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Introducing Iconic Beauty Blog
Hello beautiful people and welcome to Iconic Beauty’ Blog! Here, we discuss all things skincare. What are these crazy sounding ingredients you always hear about? Which ones are essential magical elixirs that promote skin health? Which ones are hyped up garbage you should stay away from? How do they work on your skin? How do you layer them? What procedures do what? How often should you get them? Why won’t your acne go away even though you’re not a teenager anymore? How do you age gracefully? At what age should you start neuromodulators? You get the idea. Every week, we will dive into a juicy, new topic. This blog is for anyone interested in anything to do with skin care and we want it to be interactive. Reach out if you have questions or would like a topic covered, we would love to hear from you. Our goal is to arm you with the knowledge to get your skin looking its best, making you feel your best so you can go out into the world to do wonderful things.
ROUTINE BUILDING
You could literally sit on YouTube for the rest of your life and watch dermatologists, estheticians, celebrities and influencers show you their personal routines and insist on why their 16 products, in that order, is the one-and-only way to perfect skin. The sunscreen goes on top. The sunscreen is under the moisturizer. I don’t know about you but watching these types of videos offered me ZERO clarity, made me more confused and question whether I should go out and spend $187 on a setting spray. So today I’d like to touch on routine building. Let’s break it down, nice and simple. Once you feel confident in your foundation, it will be easy to add products and play around with your routine.
In the morning, always wash your face. You sweat at night, the ingredients from your evening routine will not 100 percent absorb, and you will have residue from that on your face. Not to mention, what’s on your pillowcase and in your hair? Let your skin dry completely, add a Vitamin C antioxidant serum. See our blog post about why Vitamin C is so wonderful here** Moisturize. Apply sun protection. Dare I be so bold to even say that some of you will not require moisturizer? For example, I have combination skin and can get quite oily in the T-Zone. Somedays, I can simply use Vitamin C and my sunscreen and my face feels wonderful and is ready to take on the day. Say something nice to yourself in the mirror, go kill the day.
This is the basics that everyone should be on. During the day, your skin is under constant attack. The rays from the sun are damaging important skin structures, pollution is absorbing, you may be breathing your chicken burrito lunch under your mask which is dark, moist and warm aka the PERFECT conditions for bacteria to breed. You’re talking on your dirty cellphone and rubbing it into your side face, you may have applied your makeup with unclean brushes (not judging, it happens!). Anyway, you get the idea. Its warfare on your face out there and the best superhero combination to fight and neutralize this constant storm of free radicals is your Vitamin C and Sunscreen. In fact, using the 2 together increases your protection by 8X!
Remember, this is BASIC. If you have specific skin conditions, you will want to add targeted treatments into the routine. These will fit into the routine after the Vitamin C serum and before the moisturizer and sunscreen.
During the day, reapply your sunscreen. Its protection doesn’t last forever. That being said, I've come across multiple websites that will tell you sunscreen needs to be reapplied every TWO HOURS. Liars. That is both insane and, truthfully just plain unrealistic. Sunscreen does not breakdown with time, it breaks down with sun exposure. So yes, if you’re modelling bikinis on the beach all day, reapply often (every 2 hours would be appropriate here). However, if you’re me 2 years ago and you’re reading nursing textbooks in a basement suite 10 hours per day, your sunscreen’s protective value will likely last you most of the day. Remember: you cannot be too protected from the sun, but you can definitely be under protected which will lead to aging skin.
It’s the evening. You’ve had a fabulous day of being the CEO of your life and now it’s time to get some beauty rest. Step one: wash your face. Wore makeup all day? Wash it twice. Now again, this is routine basics here. Every other night, dry your face completely and apply retinol. On the nights where you aren’t doing that, moisturize. If you can, do this a few hours before bed. Just simply because if you do your routine and immediately go to bed, you’ll lose a lot of your product to your pillow. Again, if you have specific concerns such as pigmentation, anti-aging or acne, there are endless products to add to your routine. A few notes- if you are adding products to your regime, add them one at a time. That way you will be able to know what the effects of that product are on your skin. Say you start 3 products at a time and your skin reacts and you get a rash, well, who was the culprit? We will never know. Additionally, you start 3 products at a time and your skin is glowing! Great, but did you need all 3? What if it’s just one of the products that is working for you, now you’re spending money on 2 unnecessary products. You catch my drift. A quick note on retinol-retinol is king when it comes to skin care. It’s one of the most effective, most researched ingredients in the game.
Stay happy & moisturized,
Dominique xo