- Someone said, "Do I still need to do consistent skincare,"
"even if I don't breakout?"
So here's the secret, skincare is way more than acne.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, it's Brooklyn.
Today I'm gonna be filming a skincare Q and A.
If I sound kind of sick, it's because I had
a little bit of a cold, also I just scratched my neck.
So before y'all come at me saying, hickey,
or whatever craziness, I literally just scratched my neck.
But today I'm filming a skincare Q and A.
You guys seriously blew up my Instagram
with questions of just basic skincare questions,
wondering what the answer was to all of these things.
So I was just gonna film, kind of a basic
skincare Q and A video for you guys.
I just got home from school, so I'm still in my scrubs,
and I don't have any makeup on, and my hair's not done,
because this is how I go to school every day.
Before I get started, I just wanted to put out there
that I'm not a dermatologist, I'm not a doctor.
I'm just a student in esthetician school,
getting my master's license, so what I know is limited,
and I can only answer and respond to questions
with what I know.
So just go into this knowing,
that it is somebody who is learning about skincare,
answering your questions, not like a doctor.
The first question I thought was really interesting was,
somebody was like, "How do I find out what my skin type is?"
There's like so many different
types of skin out there, right?
Like everybody has something different,
everybody's face is different,
and then we got acne, everybody got dry skin,
but there are like kind of some basic skin types
that we put people in, generally speaking.
And that's traditionally, oily skin,
dry skin, combination skin, and then sometimes
we'll classify people with sensitive skin.
So you can be any of those,
and that's kind of what your skin type is.
The best way to figure out what it is,
is to keep careful track of what your skin is like.
For example, I know that I have combination skin,
because I have a lot of oil, my T zone gets super oily,
I get shiny when I have makeup on,
but I also have patches, like here and here,
that get drier than the rest of my face.
So I have, not only do I have flaky skin,
but I also have oily skin.
But if you're the kind of person that feels like
you only ever have excess oil
and you never have any dry skin,
then you probably classify as oily and vice versa with dry.
So if you don't feel like you have excess oil,
but you just have flaky skin all the time,
then you're probably gonna classify as dry.
And if you're a sensitive skin person,
where you might have combination skin,
but then products you use can cause irritations
or you're sensitive to fragrance,
or heat or anything like that,
you can also be classified as sensitive skin.
If you want like a really professional diagnosis,
go to your local spa, go to an esthetician,
go to a dermatologist, and they can like,
tell you, "Okay, based on this, this and this,"
"you have dry skin, or you have oily skin."
It's not that serious.
You can kind of diagnose your own skin,
if you know your skin well enough.
"Is there any way you can help with hormonal breakouts?"
Yes. Yes, there is.
I started birth control about two years.
Let's see, how many years ago?
I took it for about two years,
and I, as soon as I started it, got vagal breakouts.
When you have hormonal breakouts,
they breakout kind of on your lower cheek,
underneath your jaw, on your chin and all the way across.
This is where you're gonna see
most of your hormonal breakouts.
So, I saw a lot of hormonal breakouts and then I saw
a lot when I got off my birth control as well.
And the best way to help with that honestly,
is to just make sure that you have
healthy balanced hormones.
So, if that means taking vitamins,
if that means making sure that you are
taking care of your body correctly,
whatever that looks like, making sure
that your body has healthy and balanced hormones,
can really make like a huge, huge difference.
Obviously, you can't get rid of it all, unfortunately.
If your hormones are fluctuating, just with a period,
or a pregnancy, or whatever, it can happen,
and that's when you just kind of treat it like regular acne.
But, to prevent most of hormonal acne,
you just have to make sure your hormones are balanced.
I take a lot of vitamins to keep hormones balanced,
whatever works for you, nest question.
Somebody said, "How do you make the face soft?"
It's a good question. It's a solid question.
Multiple ways you can make your skin soft.
You can moisturize, which just helps,
kind of, basically, soften the skin
and moisturize the skin, so that it's dewy,
and it's not dry and flaky,
or has like cracks or anything like that.
Moisturizing can also help smooth out the skin sometimes,
if you have like crackly or dry skin.
But the best way for the average person
to make your skin really smooth and soft
like a baby's bottom, is to use an exfoliator.
There's two kinds of exfoliants,
there's like a manual exfoliant,
then there's a chemical exfoliant.
Manual exfoliant, is something that
maybe has like beads in it,
or it's like, maybe, a rough towel
that you use to exfoliate,
or a brush or something like that.
A chemical exfoliant, is when the ingredients
actually have like, exfoliating factors to them.
So it may be a smooth product that you rub on
and the chemicals will dissolve everything on your face.
So if you've ever used a product that has enzymes in it,
enzymes usually kind of eat away
the dead skin and help exfoliate.
I prefer chemical exfoliation over manual.
I only ever do manual, if I have like,
visible peeling on my skin, but for the most part,
I just do chemical, because I don't like the roughness.
An exfoliant plus a moisturizer will make your skin...
Somebody said, "Where to start,"
"if you don't do anything, but wash your makeup off?"
I actually, surprisingly,
had a lot of people that were like,
"I don't even know where to start with skincare."
So, if you don't do anything, I would tell you,
stick to the basics to start off and then add product.
So, basics basically means, get yourself a cleanser
and get yourself a moisturizer.
Those are the two most important products for your skin.
Cleansing, because you need to remove
anything that's on your skin,
so, makeup, excess oils, flakiness,
environmental things on your skin,
like bacteria, stuff like that.
Get that bad boy off, or it's gonna cause acne,
or breakouts, or irritations,
and then on top of that, just moisturizing.
Because, even if you don't have dry skin,
even if you don't have dry skin, moisturizing is so good.
Putting moisture into your skin,
letting it get hydrated, it can help prevent wrinkles,
it can help prevent acne, it can help prevent aging.
So all of that kind of stuff is so good.
So, just having those two
can make a huge difference in your skin.
And if you're wanting more complicated steps,
that's beyond the basics, at that point.
Someone said, "Do I still need to do consistent skincare,"
"even if I don't breakout?"
That is a good... That's a good question.
So here's the secret, skincare is way more than acne.
I know, shocking, you wouldn't think so.
Nobody ever tells you these things, I'm telling you.
But acne is not all there is to skincare.
There's everything from lip treatment,
or shaving, can be part of skincare,
or wrinkle prevention, or aging prevention,
or hyperpigmentation.
These are all parts of skincare,
acne is just a little branch.
But if you don't breakout,
that's not all you need to be taking care of for your skin.
So, doing aging prevention, or moisturizing,
to keep your skin from cracking and getting too dry,
making sure that you're using a good lip product
to make sure your lips aren't getting dry,
or using eye cream, to make sure that bags
under your eyes don't work,
or wearing sunscreen, so that
your skin doesn't get hyperpigmentation.
You should be doing all of that,
on top of acne treatment, if you need it,
and if you don't need acne treatment,
focus on the other things you do need.
Somebody asked me, "Should you pop pimples or not?"
This is such a taboo skincare topic.
I feel like everybody, like, believes so strongly
that you shouldn't pop pimples, it's so bad for you.
And then I'll hear other people that are like,
"No, you have to pop pimples,"
"or they're never getting away."
It's somewhere in the middle.
Like the way that most people pop pimples,
which is like, with your fingernails
and pinching it till it bleeds,
that is not good for your skin.
When we do pimple popping, it's called extractions.
When we do extractions, as an aesthetician,
we make sure that the skin is warm,
that the pores are open, that we've used products
that help loosen the oils and the stuff in the skin,
and then we use two Q-tips and we go in
and we just wiggle them back and forth till it pops out.
So it doesn't break, it's not abrasive on the skin,
you're not bleeding, you're not gonna cause acne scars.
And we also wipe it away with an alcohol wipe,
because, the in, like, the pus and whatever comes out,
oil and all the bacteria and stuff,
that comes out of like a whitehead, or even a blackhead,
that being left on the skin,
can actually cause more breakouts.
My recommendation is, if you're going to pop your pimples,
which you can, do it in a way that's not gonna be like,
super aggressive, making them bleed,
leaving acne scars, picking at them, or leaving the whatever
juices and stuff on your skin, so you breakout more.
My recommendation is, be really gentle, be really soft.
Take a shower before you pop your pimple,
so that your skin is nice and warm.
Yeah, squeeze it with some Q-tips, if it's not coming out,
don't force it to come out, that's my recommendation.
It's not as extreme as the sides make it out to be.
"What is the order to apply"
"nighttime skin routine products?"
Okay, so I'm gonna tell you
all the products that you can use.
You don't have to use all of these.
You shouldn't use all of them every night,
but these are the products that you can use,
and this is the order that you can put them in.
Also, it can change depending on the brand
and the line of products you're using.
So make sure you're reading the instructions and the labels.
This is a just generally speaking, product-wise,
what order you should put them in.
It should go cleanser, number one,
if you have makeup on, you do a second cleanse.
If you have dry skin or need an exfoliant,
you would put an exfoliant on after.
Then you can do a mask.
It can be like any kind of mask, drying, whatever.
If you don't wanna use masks, you don't have to,
but this is the order you can do it in, a mask.
Then you do a serum, or a toner,
or anything like that will go next.
Then you could put on eye cream,
or wrinkle prevention, or a retinol,
or whatever you might be using for this step.
And then you can put on something like a lip,
or a hydrating, and then you put on moisturizer, or SPF.
If you have combination SPF moisturizer,
that's the best option.
It matters most that you start with a cleanser
and you end with a moisturizer.
Everything in between can be mixed around
and it's not gonna, like, ruin your skin,
if you mix it around.
This is the order that they teach us to do it in, in school.
If you put your moisturizer on
in the middle of your skincare routine and then try to put
products on afterwards, it's gonna do nothing.
Once that moisturizers on the skin,
nothing's penetrating past that moisturizer.
So, next question, this person says,
"How can I make my skin glow?"
Internal and external skincare, super important.
So taking good vitamins, like there's lots of skin,
hair, nails vitamins, that can totally help your skin glow,
and your hair grow, and your nails grow.
So there's lots of brightening ingredients and products
you can use that will help your skin brighten.
Natural glow, be happy, enjoy your life,
that also helps your skin glow.
Eating good food, that can help your skin glow.
Those are my suggestions for all of you.
Okay, this person said, bacne.
And that was it, they just said back, bacne.
But I wanted to address something, because I feel like
not a lot of people like to talk about bacne.
It's kind of one of those topics
where they're like, shh, hush, hush.
I feel like the majority of people
actually struggle with bacne, or shoulder acne.
There's so many places that you can have acne
and people never wanna talk about it,
and honestly never address it.
My tip, and I told this to one of my friends in high school,
and she did it, and it worked her like acne was gone,
and it's mind blowing.
If you are a person of any type of gender or sexuality
with long hair that might be using
a conditioner in the shower,
don't put it in your hair and let it sit on your skin,
because a lot of conditioners have ingredients
that can cause acne on your skin because it's so oily.
When you do put the conditioner in your hair,
what I do is, I pull my hair up,
put it in a little bun, and then I let it sit like that,
and then when I take it down, I wash it,
pull it back up into the bun, and then I wash my body,
and I don't take my hair out of that bun,
until I have a towel, or clothes,
or something over my skin, so that,
that conditioner is never sitting on my skin.
I will say, shout out to Heritage.
I've never had problems with Heritage conditioner
causing acne ever, because they have
a lot of those ingredients taken out.
Just to be safe, my biggest recommendation
for bacne, shoulder acne people,
don't let your conditioner sit on your body.
Other than that, if it's not going away
after you've tried that, I would treat the acne
the same as you treat your face, for acne.
Acne treatments, body mess,
like, you need to be cleaning your body
like you clean your face because there's oils
and excess grossness on there,
and you need to be moisturizing your body the same way.
That's how you can expect there to be no acne on your body.
Okay, on to the next question. (humming)
Someone said, "Do you shave"
"as part of your skincare routine?"
That is a great question, I know it keeps saying that
about all of these, yes and no.
There is a form of skincare
kind of treatment called dermaplaning,
which is when you take a little, like, razor blade
and you shave all of the peach fuzz and excess hair,
basically on your entire face,
and any area that you're gonna be treating.
Theory is, if you do that,
then the products you put on your face
penetrate better onto your skin, and honestly, it's true.
If you get rid of all of that peach fuzz,
the product is, even makeup, applies better,
if you don't have it on there.
And no, for those of you
that are about to sit here and be like,
"But grows back, they are darker, if you shave it."
Wrong, it doesn't matter, it's not true, that's false.
Whoever told you that they cray cray, that's not true.
Don't be out there thinking that if you shave your face,
you're gonna have a full beard, not gonna happen.
But there is a treatment called dermaplaning.
A lot of dermatologists and some estheticians
in some states can do it.
If you're interested in that kind of thing,
you can go to a professional.
Someone said, "Should you wear sunscreen"
"every time you go outside?"
Abso-freaking-lutely.
Believe it or not, sun exposure never goes away.
Even if you don't see the sunburn,
or a pigmentation, sun exposure is seriously
one of the worst things for your skin,
and it ages you so fast.
If you are not wearing sunscreen,
or wearing a hat or finding shade,
or protecting your skin from those UV rays,
you're essentially aging yourself faster.
Use an SPF in the morning,
apply it routinely through the day when you need it.
Use an SPF moisturizer at night.
I have SPF foundation and an SPF setting spray
that I use, so that I have the sunscreen,
like double layered on there,
and I can use throughout the day
and it's not gonna ruin my makeup or anything.
10 out of 10 recommend. So important, so important.
Okay, someone said, "What is the best food for clear skin?"
I'll make it nice and simple for you guys.
One answer and one answer, only water, seriously, water.
If you struggle with acne, I will bet you $15,
that if you drank water you're supposed to drink in a day,
which I think is like, boy,
a bit more than you think it is, lots of water.
If you drank the water you were supposed to be
drinking in a day, I would bet you $15,
the majority of your acne would clear up.
Now, obviously, there are the, you know,
give and takes the hormonal acne,
or the irritation acne, or environmental acne,
but internally, well, drinking water,
helps your skin, so, so much.
Even I notice, if I like, didn't drink water one day,
and then I drank like four glasses the next day,
my skin just glows more.
Next question, says, "How do you prevent ingrown hairs"
"and scars that come with removing them?"
This is tricky, but, 'cause I think
that there's a little bit of taboo out there,
that you're not supposed to do this.
Exfoliate, exfoliate after you get waxed,
exfoliate after you shave, because that
will help prevent ingrown hairs, and by default,
will prevent scarring, because you won't even have
the ingrown hairs to remove them.
So, there you go, exfoliate, if you shave, wax, whatever.
"Do you wash your face every day?"
Honestly, every person's skin is different,
For me, I have oily and dry skin, I'm combination,
so I only wash my face with once a day and it's night,
because if I wash more than that,
my skin dries out too much
and then I'm dealing with flakiness all the time.
So, I wash my face once a day and it's at night.
Now, I know plenty of people who are in the oily category,
who wash their face twice a day.
They wash in the morning and they wash at night.
Totally acceptable, you can 100% do that.
If that works for your skin, awesome.
I would make sure you wash it at least once a day,
and if you're gonna do it once a day,
I would recommend it at night, because then
you can put products on and sleep on the product,
and then in the morning,
just put your makeup and stuff on before.
Okay, two more questions, it says,
"Is it true that cold water is better for your face?"
(humming)
Depends, taking like blazing hot showers,
believe it or not, once again, another tip.
Blazing hot showers, not that great for your skin.
Any kind of really extreme temperatures,
it can damage a lot of your skin.
Same with vice-versa, using ice cubes or ice on your face,
unless you've like, been injured
and a doctor has told you, put ice on your face,
and even, then you should have
a towel or something wrapped around,
so the ice never goes directly on your skin.
Even then, that's not that great for you.
I would tell you using warm, warm, like lukewarm water,
is good for your skin in the fact that
it opens up your pores and allows for those products
that you're about to put on to penetrate better.
So when I wash my face at night, I use warm water,
not hot water, warm water,
and that's what I used to cleanse,
and then I pat dry, don't drag,
pat dry, before I put on products.
You're almost there, I think you understood the concept
that hot water is not good, neither is freezing cold water.
And the best water to use for your skin is warm water,
just because it opens your pores, so there you go.
This is a little less skincare focus,
but I wanted to touch on the topic,
because I relate to this person.
They said, "Is facial hair normal?"
"Like, upper chin or upper lip?"
Because I'm so embarrassed by it.
So normal, literally so normal.
I get little mustache hairs all the time.
I get eyebrow hairs, I have peach fuzz all over, down here.
I even get little peach fuzzy hairs down here.
Totally normal. Everybody has hair in weird places.
You should not be embarrassed by it.
What I do is, I just get rid of it, I wax it.
If you ever see a few mustache hairs from me,
just know it's been a minute since I've waxed.
But everybody gets it, do not be embarrassed by it.
We literally spend like, we wax so many people's upper lips,
and noses, and ears, and random
things on our spa all the time,
like literally everybody comes in for that.
So, do not be embarrassed by that.
That's all I really have for you guys.
So, if you have more skincare questions
or want another basic skincare,
something, something, from me, let me know in the comments,
and I will make it happen for you guys.
Thank you for listening.
Hopefully, I taught you something today
with my new knowledge as an aesthetician,
but I'll see you guys next week.
(upbeat music)