If you've been following the Newbie Tuesday facial products series, you'll know we've spent the last three months making various cleansers for our skin. Let's take a look at making toners today.

What's a toner" It's a liquid or gel that we apply after we clean our skin to make it feel nice. I've seen it written that toners are to restore the pH of our skin after using our cleansers, but our cleansers shouldn't be altering the pH of your skin in the first place!

They can hydrate our skin using water soluble ingredients, like hydrolyzed proteins, humectants like sodium lactate or glycerin, water soluble oils, and so on. They are used as a moisturizer for those of us who can't use oils or an extra layer of moisture before you put on your facial serum or moisturizer. There are some versions for oily skin that offer to shrink your pores or reduce sebum levels, and versions for dry skin that offer to moisturize better than a lotion alone. I've seen them filled with botanical ingredients, as well as cosmeceuticals like niacinamide or beta glucan.
Toners shouldn't sting or be drying. I remember using the very medicinal smelling Bonnie Bell toner as a teenager and it not only stung like hell and left my skin feeling quite stripped of oils. (I was 14, so oil stripping was a good thing, but it felt like it was even more stripping than I could handle!) This is not what we want.

In short, a toner tends to be a liquid or gelled product that contains water soluble components that...