When you wake up looking like a bag of spanners.....

[Newseeker]

What do you do?

My skincare is shit, make-up looks shit and I feel like shit. Hello 54.

It’s my birthday and I’m looking awful. Using Liquid Gold, Ren bioretinoid, Clinique intense surge and Dermalogica stuff but my face is pimply, red and pissed off. Much like myself.

I bought bareminerals original powder and an expensive kabuki brush and all that buffing is stretching my skin every which way.

Please help, I didn’t used to be this vain but I’m not used to looking this crap.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice, I've binned the REN because I don’t like it and the Clinique Intense which I always thought smelled of pure alcohol. I will use up the Kiehls oil on my chest and just cleanse and moisturise my face for a while.

I do worry I’ll turn into one huge wrinkle if I do that for a week. I need a good foundation now. I will lay off the Liquid Gold too.

Cheers for listening.

I’m not sleeping well at all, I’m a bit stressed tbh.

Cliche but are you drinking enough water.

And yes to too much products. I cleanse with a wipe wash with water and moisturise but what I eat and drink makes the most difference.

I don’t think I drink any water other than in tea or coffee. I can definitely increase that, thanks.

You shouldn’t be using Alpha H everyday, it’s way too harsh. I use it once a week otherwise it gives me sebaceous cysts.

Have you tried cetaphil wash and la Roche Posay sensitive moisturiser? You can buy them both in boots.

that's too much stuff you put on your face, no wonder it's angry.
go back to old fashioned bar soap + flannel for cleaning in the evening followed by moisturiser.

I wonder if you have Rosacea op? It might be worth seeing your GP.
I'm 64 and stick to using mild soap to wash my face after Bodyshop Calmomile Oil cleanser if I've worn makeup. Then I apply Superdrug serum and moisturiser. If I need extra moisturiser then it's M&S Formula night cream.
I think that we're too susceptible to advertising and thinking we must use X, y and Z.
I can't afford expensive beauty products so have worked out that it's the simpler the better for me.

Just to be clear - it was one OR the other at night, not all or any of them EVERY night!!

My face would have fallen off by now. I rotated them - one a night.

I agree you can use too much stuff on your face. My skin gets dry and breaks out even more the more stuff I use. Keeping it well moisturised and hydrated is the key.

I also find my digestion has a huge impact - if I’m breaking out I’m probably bloated from eating crap too! So as pp have said nutritious food, sleep, water.

I’m trying face yoga for the sagging - early days!

Ditching the retinoic acid and alcohol smelling products will help. Agree with everyone, too much harsh stuff has aggravated your sensitive skin. I have sensitive skin and now use just 2 products, a hot cloth cleanser and moisturiser (I prefer a gel based one).

Oh and the only time people have ever commented on my skin being really nice was last year when I was eating 10 portions of fruit/veg a day. Keep trying to get back to it but it was quite a challenge for me!

Ps belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I bet your skin isn’t half as bad as you think it is, but I also know if someone says that to me I’m like ‘yeh right, it really is.’

I am younger than you (42), but have horrible 'winter skin' at the moment. I had a major breakout on my chin due to this and hormones, and it is taking time to get under control. I pared right back on skincare, as I had a beauty advent calendar and was throwing all sorts at my skin.

One product that is new, and did help, is La Roche Pisa Effaclar Duo +. I put it on every night and it kick started improvement of my spots.

I'm finding that as I get older my pores are getting bigger. I'm going to be able to keep small change in them soon.

I’m allergic to a LOT of skincare products and about 18 months/2 years ago I changed what I used completely and trialed a lot of products. I’m also super lazy so it had to be easy as well as gentle.

What I use now is
Morning
Nip+Fab Glycolic Fix pads (there is also a mild version)
Nip+Fab Dragon’s Blood serum
Factor 30 moisturiser, I use Natio for Men (I react to most factor 50 sunscreens)

Evening
Nip+Fab Dragon’s Blood pads
Moisturiser and eye cream. I’m currently using Neal’s Yard Frankincense Intense but Hylamid SubQ is good too.

If I feel that I need a bit of additional ‘help’ I mix a bit of Nip+Fab Viper Venom blurring stuff (can’t remember the exact name) in with the moisturiser sunscreen, or put a thicker layer of blur gel over the top of the sunscreen in times of extreme need.

The whole routine takes next to no time and a couple of months after I started with it friends started commenting on how good my skin looked. I also don’t have flakey, itchy patches on my cheeks in winter anymore.

I forgot to say that I’m 50, so about your age OP. Also that Paula’s Choice is worth checking out. You can buy a complete set of testers for each of the ranges for a small price. The sensitive range worked well for me but the Nip+Fab won because it was less fiddly to use.

I think stopping some products is OK.

See what happens and you can re-introduce them later, after your skin has calmed a bit.

I personally don't think you are using too many products. You might be using things that aren't right to you, but that's different.

There are always posters who come and say "Oh I only even use water and spit and whenever I'm feeling profligate I let the cat lick my face". Mn can be oddly competitive in some ways.

Sounds like you've had plenty of advice on what to put on your skin. Make sure you're also nourishing your skin with food. My skin looks tons better when I eat an avocado a day, lots of oily fish and greens. Up your water intake too as that does seem to help, although the science behind it is not clear.

Happy Birthday.

I read that during menopause you lose 25% of the collagen in your skin so I use a red light led mask every night for an hour. I do 20 minutes blue for acne, same for green to reduce pigmentation & 20-30 minutes red to stimulate collagen and elastin production.

I'm 40 so I'm hoping 10 years of that will help come menopause time. I got asked for ID last week to buy wine. Dh thinks it's great Tesco employs blind people on the checkouts.

Caroline hirons cleansing cheat sheet is very good. Very sensible advice, I use grape seed oil as its antioxidant.

I don’t agree that you’re using too many products, but do agree that they might not be the right products for your skin.

I use a lot of products but am careful about what ingredients they contain. I’ve learnt that silicones and mineral oils aren’t good for my skin so I try to avoid those. I also try to keep products alcohol free. Some of the products I use do contain alcohol but it’s fairly low down the ingredient list. A lot of the products people have said they use on here would cause my skin a lot of problems

My skin seems fine with linalool and essential oils but some react to those.

Bare minerals brought me out in a big scaly rash too.

When my skin last reacted I was able to sort it fairly quickly by using jojoba oil and la Roche posay toleriane products. I still use their cleanser and moisturiser now.

Thanks for the moral and practical support, I'm considering slathering my face in Germolene today.

It might even be a good idea.

I used to use Elemis and Decleor a lot but the Decleor rose balm brought me out in spots.

I think the Kiehls Midnight Recovery has lavender oil in it.

Shea butter causes milia and the Dermalogica skin repair stuff is really silicone-heavy and I’m ok with it.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this help today, I’m in such a state, I’m going round and round adding more stuff when I can see now that I should be paring right back.

"Shea causes milia" - that’s just on me, some love it!

Sympathies OP and belated happy birthday.

I'm with the PPs that suggest a visit to a dermatologist. I really really really think that it will be your fastest an cheapest way to real results. You need a good experienced look at your skin and a diagnosis. I bet this is very easily remedied. It's practically impossible to diagnose skin without seeing it.

Everyone's baseline is different. I never had good skin, terrible acne and massive slighlty large pores. transformed by my derm a few years ago. Saved a tonne of money buying all sorts of stuff that didn't suit me. The relief of decent skin! And not fussing about it every day etc etc.

That kind of happened to me and after doing some reading, I think I had overexfoliated and thus damaged my skin's acid mantle/harmed its moisture barrier. Angry irritated dry skin, breakouts all over, both little whiteheads and ugly cystic buggers.

I stopped all exfoliants, used a gentle cleanser (non-foaming, creamy) morning and night, a mild but not too occlusive moisturiser, occasionally some oil (marula, argan or such), and some LRP Cicaplast Pro Recovery here and there to soothe the angry. Took about two weeks to feel and look much better.

I would look at the newest things and the harshest things in your current routine - the BM powder and the Ren bioretinoid (how strong is it?). In the past I had terrible reactions to powder foundation and it sounds like others have too, so that might be it if you haven't used before (esp the bismuth). In my case, it turned out my skin likes glycolic acids, but hates lactic except in v small amounts v occasionally. If you don't feel like the retinoid is doing anything and your skin is irritated, omit it for a while and see what happens.

There's lots of advice online about using oils containing fatty acids and testing ph (!) and all that jazz, but I found just paring things down to simple and calming for a while, then slowly adding back in (after 2-3 weeks) alternating exfoliant and retinoid helped. And I added them back in 1x/2x per week, rather than immediately using one or other product every night.

I recently got the new Nars foundation and it's buildable medium to full coverage that looks pretty natural, so it might be a good option for disguising the stuff that you're worried about until you can get back to the lighter YSL one again. But sadly, it's not cheap. However, if you're near a Space NK, they'll almost certainly give you a sample.