2020 Resolutions- The Ordinary pt. 1

Well hello there! Can you believe it's already February?? Truth be told, January felt like it had dragged on forever (probably because I was broke by week two), but now that it's actually over, it feels like time's flown by. It's like you no longer have that excuse of oh, it was just the holidays, I'm still out of it because I stayed up until morning that one time. You can't even use the beginning of the lunar new year anymore – all the news have come and gone and it's time to be on top of everything, again.

I am a proper cliché and do make new year's resolutions. You? I think that any successful change one implements in their life has to come at a time when they're really ready. It can be something that's been on your mind for months or even years, and while there's never a perfect time to start something, everyone needs a little lucky break, a change in the winds – some inspiration, to kick off a new chapter in their lives and get out of that rut. If the beginning of a new year (a new decade even in this case) can help nudge you into improving your life in some way, I'm all for it. Therefore you won't see me hating on new year's resolutions!

One thing I've been meaning to spice up is my skin care routine. Generally I share the philosophy my former dermatologist would quote – to use as much as you need and as little as possible (this was her attitude towards both makeup and skin care). I've caused more harm than good by trying too many products in the past and have learned my lesson. 10+ step skin care routines have never appealed to me, and so my own has been basic yet effective for the past several years.

In the evening my routine can be as simple as three steps: cleanser, moisturizer, lip balm. And even at its more complex, at most it would be around six steps:

• micellar water or bi-face makeup remover if I'm wearing an unusual amount of makeup

• Bioderma Atoderm cleanser (removes all my makeup 95% of the time)

• I'd been wanting something extra to help get rid of dead skin, so a discovery I made last year was the Babor Enzyme Cleanser, which I use once a week in the shower.

• a fairly recent addition, the Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Capsules. So this would be my treatment step, but because they're so fancy, I limit this step to just 2-3 nights a week or less.

• a simple, calming moisturizer like the Bioderma Sensibio AR or Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Cream.

• once or twice a week, instead of moisturizer I'll use my prescription azelaic acid cream.

• something thick for the lips, like a salve or Elizabeth Arden's 8h cream.

My typical morning routine is even simpler. I don't cleanse in the morning, I just splash some water on my face, use a moisturizer with spf and slather some ointment on my lips. I alternate between the Elizabeth Arden 8h Cream Intensive Daily Moisturizer for Face SPF 15 Sunscreen PA++ and the La Roche-Posay Rosaliac Anti-Redness light Cream SPF 15. 

I know that that's a low SPF, but I live in northern Europe and in the winter we get as little as 5,4h of daylight a day – it's kind of light at 10AM and pretty much dark again at 3PM. In addition to that, we get very little sunlight even when it's daytime – it's either cloudy, hazy or rainy a lot of the time. I looked it up, and of all available daylight, it's sunny only 40% of the time, but in the winter it's much worse. I think we get one sunny day every two weeks. I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant about weather, but point being – it's dark here, the UV index is usually 0 or 1, and of that time I'm probably indoors most of the time, being too sleepy to go anywhere. When we are blessed with sunshine or I'm somewhere else where it's sunny, I use the La Roche-Posay Anthelios Ultra Comfort Cream SPF 50 throughout the day.

Uuuugh. Sorry, dealing with the darkness is hard... Moving on.

So that's been my skin care routine for over a year, and I've been happy with it. But... I still have issues and it's safe to say my skin improvement journey has reached a plateau. Don't get me wrong, it seems like a century has passed since my skin was at its worst and I was using Roaccutane. The fact that I'm now comfortable not wearing any foundation is a huge change, but therein lies a concern I want to address. I don't wear foundation anymore, but there are occasions when I want to, and nothing I've tried sits well enough to be worth the effort of application. Never mind that finding a colour light enough in the right shade is Mission Impossible, when I do find one, my skin absorbs the moisture in the foundation within minutes, maybe hours, and I'm left with crackly patterns of pigment on my face, so really, why bother.

I want to continue to fade my hyper pigmentation marks and scars, treat the occasional breakout, improve the texture and quench the unquenchable thirst my skin seems to have, so that maybe I can actually go back to wearing foundation on days when I'm feeling glamorous and want to be creative with my looks.

This is a goal of mine, a resolution, for 2020.

I don't think it's important exactly when you start working on your goal. I started working on revamping my skin care routine back in November of last year. I had two ideas of how I was going to do this – seeing an aesthetician and placing an order from Deciem's The Ordinary during their sale.

Step one, going for a facial, was a bit of a bust. I know that finding the right aesthetician for you can take time, but I didn't enjoy the process, my skin didn't feel fantastic afterwards and the huge cost just put me off of trying again for a while. On the other hand, my maiden order from The Ordinary during their November sale, cost about half of what the facial did, and meant 6 new products to play around with.

What I got:

Resveratrol 3% + Ferulic Acid 3%

Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%

Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution

Marine Hyaluronics

100% L-Ascorbic Acid Powder

"Buffet"

I'd heard about The Ordinary whenever it first came out, but the concept and ingredients jargon was just too overwhelming. I'd continue to hear about it here and there and little by little started remembering products that might interest me. I think what really made me want to try it was my general interest in vitamin C. I wasn't about to spend the sort of money the more popular vitamin C products cost, without even knowing if it's something that works for me. I wanted to try an affordable version and then decide if it's something that I'm willing to invest in. 

The Ordinary has many vitamin C products and most have kind of mixed reviews, to put it kindly. The 100% L-Ascorbic Acid Powder seemed to have generally favourable reviews, if you disregard the faff of mixing your own serum. I decided to give it a go and got the Resveratrol 3% + Ferulic Acid 3% to mix it with. I also got Marine Hyaluronics to help with dehydration, Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1% because everyone seems to like it, Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution because I like a toner, and “Buffet” because it was supposed to be idiot-proof. Well...

I've had these products over a month and have mixed them every which way with little direction and noticeable progress. I knew you shouldn't mix your acids for obvious reasons, but I started looking into other product conflicts just recently and am somewhat stunned. This information is available on The Ordinary's website but it's difficult to get an overall picture, you have to scroll back and forth between products etc. Then I came across this site where all of the products had been put into a table and you can easily see what goes or doesn't go with what. 

Armed with this information, let's go over my purchases and how they work with each other once more:

“Buffet” - can only be used with Niacinamide, Resveratrol and Marine Hyaluronics.

Resveratrol 3% + Ferulic Acid 3% - no conflicts

Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1% - can be used with everything except the L-Ascorbic acid

Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution - can only be used with Marine Hyaluronics, Niacinamide and Resveratrol

Marine Hyaluronics - no conflicts

100% L-Ascorbic Acid Powder - can only be used with Resveratrol and Marine Hyaluronics

I think I got all of that right. At least I hope I did.

I've definitely been using the wrong products in the wrong order. For example I've mixed the powder with both Buffet and Niacinamide, I've followed up the glycolic toner with Buffet, I've layered all the serums etc. Again, I'm a bit stunned by all the limitations, especially in regards to Buffet. For being that one product that should be a no-brainer, it certainly has a lot of “buts” in the fine print, but I'm not going to question this. 

In short, my purchases really don't work in one routine. I've come to terms with that and have come up with some routines to hopefully still get the benefits of these ingredients without wasting any more product. The main pairing that dictates everything else is the powder and Resveratrol, as the l-ascorbic acid doesn't really go with anything else. 

Here's what I'm going to do for now:

1. Morning- Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution and Marine Hyaluronics. When the latter runs out, which it will soon, I'll be using Niacinamide in its place. I know it's not ideal to use this toner in the morning, but it's still winter, dark and cloudy and I'm hoping to move the toner to my evening routine eventually. In the meantime I'll be extra diligent with my sunscreen!
2. Evening- Atoderm cleanser, 100% L-Ascorbic Acid Powder and Resveratrol 3% + Ferulic Acid 3% plus moisturizer. 

This is the plan for now. I'm going to pay close attention to how my skin reacts and adjust what I'm doing if needed. I'll reassess the routines when I run out of something and report back. Also, I'm going to try and still use the enzyme cleanser, azelaic acid and ceramides once a week, unless my skin tells me not to.

My goal is to see a noticeable difference in my skin, to move on from the products that don't work and hopefully find some gems that do. 

Another goal of mine in 2020 is to use one of those automatic car washes for the first time. Wish me luck!

OR