I love Paula’s Choice products, and Paula’s website is awesome. She is one skin care expert that I know I can trust and her website is packed full of information to prove it.
So when I received this YouTube video in my inbox yesterday, of course I was excited to open it. It’s a video of Paula herself! demonstrating her recommended 5-step skin care regime.
Unfortunately my excitement manifested into disappointment. What bothered me about this video was the complexity of the skin care routine. I mean, FIVE whole steps. What happened to a simple cleanse and moisturize then letting your skin do what it’s good at - taking care of itself? I watched the video with curiosity but by the end I felt exhausted thinking of all the steps you’re ’supposed’ to do.
Here is the video if you want to watch it:
I think Paula’s video recommends way too many steps to follow. I honestly don’t think our skin needs this much stuff pasted onto it. I also don’t like the idea of using a deep pore exfoliant on my skin twice a day. I’d be so worried that my skin would get used to this and start to depend on it. I also don’t like the idea of having to buy so many expensive products, and I’m sure they’d be used up relatively quickly considering you’re supposed to use all five products TWICE a day.
Thank you Paula for all of your skin care advise and for your beautiful products, but do I really NEED to do all of these 5 steps? If these five steps would keep my skin beautiful and glowing and radiant and acne-free then sure …I guess I’d go for it. But do I really need 5 steps to do that?
Fran
Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.
4 responses ↓
Fran, OMG! Are you reading my mind or secretly spying on my credit card receipts
I decided to go down the Paula’s Choice route & my swag of products arrived in the mail yesterday. OK, so it was really exciting to get a nice bulky parcel in the mail, then I unwrapped it all and realised I had once again fallen into the psychological trap of “multiple products = miracle acne cure.” Plus I fell for all the glowing customer testimonials on their site.
I now have a cleanser, a moisturiser, an antioxidant treatment cream, an AHA exfolient, a sunscreen, a lip treatment cream and of course before heading off to work there is also the foundation and sometimes the face powder. I didn’t purchase the toner, because they haven’t ever seemed to be more than expensive water (or alcohol).
Doh! I feel like an idiot & my bedside table looks like a pharmacy. Look, their products are probably going to be OK, but honestly I think buying all these bottles, tubes and jars just fuels the low self-esteem that sometimes comes with having acne. Sorry to sound like such a downer, but for anyone out there who is using just a couple of products and trying to keep to mostly natural stuff - stick with it - and don’t believe the multiple product hype.
Honestly you have to wonder about a person who says they have the key to great skin with information but then is all about selling her own products. I find Paula very sketchy. Most of the stuff she says makes sense but it’s common knowledge, I feel she’s really in it to make money. Her products are okay but there’s not really anything special about them and I think they’re a tad overpriced for what they really are.
I have to confess, my skin routine is about 5 steps too . I cleanse, tone, moisturize face, use an eye creme and after that depending on what I need a primer (for makeup), a daycream with SPF or a night cream.
I don’t have experience with Paula’s products by now since I just got my samles. I tend to buy complete cosmetic series to try but since a little accident with this strategy I settled for something my skin likes and try out one by one.
AND thanks to Fran’s blog I realized that it is not important to have all the stuff of ONE company/series but that your skin reacts well to it. (Thanks Fran ^^)
I think how many steps you need in your daily routine is dependent on just how your skin is at the moment. If your face is relatively fine then you wouldn’t need as many steps obviously however if your skin is bad be it because of acnes, wrinkles or whatever because you let yourself go quite a bit over the years like lots of us, then you would need additional steps for items such as eye creams for example.
As for exfoliating twice a day, really one should only do it once a day at night. Course that is if you are using a gentle exfoliant, if using something more harsher than you should only do it a few times a week.
But ultimately the problem with all this, is that we all have different skin and skin care needs. As such we should never go by a strict step by step regiment as we may not need it all or might even need more. Like how much we should exfoliate is based on our skin type and how gentle our exfoliate is.
So really as there are so many variables that determine what we need, we should all do some research about what to do per day for our faces and what kind of products we should be using.
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