LaVigne Fans, we hear from you regularly with questions like “In what order should I use my products?… Which would be the best moisturizer? … How often should I use the Illuminating Facial Polish, or Le Masque?” And we love the chance to chat with you. Below we hear from LaVigne enthusiast and skin coach, Julia Maria, who shares the key to working through skin challenges and her top tips for making a difference in your skin. Introducing Julia Maria…

3 Common Reasons People Call for Help with Their Skin…And My Top Skin Tips for YOU!

Skin consultation is my absolute passion, and the job that gets me excited each day. It all started when I had to find my own way out of severe skin troubles years ago. After first-hand experience with prolonged and emotionally deflating skin struggles, “enthusiastic” doesn’t come close to how I feel about helping other frustrated people through their skin challenges.

So, what do most of my clients come to me for?  First and foremost, they want to know where is the best place to start when it comes to taking care of their skin. More specifically, some of the top questions are:

“How often should I exfoliate?”

“Should I get facials?”

“So I saw this beauty device on Instagram…what do you think?”

Whoa slow down! The way our consumer society has been built, combined with beauty marketing has educated women to look for quick fixes and fast results.

The Risk of Skipping the Basics

Start with looking at the Basic Needs of your skin. When the basics are skipped over, you can create a frustrating cycle of using the wrong things on your skin. The wrong product may cause skin damage, followed by buying another product to fix said damage. Eventually you end up with a cabinet full of semi used products, hundreds of dollars wasted, and feel emotionally and mentally worse.

At this stage you can go one of two ways.

1. You give up and use little to nothing on your skin and starve yourself of this crucial area of self-care.

Or you could be like me:

2. Spend 15 years trying everything under the sun, desperate for improvement and just destroying your skin barrier in the process.

Either place is no fun, combined with the inevitable, aging, it’s no wonder that so many of my clients come to me feeling confused and/or upset.

I see so many women make the mistake of trying to change their entire routine at once or start a 7 step routine from previously doing nothing. The truth is, it’s not the big changes you do sometimes, but the small, daily acts of care that yield big results overtime. Skin care is about the long game.

So here of some things you can do right now to get yourself back on the path of aging beautifully and with pizazz!

1. Be Consistent. Give it a chance. products take 6-12 weeks of consistent use before you can fairly determine whether they were effective for you or not. Consistency is the hidden secret in beauty.
2. Use a sunscreen. Specifically choose a minimum SPF 30, all year round. UV radiation is a known extrinsic ager, whether you burn or not it will still create free radicals in your skin which cause cell damage. Combined with slower collagen production as we age this is the number one reason you can look older than you are. Not to mention the potential for skin cancer.
3. Establish A Good Daily Care Routine. In addition to sunscreen every routine needs a cleanser, some sort of hydration product (a serum, oil or moisturizer or all three), and an eye cream. You can certainly add more from there, but start there and build a good daily habit first.
4. Look for Proven Ingredients: Retinols and Vitamin C are considered gold standards in beauty because there is a wealth of research showing that these ingredients are actually effective and create change to the skin. Not all products are created equal though, but once you find the right one for you, chef’s kiss! Game changer!

I will leave you with a skin tip for all my dry skin babes, as we enter our thirties and beyond, the most common skin change we will see is dryness. Enter what I call, the “Sexy Skin Sandwich”. Apply a hydrating serum or lotion, followed by a facial oil, followed by a moisturizer. Going from the lightest to the heaviest product will keep your skin protected and glowy.