Hello everybody, welcome back to my channel, where skin care is all about
progression over perfection. Because, perfection doesn't exist. Today, I want to
share with you a skincare routine made up from only The Ordinary products,
mainly because this is a super popular brand, that's
super affordable, and easily accessible as well, to most people.
But I also want to clear up how I feel about The Ordinary, because whenever I
make a video about why I don't use The Ordinary anymore,
people are like, you're being paid by other brands
to say you don't like The Ordinary, which I don't think that's a thing in the
skincare world, I don't think, I know it's a thing in
makeup. So of course, The Ordinary are an iconic
skincare brand, that completely changed the world of skincare as we know it,
and how us, as consumers, look at ingredients. I feel like we all feel that
little bit more knowledgeable just from knowing the ingredients that
The Ordinary has introduced to us. As I said, they have some amazing
products, some decent, and some not so great
but they're all at a really affordable price. I personally, in general, and moving away
from single-ingredient products, all those that lack what I feel is a
fuller formulation with a mix of beneficial
ingredients, and in all honesty, a nicer feeling
formulation, which I'll talk about in a bit. But I do still use
some of The Ordinary products, and I will continue to buy them, and always have
them in my stash, because they are good. So here is a nearly full routine using
only products from The Ordinary. Let's start off with the cleanser, this
is the Squalene Cleanser. This is an extremely, extremely gentle cleanser, that
obviously contains squalane as its key ingredient.
A skin identical ingredient, meaning it's found naturally within our skin,
and it's essentially a lightweight moisturizing ingredients. So, along with
Glycerin in here, Lipophilic Esters, so essentially fatty
acids. This product helps give your skin a really nice cleanse, whilst not
stripping it, or over drying it. They do actually primarily promote this as a
makeup removing cleanser, I actually don't think it's that good at
removing makeup. I tried this after one of our twin
channel videos, the 5-Minute Craft ones, where I usually end up wearing
makeup, and it just didn't, there wasn't enough
in it to break down that makeup, and I ended up using a lot, a lot of it,
and like a lot, a lot in order to actually get any kind of like,
anything going off my face. I really don't think this is particularly that
good at removing makeup but, with my layers of sunscreen throughout
the day, it does a very, very good job. And for me,
it does work absolutely fine as a double cleanse. So the oil cleanse you put
in the palm of your hands, kind of like break it down into an oil,
massage that over the face, wash it away, reapply. I do in all honesty
think you need to get the bigger size of this, this is,
do they do a bigger size? Yeah. So the next size up the 150 milliliters, because
I do feel like you need a little bit more of this than your average cleanser,
and it's also just really nice. Like once you use it, you'll be using it like
morning and night. Especially in Summer when you do want to
wash your face properly in the morning. I often found myself running out of it
quite quickly, and not having a backup, so yeah, I would I would go for the bigger
one. And it really is great for all skin types as well. Next up, we have the
Salicylic Acid 2% Masque. Now, I don't
particularly enjoy clay masks that much, and this is
essentially what this is but I do think a lot of people will enjoy
this, and I do reach for this when my skin is looking particularly congested.
So this is basically a clay mask with Charcoal, and Salicylic Acid as well. A
BHA, to help even skin tone, and texture, and
help remove impurities in the skin. We of course know, that Salicylic Acid is
oil soluble, it's a BHA, so it goes into those pores,
and really gives you a good deep exfoliation. And alongside Kaolin Clay,
and Charcoal, it's going to kind of like, take away all that excess sebum, and just
leave your skin looking very nice. It's great for, again,
like myself, people with oily skin or people whose pores often look enlarged,
because of their oily skin. I in fact only use this on my nose when it's
looking particularly congested, when it's over producing sebum. So again,
mainly in the Summer. And I would 100% count this as one of my
weekly exfoliation steps. So, I tend to exfoliate two to three times a
week, mainly two. So I would use this, and then a BHA toner
throughout the week. It's good, I would be careful if you have
sensitive skin, my cheeks that are quite rosacea prone,
get quite sensitive, and this didn't work very well on my cheeks but in my t-zone
it's really, really good. So, no toner as far as hydration goes but what we do
have is, what one is it? This is the thing, all
the bottles look the same as well. So I never know what I'm picking up.
The Marine Hyaluronics. This is an amazing hydrating... oh, you'll notice that
all of these are full, I, I bought these products especially for
this video, and I will use them, and I've used them all before, and I love
them. But yeah, that's why. People are always like, you clearly don't use
them. I do. As I was saying, this is an amazing hydrating serum. A while back,
when I was trying to avoid using too much Hyaluronic Acid
because I think my skin was kind of reacting a bit to it, this was
recommended to me non-stop in the comments,
and it's, it's a really, really nice alternative. And it pretty much does the
same job, it's temporarily plumping, and hydrating. This contains Marine
Derived Vegan Water Reservoirs, AKA Pursue... Pseudoalteromonas
Exopolysaccharides. Basically they act like Hyaluronic Acid,
holding onto that hydration, that water. Then we have Algae in here, which is
going to help trap all that in, and leave you with this nice kind of,
very lightly moisturized feeling on the skin. We also have Fermented ingredients
in here, so that's kind of like your anti-aging ingredient,
nice barrier repairing, and protecting ingredients as well. This is
overall just a nice hydrating serum. It does
disappear very quick on the skin, so unlike a hydrating toner, or like your
other ordinary Hyaluronic Acid serum, your face
feels hydrated. You can feel the kind of like,
the ooohhh-ness of it but you don't get that glow that I like to get from Hyaluronic
Acid serums, and toners. So I do use this in
the toner stage, before all my other serums, because it is that
watery, and that's why I think people prefer it to the Hyaluronic Acid serum,
because the Hyaluronic Acid Serum from The
Ordinary is really sticky, and doesn't cooperate too well with the
rest of the products in people's routines.
This does have Salicylic Acid in, and Citric Acid but I believe they're
serving other purposes within the formulation. I don't think they're in
there for exfoliation at all, quite low doses, so this is
absolutely fine to use every day, alongside your other exfoliants as well.
I like that, it's good, it's good. I kind of just wish it was
like a toner. Oh, next up we have Alpha Arbutin 2% + Hyaluronic Acid.
Alpha Arbutin is an ingredient I know, for me, will effectively help
fade dark spots, hyperpigmentation, usually left from a spot that I've
picked. As well as to help even out my skin tone.
You can use this all over, it's not going to change your skin color. I get asked
that a lot with Alpha Arbutin, it's not gonna do that
but what you probably would want to do instead, is just use it as a direct
spot treatment on the areas of hyperpigmentation that
you want to concentrate on. Drop in the morning, drop in the evening
usually does the trick for me. It's a good product. It takes time, it does take
time, like with anything, to see results but I
do find that this already kind of like a boost, alongside using AHA's, Azelaic Acid, I
found quite useful recently as well. Oh, I was going to talk about that but
I hate this product but it's good, it's good,
it just leave you very matte. But yeah, I find that this really, really gives your
dark spots, and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation the
boost it needs, an extra like, little kick to go.
Okay, so now we're getting on the tackier sides of
The Ordinary serums. This is, everyone knows this one,
they're very, very popular Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%. We all know what
this is good for right, Niacinamide has a whole list of
benefits. Skin barrier health, evening out skin
tone, dark spots, redness, helping to balance out sebum
production, generally overall brightening your skin tone. Then we have the Zinc in
here, which is great, again, for helping control excess sebum
production, and with little breakouts as well.
For me, this is the serum, along with Neogen's Micro Ferment Essence, that
really introduced me to Niacinamide, and did,
in all honesty, transform my skin from often quite dull,
to brighter, and a lot healthier looking, and a lot, not shinier but I feel like my
skin looks like it's awake now. The majority of people can use this
safely, twice a day but a lot of people do complain about getting a tingling
sensation from this product. Now, Niacinamide is effective at 5%.
You don't really need to go to a 10%, so this is essentially a higher strength
Niacinamide serum. I didn't notice this but on the bottle
it says, 'High strength vitamin and mineral blemish formula'. I don't remember
it saying that, I feel like that's a new addition, because
10% is a lot of Niacinamide. So if you're finding you're having this issue,
don't completely cut out Niacinamide, don't
push it under the rug and think it didn't work for you, I would drop down
and try and find, you get serums, essences, and even
toners with Niacinamide from 2 to 5%, which is still
relatively effective, especially 5%. So definitely try the Micro
Ferment Essence from Neogen. So as I mentioned, this is on the tackier
side of the serums, and this is a problem that I personally have
with The Ordinary, and a lot of other people do too, is their products
can sometimes be a lot of effort but you're paying for
the cheaper side of formulations, so the fact that this is a little bit tacky, and
sticky kind of doesn't matter, considering how
affordable it is, and effective it is. Some people don't have time for
that, I personally don't nowadays, I just want to do my routine, and not have to
think about what products I can safely pair with
this. A lot of people find that they can't wear makeup with this, because it
peels off their skin. I found a very specific way of using
this where it didn't feel tacky on my skin at all. I would
always have to apply this to slightly damp skin,
and use three drops exactly, exactly three drops, any more it will be
ruined. I'd have to kind of like put it on my neck, and try again,
and that really helped to counteract the stickiness, and then help with the
moisturizer kind of settle on my skin, along with the sunscreen without any of
that horrible pilling stuff. I did mention that as Azelaic Acid
Suspension 10% very quick. I do not like this product. Just because
I don't like it, doesn't mean you won't love it. My only problem with this
is it left me very, very matte skinned, and I felt very tight in the skin
but I love Azelaic Acid for redness, and breakouts as well.
I keep this as a direct spot treatment now, just when I get a spot I put
like a whole bunch of it on that one particular area,
and it clears the spots up pretty quick, and I'm not usually left
with the dark spot, the redness that other drying spot treatments
tend to leave my skin. So that's a passing comment on that one.
I do not like any of The Ordinary moisturizers, I do not like them, I don't
like them at all. I in fact, really, really hate them. So I do
not have them to talk about today. But, let me know a moisturizer that you
like in the comments below, one that is affordable, it doesn't have to be from
The Ordinary, along The Ordinary price kind of
category, and what I'll do is, eventually once I
scan through all the comments, I'll add it to the list of products
in the description box of this video but there we have it. I hope you enjoyed it,
those are the products that I will continue to use from The Ordinary
for as long as they're around, for as long as they're around. They're an iconic
brand, and they will always have my respect.
But yeah, I'm just, I'm just moving on and experimenting with
different kinds of formulations nowadays. So yes, check out some skincare reaction
videos here, I do them, and some general light entertainment here too,
and I'll see you over there.