry icons, will always be her favorite part of working in the beauty space.

When she's not working, Ariel can be found hanging out with her fiancé and loving on their two cat daughters: Cow and Chicken.