During my last trip to Bath&Body Works to procure shampoo and shower gel, the saleslady was out on the floor pimping a new line of skincare by noted dermatologist Patrica Wexler. It sounded nice, and sufficiently impressive in combating something called MMPis, but I was wondering if anyone had any first hand experience with it? It’s not cheap, so I’d like some practical input before I invest that kind of change in stuff to rub on my face.
I was intrigued enough to purchase a tube of the natural lip-plumping gloss. It makes my lips feel all swollen and tingly, and I do notice them being perceptibly fuller Just wondering if anyone’s using Wexler’s stuff? How is it?
As a general principle, there are no expensive ingredients used in cosmetics, and there are no complex “formulas” that need to be carefully designed with years of research. Expensive skin care products are inherently overpriced - there is simply no possible way that a skin care product could justify costing more than a few bucks. And while there’s excellent skin care products that cost a bundle, the quality and effectiveness of skin care products simply don’t correlate with price. You can try 'em if you want - you may well like ‘em (though consumers’ perceptions of the quality of skin care products are heavily linked to how much they spent on them.) I can guarantee that there’s nothing special about them to make them worth the price, though. It just doesn’t work that way.
Incidentally, I’d be cautious about anything that makes your lips tingly and swollen. Doesn’t that sound sort of . . . bad? Seems to me it’s likely something provoking a mild inflammation in your lips, which is not going to be real good in the long run.
Wexler is a well-known “celebrity” dermatologist. I’d probably lump her in with all the other “medically” associated skin-care products. What issues are you trying to address? Olay and L’oreal currently have good products for cleansing and moisturising. If you’re looking for a good exfoliator, you and I need to hook up (not the nasty way! ) because I just invested in some excellent medical-office quality exfoliation crystals that work better than any microdermabrasion product or procedure (I’ve had in-office and all sorts of different “kits”) and is REALLY easy to use.
I’m an avowed facial-care freak. I try anything and everything if it promises to reduce wrinkles. I’m considering an investment in some StriVectin or a knockoff with the same ingredients. I will be sure to purchase at Longs or RiteAid though and keep my receipt. If it don’t work – back it goes to the store!
That said, I don’t really believe that the “designer” products are any better than on-the-shelf at Longs. I’ve tried expensive potions purchased through the dermatologist’s offices at Kaiser, nothing impressed me enough to make it a part of my regimen.
Excalibre, you’re likely correct about the ingredients and pricing. I wasn’t worrying too much about the price for my first trial since, at the risk of sounding like my grandmother, I have a coupon. As for the tingly lips, it’s a very similar feeling to that I have when I use lip balm with a high concentrate of peppermint or camphor. It doesn’t itch, and I think that would definitely be a warning sign. RSSchen, the issue I’m trying to address is mainly just prevention. I have combination skin, and I want to have a routine that does some exfoliation, some intensive moisturizing, and I have to have a good UV block. I had never heard of this Wexler person before in my life, but I absolutely thought the salesgirl was going to start writhing as she talked about the stuff.
I currently use Olay products, and have been happy with them, but wondered if there not something more I could be doing. Plus I worry that I’m not doing things in the right order or at the right time, so any skincare system that tells me the order of the applications and the time of day to do it is helpful.
Not to be a broken record, but the salesgirl was writhing because she thought she might get a commission. I mean, haven’t you ever gotten bad advice from a salesperson? The reputation of the manufacturer means no more than that of the athlete whose face adorns the Wheaties box.
Don’t worry about doing things in the right order or at the right time, either. That’s pure hocus pocus - with the exception of the retinoids (prescription treatments for acne) which can be deactivated by some OTC acne treatments, there is simply nothing to the notion that doing things in a particular order or at particular times is useful. Obviously it’s not necessary to use sunblock at night, but there’s no reason other than marketing to use a “day” and a “night” moisturizer.
I don’t mean to harp on this, but seriously - everything the skin care companies tell you is lies, and most of it is founded on magical thinking. You might as well ask what order to stick your pins in a voodoo doll to make it work best - it’s simply irrelevant. Skin care products are nowhere near as complex as their manufacturers would suggest.
I recommend you read Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me by Paula Begoun. If this line of skin care products is new, she probably hasn’t reviewed it yet, but the book gives an eye-opening explanation of the sheer nonsense spouted by the beauty industry. It really is magical thinking - they’ve done an excellent job of convincing people that only expensive ritualistic use of their products will make them look good, and the fact is that it’s simply nonsense.
I’ve found that the inexpensive stuff works fine for me, but only if I don’t overuse. And by overuse I mean go through the whole scrub, toner, moisturize thing more often than every couple of days. Inbetween a damp washcloth once a day does fine.
I may be lucky, but the less I mess with my skin the happier it is. I bet the industry would hate to hear me say that.
Use a good cleanser twice a day (one preferably with no perfumes, dyes, etc. in it). Anything else just use as needed - moisturizer is particularly overused. You only need moisturizer if you have dry skin, and only on the dry parts of your face. There’s a common myth that somehow everyone needs moisturizer, and some people even try to claim that if you don’t use moisturizer, your skin will get oilier, which is ridiculous. (According to things I’ve read, the amount of oil produced by your skin is strictly regulated by your hormones, which means that applying moisturizer couldn’t possibly make your skin better.)
Around the end of high school and the beginning of college, I had acne. Nothing terrible - not like the cystic acne some people have that doesn’t respond to anything short of Accutane, just good ol’ fashioned ickiness in my T-zone. I tried different skin care regimens, but following the conventional wisdom didn’t help in the slightest. I eventually discovered that getting the right cleanser and not doing anything else to my face but clean it twice a day made a major improvement. Clearing my acne up entirely required a prescription retinoid cream, but every time I tried a new skin care product or followed the advice of the people selling them, my skin got worse. And when I stopped doing any of that stuff, my skin got much, much better.
Suffering through a couple years of bad skin wasn’t exactly life-altering torment, but it does make me rather pissed at the cosmetics industry that motivated be to spend far too much money on crappy products that mostly just made my skin look worse.
Be wary of anyone that sells you anything that spends about five minutes between leaving the bottle and going down the drain. ALL of the “scientific” claims about beauty products that you see are bunk. There is no way beside sunblock, good hydration and a good diet that can do a single thing about wrinkles. Skincare is the last realm of snake-oil. The only products that are worthwhile are the ones that make you immediately happy because you like the smell or the bottle looks nice in your bathroom or something.
You sound like someone who’s done a lot of homework on this issue, Excalibre, and I appreciate your input. Right now, the extent on my skincare routine is a once daily cleansing with Cetaphil in the mornings and a morning application of Oil of Olay for sensitive skin (with UV blocker), then a nightly warm facecloth to wash down my face. I don’t normally use makeup, so I generally don’t have any build up of anything other my natural facial oils. What’s been intriging me of late is all the focus we are seeing on home glycopeels and microderm abbraison. Do you have opinions on that?
As for the salesgirl- yes, I’ve had the hard sell put on me before for everything from perfume to vacuums, and I recognize it when I see it. This was different, though, almost weird. Of course, she could have just been a weird person or maybe high from all the fumes in that place!
You sound like you have a pretty good skincare regimen as it is. Cetaphil is by all accounts an excellent cleanser (though when I tried it, it turns out I was allergic or sensitive to something in it, so I didn’t have good results.) And sunblock is the only real skin step you can take to reduce wrinkles.
I’m not familiar with any of the home dermabrasion or peel products. My guess is that they’re essentially the same as any other exfoliant, either a scrub or an alpha-hydroxy acid product (glycolic acid is an alpha-hydroxy.) Those don’t make a whole lot of difference, though they do help make fine lines a bit less obvious. Neither is going to be comparable to actual microdermabrasion or a glycolic peel applied by a professional; those make a more substantial difference at the cost of days or even a couple weeks of serious redness (depending on exactly what you’re using.) The home versions are simply not going to be the same thing because they need to be applied carefully and people could easily misuse the products and seriously hurt their skin. So I’m guessing they’re about the same as any other exfoliant, which means you can use them on your own, but don’t expect anything dramatic. Don’t use scrubs too often - you can irritate your skin and make it look awful.
Incidentally, has anyone ever noticed that women at perfume and makeup counters always paint themselves up so much that they look like clowns?
I have combination skin that is mildly sensitive. I have tried, over the years, countless department store brands as well as almost every drugstore brand. I have found that Origins works best for me.
I use Liquid Crystal for my cleanser. (lasts 4-5 months)
I use Make a Difference as my night and day moisturizer. (lasts 2-3 months)
For daytime UV protection, I useOut Smart 25 SPF daily. (lasts 5-6 months)
I definitly don’t expect everlasting youth from the “higher priced” beauty products, but I personally feel that they are a better value in terms of how long the product lasts and the quality/performance of the product.
Everybody has to find what works for them, that is why there are so many options. It is just a matter of navigating the hype of the new “miracles to reduce aging” and all of the other nonsence they throw at women.
I don’t want to sound argumentative, but it simply is not the case that you get more effectiveness (and certainly not more use) out of more expensive products. Not as a rule, anyway. There’s great skin care products that cost a bundle, but there’s equally good products that don’t. If you’ve found something that works for you, I don’t see any reason to change, and please don’t take me as trying to talk you out of it, if for no other reason than it’s often more sensible to continue paying a little too much for your skin care than to try a whole lot of cheaper products before you find one that works as well. There’s no question that people’s success with different products varies, so there’s no easy answer to what you should use. But I really don’t like seeing these snake-oil myths perpetuated.
You are not buying better quality products when you spend more. You are buying artfully designed bottles, counter space at department stores rather than shelf space at drug stores, and the caché that comes from expensive products. (It’s no secret that people are often more willing to spend money on something that’s more expensive, either because they perceive it as being higher quality or for simple snob appeal.) There’s no magic going on here: cheap and expensive brands are made from the same things - industrial chemicals that are fairly cheap in all cases and formulations that contain no secrets (because cosmetic chemists tend to either be hired from one company to another, or because they’re employees of outside firms that are hired by multiple cosmetics companies.) Oh, and tiny, tiny quantities of something that sounds good but does nothing for you (like Aveda’s “Tourmaline-Charged Eye Cream”, which has something like 0.1% actual tourmaline powder in it.)
I’m not sure about the specifics behind Origins - but in many cases, expensive products and drugstore brands are owned by the same company. You get ridiculous situations in which L’Oreal comes out with some innovation before Estee Lauder, because they’re owned by the same company but they make most of their profit off of the cheaper but better-selling L’Oreal brand.
And there’s no good reason to be devoted to any particular brand, since the quality of one skin care line’s cleanser (for instance) doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of their moisturizer, and so forth.
The trouble is that people’s perceptions of how well their skin care products work are very subjective and tend to be related to a whole host of factors besides what they actually do to their skin - which is no surprise, because even the world’s most perfect moisturizer is only going to have a subtle impact on your skin.
Just FYI, you can find lip-plumping gloss many other places too, and I would bet good money that they have the same active ingredient whether it’s got Wexler’s name on the tube or whether you get it from a friend’s sex toy/novelty body products party. (Not that I would know anything about the latter. Why are you laughing?)
I’m very familiar with both microdermabrasion and peel products. I have used several OTC versions and have not really liked anything, but Neutrogena makes a nice “peel”. But it’s not really a peel.
I possess office-quality products in both Jessner’s Peel and Microcrystals which I use pretty regularly.
The Jessner’s is the acid used by most professionals and it will provide you with a genuine peel – redness, scabbing and then peeling. I had to hide for about a week after I did it. Liked the look of the skin underneath when it was done. You can do this about every six weeks.
The aluminum-oxide Microcrystals I purchased in a 3.5 lb bottle after trying them @ a price of about $12/gram. I got a very good deal on the bottle. These I use about every other day. They’re FABULOUS and EASY and leave my skin soooo smooth. I can’t say enough about them. I’ll sell some for a better deal than $12/gram if anybody is interested. I know we’re not supposed to endorse selling things, and if this statement is in violation, I deeply apologize. That said, I’m on AOL, contact me at will.
Excalibre has some great advice for you. He’s right, a lot of times things are way overpriced. Just make sure you stick to cleansing your face twice a day and drink plenty of water. I use a moisturizer because simple washing can dry out my skin, plus with having a pale complextion I need the sunscreen.
Anyways, just make sure you read whatever product you are thinking of purchasing. I have adult acne (it’s starting to clear up) and I only use dye-free, frangrance-free products. Right now I’m using Arbonne’s acne line (I get a nice discount) and I used Proactive for a while, which I don’t recommend. Although it worked for a while, after prolonged use my skin got worse instead of better.
I make sure I avoid oil at all costs. Most cosmetic companies will use the cheaper products so it’s good you don’t wear much. That’s where being a little more cautious of your purchases goes into effect. The fillers they use on a lot of makeup lines contains oils used from boiled-down roadkill. So using something like the “mineral-based” makeup will do wonders if you’re sensitive.
Skin care is pretty simple as long as you have a good routine in place. It doesn’t require expensive items, just a little extra TLC. Wash two times a day, sunscreen, plenty of water, and hands off your face!
Origins rocks my world, and I don’t think it’s that expensive. I don’t mind spending a little more for the good stuff, it is for my face, after all. I won’t use cheap cosmetics either. Does that make me a sucker? If so, I don’t mind. I love beauty products.
I don’t understand why you even asked this. Yes, of course it makes you a sucker. If you are willing to pay far more money for something that’s virtually identical to something you can find in a drug store (yes, you probably will have to settle for a bottle that’s not designed quite as artfully) then of course you’re a sucker. If you take pride in being tricked by snake-oil salesmen, well, to be frank, that suggests you’re probably stupid.
I disagree in some cases. MAC (as an example) eyeshadow is far superior than, say, Wet n Wild eyeshadow. Theirs is more richly pigmented so you use less to get the color effect you want and it also lasts all day on my eyelids, which are the only greasy spots on my face. Even higher-end drugstore eyeshadows end up being ‘eaten’ into my eyelid crease after about 3 hours or so, but MAC shadows will last all day, perfectly in place.
With facial care, though, I generally agree. My problem is finding a good moisturizer, because I have extremely dry skin. It’s very difficult finding one that’s moisturizing enough and has sunblock. If I find one that is moisturizing enough, it’s marketed as “night cream” :rolleyes: and thus has no sunblock. I hate having to apply moisturizer and then sunblock on top (and I’m extremely extremely white*, so I definitely need the sunblock).
the lightest shades of most foundations look tan on me
) because I just invested in some excellent medical-office quality exfoliation crystals that work better than any microdermabrasion product or procedure (I’ve had in-office and all sorts of different “kits”) and is REALLY easy to use.
I don’t understand why you even asked this. Yes, of course it makes you a sucker. If you are willing to pay far more money for something that’s virtually identical to something you can find in a drug store (yes, you probably will have to settle for a bottle that’s not designed quite as artfully) then of course you’re a sucker. If you take pride in being tricked by snake-oil salesmen, well, to be frank, that suggests you’re probably stupid.