30 and getting married in 7 months - need a skincare routine overhaul!

[roamingcat]

Hi all,

I'm 30 and getting married in seven months and would love to have better skin for the big day. I'm also reaching the end of a lot of my products so it's time to do a big new skincare shop! My current skin concerns:

• Occasional breakouts on chin/cheeks/jaw
• Red marks on cheek/chin/jaw from old breakouts
• Some dark pigmentation spots on nose, next to eyes and forehead
• First signs of aging around eyes

I would be really grateful for any suggestions you have on products or different things I can try to help me have clear and glowy skin, and fight those first signs of aging. I'm wondering if I should try a skinandme or dermatica subscription to add something a bit stronger in and tackle my concerns? If so, which products would you suggest using around either of these brands? As you'll see from my routine below, it's quite beautypie heavy as I have a subscription but recommendations can be from any brand. I'm not on a budget as I think good skincare is important. Is there anything big that I'm missing from my routine?

My current routine is as follows:
AM:

• BeautyPie Japanfusion cleanser
• BeautyPie Triple hyraluronic acid serum or Japanfusion deep treatment serum
• BeautyPie Superdose Vitamin C moisturiser or Happy face moisture cream
• BeautyPie Featherlight UVA/UVB SPF50

PM:

• BeautyPie Japanfusion cleanser
• BeautyPie Dr Glycolic Multi-acid micropeeling pads (not necessarily everynight but quite often, these help with breakouts)
• BeautyPie Youthbomb 360 radiance concentrate serum
• Curel moisturising milk or Beautypie Happy face moisture cream

Thanks all - excited to read the suggestions!

Mine is nothing to do with buying products and all about drinking much more water. You'll see a huge difference very quickly.

I'd be really careful about undertaking massive changes in one go. I started using tret and it's taken almost ten weeks recover.

Agree about the water. I had kidney issues about 4 years ago and now I'm quite strict with my water drinking regime. Wasnt trying re my skin but it went really nice within weeks and i still have good skin.

Sadly I already drink loads of water, I only drink that and green tea!

OP Genuinely, many congratulations and I hope your day goes well.

But your list contains an awful lot of stuff. Our skins are designed to be self-regulating, on the whole. Especially if they are sensitive. So the more we put on them, the more problems. Then the more further stuff we put on them to try to sort the problems out, the more we create further problems. Etc etc etc. Very often, the products we are using are damaging the skin's acid mantle - a natural protective barrier:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30125885/

this is behind a paywall but informative:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/style/all-of-those-products-are-making-your-skin-worse.html

this study found that even 'skin-friendly' cosmetic cleansers could be irritating:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ics.12721

Have you ever tried giving your skin a complete rest for a few months? And looking carefully at what you eat? Do you drink enough water, get enough fibre and skin-helpful vitamins etc? The person with one of the best skins I know just washes with plain tepid water, splashed on with clean hands. If her skin feels dry, she uses a good-quality moisturiser. Nothing more, though she eats a very healthy diet. She is around 70 now. I'm sure that genetics plays a part, but on the whole, in many circumstances (Occam's razor logic), less is quite often more....

All the very best.

This is a good point - I guess one option is to just add in something (e.g. skin and me or dermatica and leave everything else the same?)

I was the same but 8 months down the line it was totally worth it. It's done wonders for my skin. Reduced my fine lines and evened out my complexion.

OP, tretinoin will sort out most of your issues but it does take a while for your skin to get used to it. You need to use SPF which you're already doing.

Also, don't get any facial waxing while you're using it. Made the mistake of getting my eyebrows waxed a few weeks before my wedding when using retinol. Thankfully it healed in time for the wedding.

Thank you this is helpful. I think I might give skinandme a go but pair back my routine (ie bin the serums and the acid pads) and see what happens...

Hi OP. Congratulations for the wedding. How exciting!

I've just seen this thread and was about to suggest Skinandme too.
I've been using it 3 months and its really smoothed out and plumped up my skin and I'm suddenly getting lots of complements 3 months in. Its not a quick fit but I see you have time to give it a go before your wedding.

I used a friends discount code to get started , so if you are interested and want to give it a try you are welcome to use my friends referral code for a discount . JENNYW5PCK

I cut out wheat and dairy for 2 months and reduced sugar significantly. It was miserable but my skin was fabulous. I ate lots of fish, fruit and vegetables, did a lot of walking and meditation. Genuinely looked 10 years younger.

Gradually readjusted my diet and my dark circles are back but skin is not too bad - fewer breakouts.

i wd do it again if i had something I wanted to look great for. But cd not live with a restricted diet for too long.

if you can’t be bothered with that, just go splurge at spaceNK but get one of the staff to do a full face of make up for you- don’t choose products yourself.

Ahh congratulations on the wedding!

Wow, you could be describing my skin here!! I have recently started using retinol (the cereve one as it's the most gentle) and I'm noticing a difference after 6 weeks. I use it twice a week, started with just once a week. It can break you out but it usually settles within 3 months.

I know it sounds bizarre but one thing that made a big difference previously was not cleansing in the morning. I use a moisturising spray instead (it's a Japanese one), that has really helped with dry patches from acne and dehydration! I noticed less acne when I wasn't cleansing in the morning, I think it was stripping my skin. After the spray, I serum/moisturise as usual. At night I double cleanse, first with oil and wipe with a flannel, then use a gentle face wash.

Another thing is to note how many acids you are adding on to your skincare in one day..so hyaluronic acid and retinol are fine, but if you add in niacinamide for scaring for example, your skin can go in overdrive. I know you aren't using those but do you know what actives and acids are in your products?

On the days I'm not using retinol and spots are appearing, Paula's choice AHA is bloody amazing!!

Sorry lots there, hope some of my rambling is useful haha!!

I'm in my 30's. Here is my routine that I follow to use tret and keep my skin normal:
Morning:
Using water to wash your face,
Sebamed clear face gel,
la roche posay spf
Evening:
la roche posay moisturizer,
Tretinoin (0.1) from skinorac
Sebamed clear facial gel