I got married – here’s the skincare I used to prepare my skin, and a general update on my skincare routine. And some venting about my poor decisions in life.
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In this video:
0:25 Long-term maintenance, procedures
3:37 Skincare routine
5:28 Morning routine
9:04 Evening routine
12:15 Actives: retinoids, exfoliants, “gentle stuff”
18:27 Body care
19:35 Things I regret from my wedding routine
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🙋🏻 I’m Michelle, a chemistry PhD, cosmetic chemist and science educator, here to explain how beauty products work, debunk myths, and help you make smarter decisions about your skincare, hair and makeup!
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🧴 SKINCARE GUIDE 🧴 Find out more: https://labmuffin.com/skin
I’m a massive skincare nerd I talk a lot about the science behind skincare and recently I got married [zoom into ring she remembered to wear for once] so a lot of people have asked me what I was doing skincare wise for it and generally just
How to prepare for a special event where you want your skin to look really nice I also haven’t talked about my current skincare routine for a while so I thought this would be a good time to update so here’s what I did what I wish I did :’)
What I wish I didn’t do and of course all the reasoning behind it the first thing we need to talk about is upkeep versus Improvement I have my face on camera a lot so a lot more people see me far more closely than they would at my wedding so this wasn’t as intimidating
As I thought it would be since I have kind of ongoing skin upkeep but if you don’t already do this and you want your skin to look its best for a special event I would recommend starting early maybe go to a cosmetic dermatologist 6 to 12 months in advance
A lot of treatments take time to work sometimes your skin will get worse before it gets better sometimes your skin will change and you’ll need to find completely new products that suit it you also want to have lots of leeway for any downtime or healing if you decide to get any procedures done
I realized I haven’t talked a ton about my long-term maintenance procedures so here’s what I’ve had done I got a series of picosure laser treatments a few years back I talked about it in this video my spots are still pretty faded from that I’m sure they will come
Back because of my genetics and just living in Australia where the sun is very much a deadly laser but my skin tone is definitely still more even than it was and it’s also meant to boost collagen and other stuff in your skin as well
Now this is probably the thing that made the biggest difference to my skin I’ve been taking taking a low dose oral contraceptive for about 15 years now and even though it isn’t one of the ones specifically recommended for acne I found
That it’s made my skin just a lot more manageable my skin is pretty oily and the hormonal regulation has just really reduced that oil and my breakouts as well so I used to have maybe two or three really deep hormonal pimples every
Month on top of like more shallow pimples and clogged pores everywhere skin care has worked really well for those shallow things but it can only do so much for those really big deep pimples so taking the pill dropped that to about one big one per month
It isn’t the best option for everyone but I’ve mostly only had benefits from it and I feel like I should talk about it more because there are so many people on social media with these pill horror stories and encouraging people
To go off the pill whereas I actually have a stopping the pill horror story so this is relevant to my skin because I stopped the pill a few years ago just to see what my body was like without it and it wasn’t great I did lose some
Weight and water retention but my skin got oilier I got more pimples and the worst thing was I started having really heavy periods and just random cramps it turns out I had stage four endometriosis which I kind of suspected and it seems like when I
Stopped the pill those surges in hormones caused the endometriosis to grow faster and it started eating into my bowel which I didn’t know was a thing that could happen when you stopped the pill so I got excision surgery and went back on the pill and now
My skin is actually even better than it was I think after the surgery and recovering I just have a lot less inflammation and stress every month so this current chin pimple is actually one of the first big chin pimples I’ve had in a really long time
I probably have a giant pimple every 3 months now and luckily this one actually popped up after the wedding I also did a beauty boost treatment all over my face about 6 months ago and this is where they inject tiny drops of filler all over your face
The effects are pretty subtle but it is nice for making your skin just overall a bit smoother and plumper and softening any lines just a little bit there is usually some using for the first few days afterwards and I haven’t gotten any other
Types of filler before so I can’t really say how it compares but I was pretty happy with this now onto skincare routine having a skincare routine that suits your skin is really good for keeping it in good condition if your skin texture is more smooth the makeup looks more
Natural on it and it needs less touchups makeup pigment tends to move around and gather in any uneven rough bits and that can be a massive pain if you have a longer event where you want your makeup to last
If your skin is kind of unevenly colored but it’s smooth then it’s a lot easier to cover stuff up I am someone who doesn’t like waking up super early and I’m not really aware enough to remember to touch up my makeup all the time working out a
Good skincare routine has actually made my life a lot less stressful if you haven’t figured out your skin care routine you really want to get on that early probably 6 to 12 months again before the event that’s because if your skin does freak out with
New products then you’ll have lots of time for it to recover some people like getting regular facials before their wedding and if you have a good aesthetician they can help you figure out your skincare routine but for my skin I find that just using my regular
Consistent skincare routine is enough to get my skin to a level that I am really happy with and if you want a thorough guide to working out the basics of your skincare routine which honestly
I think is probably a lot of the time more important than the actives I have an ebook on that I’ve talked about my fallback skincare routine before it is what I use to get my skin back to the best possible condition
In between testing different products and it is largely still the the same so in the final 6 weeks before the wedding I really focused on using gentler products more consistently to try to avoid throwing my skin out of whack so
I was only using products that I knew my skin would be fine with I knew how my skin was going to react to them I really didn’t want to introduce new products almost all of the products I’m going to talk about were either PR samples
Or they were sent to me for older sponsored posts this video isn’t sponsored if you are new here all of my sponsored videos say “ad” in the title and I’ll mention it near the start of the video so my morning routine is really simple I will wash my face with water and then
Blot it with a towel and I will use pretty much one skincare product if I’m leaving the house then I’ll wear sunscreen and then makeup and the everyday sunscreen I’ve been using the most is my favorite Korean sunscreen which is the beauty of joseon relief sun rice and probiotics
It’s a really lightweight Korean sunscreen that just hydrates my skin really nicely and it sits well under makeup I actually had little sample tubes of these as wedding favors slash cupcake stand decorations I asked beauty of joseon if I could buy them but they very kindly just sent them to me along with
Little tubes of their eye serum so thank you so much they were a massive hit everyone loved them now when I’m getting more sun exposure like if I’m hiking I usually use a more intense water-resistant Australian sunscreen but I haven’t been doing that much because for the
Last year I was working on a really big project that I will talk more about soon and when that was done I went straight into crocheting my wedding dress so that was really great for reducing sun damage but not amazing for my mental health
So when I don’t leave the house during the day which has been most days I will use an active product right before the wedding I was using poems from the lab future focus vitamin C serum about every second day this is from my friend Stephen who is @kindofstephen I highly recommend checking
Out his blog and Instagram he’s a cosmetic chemist and he’s one of the people I really respect when it comes to skincare science he was in my video on alcohol and skincare he spent a really long time developing this serum it has 15% L-ascorbic
Acid which is the form of vitamin C with the most evidence the problem with that is that it’s usually not very stable and it can be really irritating at that sort of high percentage but he has managed to get around a lot of these problems with this formula
It has some really cool ingredients that you don’t really see a lot it’s got these antioxidants which help keep the vitamin C stable and active and they’ve got some benefits of their own the main solvent in this after water is dimethyl isosorbide that helps with getting actives through
The skin as well so it plays a similar role to glycols which a bit more common in skincare one detail I really like that isn’t as common as I think it should be is that the texture is the right level of thickness so it’s thick enough that it
Doesn’t run down your fingers when you’re trying to put it on but it isn’t so thick that when you’re putting it on your skin it feels like syrupy and draggy the finish is really hydrating and soothing it’s not shiny it
Gives me enough of a moisturizing effect that I haven’t really needed an extra moisturizer and I would guess that it’s probably not enough if you have dry skin ascorbic acid has always been really good for helping my pigment get more
Even and just evening out my skin tone in general and this has been working really well the packaging is also really cool it is this really protective tube and I think it’s really the best type of packaging for protecting something from oxygen
I’ve talked a bit about airless pumps and droppers before airless pumps aren’t really as protective as a lot of people assume they are they have lots of tiny gaps and gas particles are ridiculously tiny they can get through plastic so any tiny gap is going to be massive for oxygen
Droppers also aren’t great at protecting against oxygen after you’ve opened them but tubes can get around that if the plastic is chosen carefully and the seal is good I have a tube of Melano CC that is 2 years old and it is still colorless so
I have really high hopes for this I will keep you updated on other days I use a gentler serum and before the wedding I was using tbh rebound which is designed by my friend Hannah English I swear this video isn’t all just products from my friends
This has a bunch of really gentle soothing actives and I was using a lot more of these products because I want wanted to make sure my skin barrier was just really robust to minimize the chances of anything happening
So most of my active products are in my evening routine because I don’t like the feeling of too much stuff on my face during the day but when I’m asleep I just don’t notice I start off by cleaning my face in the shower and if I have makeup on I’ll
Put a cleansing balm on first so recently I’ve been using the alpha H melting moment cleansing balm and the geek and gorgeous Mighty Melt and I really like both of these personally I prefer the alpha H one because I do like having fragrance in a cleansing balm I really
Like that relaxing feeling of just massaging my face with oil and melting everything off it’s like the one skin care step that I love this one really impressed me because it is from a western brand and I usually expect those to need
A cloth to rinse off well but this one feels very much like an Asian style cleansing balm the geek and gorgeous one is fragrance free which is nice because there really was a lack of fragrance-free cleansing balms for a long time for people who couldn’t handle fragrance
Or just didn’t like it this one is nice and soft it rinses off without too much residue and the only issue I’ve had is that it doesn’t take off my super longwear gel eyeliner very well
Then I’ll get in the shower rinse off my cleansing balm and then follow up with a regular cleanser in the last little bit before the wedding I was mostly using the mecca cosmetica renewing cleansing gel I’ve been really enjoying this range of products so this cleanser
Is really hydrating it’s got really gentle surfactant and tons of glycerin it’s really good at cleaning my skin but it doesn’t end up stripped it’s still super hydrated and it has a rose scent and surprisingly my partner well husband um he really likes it too even though he usually goes for like
More stripping cleansers and I didn’t know what he would think about that rose scent I’ve also been using the innisfree blueberry rebalancing 5.5 cleanser my friend got this for me from Korea and I’ve just been really impressed by this because a lot of Korean
Cleansers have a really dense foam and a high pH around 9 because that dense foam is created using traditional soap surfactants which are fatty acid salts so in those cleansers you’ll generally see these sorts of fatty acids and potassium hydroxide high in the ingredients list but unfortunately that high pH can disturb some
People’s barriers like mine and it leads to irritation and dryness after a while so this cleanser manages to almost completely replicate that dense foam experience with a much more nice skin-friendly pH of 5.5 it’s not as hydrating as the other one which is great if you
Prefer your skin to have a bit of a tighter feel afterwards and this has a bit of a citrus smell if I’m not washing my face in the shower I usually use the bioderma sensibio mel water with reusable cotton pads these double-sided ones are from medik8 if
I have makeup then I’ll rub a cleansing balm on my face and then wipe it off with a wet cotton cloth this one is from alpha H and then follow up with the micellar water
And then for eye makeup I use a two phase makeup remover I’ve been using the one from illiyoon with the soft velour side of the little reusable cotton pad and that’s all because I really hate washing
My face in the sink I just hate the dripping down my arms and all of the mess although I do have to share this incredible hack that my husband discovered we could do with our sink [Omar does some galaxy brained… bending down]
All right so for my active products I kind of have three main categories I have retinoids I have exfoliants and then I have gentle stuff which is like niacinamide propolis vitamin C derivatives basically stuff that I know isn’t too irritating for my skin
Last time I talked about my routine I said I was trying to use retinoids more often instead of every third day and I have succeeded and that’s because I have diversified instead of just using tretinoin I’m also using a lot of cosmetic retinoid products and yes that video or two videos is coming
So I usually use retinoids three times a week now I’ll use tretinoin if my skin barrier is feeling strong but I will use a cosmetic retinoid if it isn’t I won’t try to like just keep pushing this this is still the .05% Stieva this is .05% tretinoin and this particular brand
Has been discontinued I haven’t tried the other versions yet the cosmetic retinoids I’ve been using the most are Neutrogena retinol pro plus .3% night cream also the ROC retinol correction line smoothing max hydration cream and the Medik8 Crystal Retinal 6 I’ll talk more about these in my cosmetic retinoid video
But these are all really nicely formulated retinoids that are a bit on the stronger side in the last 3 weeks before the wedding I completely stopped using tretinoin because that shedding and sensitivity was just too risky for me so I really
Didn’t want to peel like a snake on that morning so I was mostly using the Neutrogena cream which also works really nicely as a moisturizer I used chemical exfoliants about twice a week and if I don’t I end up with little
Closed comedones which are clogged pores they look like flesh colored bumps all around my jaw so the two I was using were these the paula’s choice 2% bha liquid it has just been one of my favorites for a long time and the Sunday Riley good genes which is mostly lactic acid
My skin just really loves both of these they give me a really lovely smooth glow they keep away closed comedones and they make my pores look smaller I also use beauty of joseon’s peeling gel once or twice a week this is a really gentle physical exfoliant it’s great for removing skin flakes without
Kind of ripping deeper into any living skin so I use it a lot before applying makeup my main criteria for these is that they are concentrated enough to work well in the shower which this one is and and I’ve almost finished using it so let
Me know if you have any suggestions about which one I should try next and then on the other nights I used products in the gentle ingredients category which ended up being about twice a week so I did this when my skin was feeling a bit more sensitive but also
Sometimes just when I wanted to pile a whole bunch of really nourishing layers on my face the first product in my like lasagna is the sulwhasoo First Care activating serum Jude from 50 Shades of snail convinced me to try this she has a really fantastic in-depth
Review of this on her blog it has a whole bunch of plant extracts and antioxidants so this kind of first step product in Korean skincare helps other products penetrate better but because I was being really paranoid about overly irritating my skin I did not want to use this on the harsher actives nights
Then I would put on probably two of these serums so the first one is the olay super serum which I’ve talked about pretty recently it’s one of the serums that I feel like I could probably use on its own and my skin would stay really nice except it doesn’t have retinoids
The main focus of this is having niacinamide at a low pH which delivers it better into skin and it’s got a bunch of other nice actives too some people pointed out that there is a night version with similar ingredients that is fragrance-free that might be worth trying although I haven’t tried that yet
I’ve also been using the Skinfood propolis enrich Essence propolis is really hydrating for me and soothing as well I’ve also been using the L’Oreal Revitalift filler serum I’ve kind of dismissed hyaluronic acid as just another humectant moisturizer in the
Past but there are so many people hating on it at the moment and at the same same time there are so many people swearing by it it’s always in like the top products on Reddit I’ve just wanted to try out more hyaluronic acid products and really get to the bottom of it
It is a really interesting ingredient I think it deserves a proper video [the neverending guilt of my to-do list] but this one has a special acetylated form of hyaluronic acid that penetrates deeper and doesn’t get broken down as quickly
I found this really nice for plumping up my skin with more than just a humectant effect I don’t love this specific smell and I do kind of wish there was a fragrance-free option as well I’ve also been using the Peach and Lily glass skin refining serum this is another
Serum that has lots of different types of hyaluronic acid including an acetylated one although I don’t really know as much about the specifics it also has niacinamide and a bunch of centella ingredients it is just a really gentle product
The founder of Peach and Lily has really sensitive skin so this was just to me a really safe product to throw into my lasagna usually I’ll use this on nights when my skin is irritated but I want
Something soothing and hydrating and more active it sort of fills the same role as the TBH rebound okay the sulwhasoo concentrated ginseng renewing cream this is pricey but it is my favorite moisturizer and I don’t find I need to use very much of it after I use it my skin just
Looks so nice in the morning the star ingredient in this is called ginsenomics or compound K it’s extracted from ginseng it’s meant to restore collagen and hyaluronic acid and there is clinical testing with all of these really impressive effects on elasticity and wrinkles but it is one of those proprietary ingredients that
Only AmorePacific will test and use and there are peer reviewed studies but it’s always really hard to judge how reliable that sort of ingredient is because there just isn’t enough info there’s no like independent verification so these sorts of ingredients I treat them as sort of added extras they’re not like the
Core ingredients I have to use and they’re not like ingredients that I think are complete BS I will use them if I’m seeing nice results on my skin with the product and if they actually do what they say they do then that’s great so there are
A bunch of other ingredients in this it’s got retinol and there’s a bunch of omega 6 derivatives that are really nice for reinforcing your skin barrier but the main selling point is just my skin just looks so nice after i use
It and i see a difference with just a tiny dab and it’s also really non irritating and it’s rich without being too rich sometimes if I use a product that is too rich I end up with like little whiteheads that pop up overnight around my
Nose but this doesn’t do that my skin is just calm and smooth and plump and pretty onto body care I am very very used to dealing with my face but I don’t really exist online below about here so body care is like a very different game
Conveniently my dress only showed my upper back my shoulders and like my left leg I get backne and keratosis pilaris which is sort of [why did I say sort of] called chicken skin it’s like little hard bumps in the pores it’s on the back of my arms
So I exfoliated those every day with a mitt for the last month and I made sure I washed conditioner very thoroughly off my back and that was enough if it wasn’t my next step would have been to use a chemical exfoliant and ones that
I’ve used for this in the past are Paula’s Choice 2% BHA liquid the ordinary glycolic toner which comes in a giant bottle and Dr Dennis gross Alpha Beta peel pads for sunscreen my wedding was outdoors in Australia near the end of summer so on the actual day I used this evy sunscreen
It’s not Australian which is something that I would usually use but I wanted something that would stick to my body more than to the dress because I really did not want sunscreen stains on that dress I spent so freaking long making it and I wanted something that
Would stay put on my skin even when the dress straps were moving around now onto things I really regret there were a bunch of things I regretted because I’m me I’m going to make at least a few really terrible decisions
So a week before the wedding I decided to use a foot peel it was the Tony moly one definitely don’t do this I don’t know what I was thinking so this is like a pair of socks that have chemical exfoliant in them and they’re meant to
Peel off all the the dead skin and make your feet baby smooth the problem is the dead skin takes about 10 days to come off a week is not enough time I just completely forgot how much time it took and the flaking actually peaks around day seven which was the wedding day
So if you’re doing this do this at least 2 weeks before the day and I also didn’t actually need to do it because my dress hit the ground the most anyone would see would be like a little bit of my left foot sometimes
And all of this came to me right after I put on the socks and I vividly remember Omar telling me you know you can just take that off right like you can just wash it off and no I just did not want to waste it
So I had peeling feet at my wedding and because it softens your foot skin and I was wearing brand new heels and I also changed into brand new sneakers for the reception I just did not want to wash my old sneakers
I ended up with some really bulbous blisters on my feet I had one that was like a bumper on one heel and on the other heel a whole flap of skin just came off the moment my foot went into my sneaker it was really gory I wasn’t even aware this
Would happen but it makes perfect sense that it does but just learn from my fail this isn’t skincare but I need to talk about my hair because it was like the thing that annoyed me the most most of my decisions were great so I booked a toning
Service at my hairdresser which is ultrafade by Rich the day before they curl your hair at the end of the toning session so I figured most of the curls would stay in and then my sister could just help me fix it in the morning and things would be fine
The curls dropped a bit because it was like the most humid summer in Sydney for ages I also had a fake flower clip that I got off Etsy because I didn’t want to deal with real flowers on the day
So all of that was great I was just so grateful and happy on the day because it was just really stress-free I was just like thank you past Michelle you amazing brilliant beautiful genius and then I got there and I remembered
Omar wanted us to get married on the side of a cliff next to the ocean it was amazing for ventilation no one caught any anything at my wedding but having my hair out was like the worst possible decision
In like 3/4 of my wedding photos my hair was just having an amazing grand old time and I am just like squinting trying not to have anything hit me in the eye I also really regret not having a hand cream in my handbag on the way to the wedding I
Realized my cuticles were just an utter mess and there would probably be photos of my hands I tried to moisturize them with lip gloss but that was just not very successful I hope that was helpful if you are looking for new skincare products I reviewed the top skincare
Products on Reddit in this video if you want some skincare science then check out this playlist
