ok heres a SNEAK PREVIEW of my crash course consisting of the most common kinds of bullshit i see people falling for
-gold and pearl do NOTHING for your skin. they just sit on top being useless and at most provide some cosmetic shimmer. a product with gold/pearl has a higher price for no reason. not only that but companies Know these ingredients are useless so if a company is purposefully misleading the public with bogus advertising that means that everything else about their product should also be regarded with suspicion
-dont take the marketing teams word for what an ingredient does!! example: ive seen companies add extracts from “desert plants” to moisturizers and claim that since desert plants dont dry out, theyll keep ur skin from drying out too. this doesnt make any sense if u think about it for more than 10 seconds, but it sure makes for a pretty ad!
-topical collagen is useless! collagen isnt absorbed through the skin, its an enormous molecule, it just sits on ur face doing nothing. like gold and pearl, its a useless ingredient that serves only to hike prices up
-beware of vague promises! if something says it will “rejuvenate” or “revitalize” or “wake up” your skin its bullshit. those words dont mean anything! some decent products may use those words in marketing, but if a product exclusively uses vague terms, or provides “data” like “80% of women saw more invigorated skin” thats a warning sign for bullshittery
-check the ingredients list. a product may prominently advertise that it includes [CURRENT FAD INGREDIENT] but where is the ingredient? once you get near the end of the ingredients list, the quantities of those components are so miniscule that the feature ingredient probably wont provide any benefits at all
-get some ph strips and test ur products. average healthy skin ph is around 4-5 (slightly acidic) and maintaining that ph is important for everything from protection against infection to maintaining moisture. most of ur products should be neutral (7) or slightly acidic. chemical exfoliants might have ph as low as 3. chemical exfoliants have different optimal phs so do some research on yours.
-for the love of god PLEASE dont use scratchy physical exfoliators !!!!! if you want physical exfoliation use something gentle like a konjac sponge. i also had a scrub that used rounded grains of rice as the exfoliating element and that worked well. dont scrub your face super hard and try not to exfoliate every day. be nice to your skin please !!!
thats all for now stop by your local strange, slightly unnerving, brand-new sephora for more info