After picking the brain of fellow estheticians, attending seminars, and with my own personal experience, I’d like to share a series of blog posts dedicated to “swear by” and “holy grail” products to pick up if you’re considering switching up your skin care routine.
Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser
It’s one of those products you’ve probably seen in the store yet gloss over because it’s not a glamorized pink bottle with a cute font. As bland as it looks from the bottle, it’s pretty bland on the face, too. (Which I find is great!)
A common misconception about skin care products is that we want harsher washes for effectiveness. I found in my personal experience, this is the first product I used when I had really bad acne, and it worked... Amazingly. Why? Because it’s gentle. It removed my makeup and gently cleaned my face. It wasn’t harsh, irritating, or abrasive. It just did it’s job. I can promise you after years and years of torturing my face with salicylic acid, scrubs, creams, and abrasive acne cleansers, I accomplished nothing but irritate my skin and make it worse.
Based on personal experience with having really bad skin… the less I tried with my skin, the better it got. What I mean by this is that I used to be in the skin care aisle every other day looking for the perfect creams and serums for my face. I’d wash my face with the belief that the more work I put into my skin, the clearer my skin would be. Once I decided to relax and allow my skin to breathe without the constant scrubbing, picking, and nightly face masques, I saw major improvement.
I learned that I spent years obsessively trying to clear up my skin when all I needed to do was let a few breakouts slide and stop touching my face so much.
Picking Your Own Products
Ladies, next time you go to the store and become mesmerized by all the product labels and advertisement schemes, remember that marketing plays a huge part in selling products even if they don’t work. Please don’t buy those cheap masques in the cute bag with cucumbers on it without reading the ingredients or researching what the heck are in those things. Lots of those “cute” marketing strategies may come from a line of skin care products that become successful by selling cute packaging.
Also remember fragrance is a NO NO on the skin. There’s a lot that goes into “fragrances” that companies are not required to disclose anymore than that. Just because something “smells” like grapefruit, cucumbers, peaches, etc doesn’t mean that those things are in it! Even if they were, do we really even know why those fruits are good on the skin? Don’t be deceived by marketing strategies! Don’t buy into something because everyone else is doing it on Instagram (charcoal masks and pore strips) unless you have all the facts.
Everyone’s skin is different with individual needs. Do your research beforehand!