Q: My skin is drying out in my (cold, dry) new home, help! My skin care routine is basically non-existent. In my old city I used Cetaphil gentle cleanser a few times a week, and wore 100spf face sun block in the sun.

Here, I use Neutrogena sensitive skin foaming face wash 3-4 times a week, usually in my morning shower. I have some Oil of Olay face lotion that I use when I notice my face is dry.
I have never had problems with my skin. I use sensitive products and rarely have blemishes. Here, I am noticing some dry patches due to the dry climate and cold. I just don’t want to lose my youth and end up with leather face.

A: I think that when it comes to skincare, the biggest, most important thing is consistency. If you wash your face every night with some kind of gentle cleanser and moisturize both at night and in the morning (this includes eye cream), you should be good for a while.

Washing at night is way more beneficial than in the morning for a few reasons: Removing dirt/excess oil that’s accumulated all day is ideal. Also, applying moisturizer to clean, warm, still-damp skin is best for absorption, which is important because your skin dries out while you sleep. However, during sleep is the time when your skin repairs itself, so having good stuff on your face for your skin to absorb is a good idea.
There’s usually no need to wash in the morning, since your face will still be clean. However, you’ll need to rinse your face and reapply moisturizer. A basic moisturizer will do, but if you’re experiencing extreme dryness, that hyaluronic serum I told you about (PTR Viz-1000, Dermadoctor Wrinkle Revenge Serum) should be applied first. Because around the eyes is where we show our first signs of age (and products that are not formulated for the eye area can be too harsh on that delicate skin), you need an eye cream. Clinique has some good ones for $30, I recommend All About Eyes Rich. It’s really thick and hydrating, it reduces puffiness and dark circles, and the jar can last for 6 months to a year even with daily use.

***BONUS ROUND***
If the dry patches really bother you, you’ll need to exfoliate a couple of times a week to remove the dry patches and ensure your skin is able to absorb your moisturizer effectively. Exfoliation is also a great way to look younger longer, b/c removing the top layer of dead skin cells makes you look smoother & more radiant. I like to use chemical exfoliants (aka acids or “peels”) rather than scrubs, because scrubs are abrasive which can cause wrinkles. For you, because you’ve probably never peeled before, a sensitive one like First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads are a great option. You could also use Ole Henriksen Invigorating Night Gel which is an exfoliator and night cream in one- good for people who don’t want to do too much.

Hope I didn’t overload you too much! Here’s a quick recap:

There is nothing clever about what I’m about to do.

Your Mom (heh heh):

Peter Thomas Roth Camu Camu Serum

Sure, it’s not going to blast away years of boxed wine and Parliament Lights (geez, who is your mom, anyway, an MCA grad student who hangs out at the Lamplighter?), but everyone could use brighter, smoother skin. Make mom’s day by treating her with this serum, and perhaps a girls’ day at the dog track. West Memphis is gorgeous this time of year.

Your Dad:

Caudalie Firming Concentrate

A tie? Boring. Cologne? Snooze. Shaving stuff? UGH. A Home Depot gift card? My god, have you given up on life in general? This man RAISED you. He introduced you to WESTERNS and KUNG FU MOVIES. He taught you about OIL CHANGES. Show some respect. Know where this strong man’s weaknesses are. Recognize the Softer Side of Dad. You know what dad’s insecurity is? His decollete. Get him the Caudalie serum. Firm those puppies right up.

Your Boss:

Fresh Rice Sake Bath

Sure, you don’t exactly have the Japanese work ethic. You’re always late, you take extra-long lunches, and sometimes you take naps under your desk, but your boss doesn’t have to know all that (he knows). You can still show your dedication by doing with your boss as they do in Japan: Getting drunk together after work. True fax: soaking in this bath solution with even one glass of wine will get you fuuuuuuucked uuuuuuuup. So lie back, relax, and know that across town, the powers-that-be of your work environment are using this same bubble bath, drinking the same crappy Merlot the marketing department gave out this year instead of the Harry and David basket they normally do, gazing at the same stars, in the tub, drunk as Cooter Brown.

Your Secret Santa:

Nobody likes doing Secret Santa. Nobody. Except that one guy who takes it all seriously and gets the most thoughtful, creative gift and makes everybody else in the Secret Santa pool look bad. Damn that guy. Damn him straight to hell. Don’t be that guy. Thoroughly cop out with this:

Bath and Body Works Wallflowers

LAUGH because this is the worst gift EVER. CRY because nobody’s laughing with you. LAUGH again because scents like “Twisted Peppermint” and “Warm Vanilla Sugar” sound like stripper names. CRY because you had to spend $25 on this. LAUGH again because I don’t know. CRY because your secret santa got you muffin adapter plates for your George Foreman grill. Which means you’re basically this:

*************Bonus Friend Round!!!!***************

Your Friend, The Miranda: (OMG, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Stop me.)

Clinique Even Better Clinical Dark Spot Corrector.

Because her case of stick-up-the-ass is clinical, your friend Miranda needs to lighten the fuck up.

Your Friend, The Carrie: (For the love of god, I’m out of control.)

Rita Hazan Root Touch up spray

You need to talk to your friend Carrie. She’s a broke-ass chronically underemployed “writer” who blows all of her money on hideous shoes. Even though she’s practically allergic to work, what she needs to be doing is maintaining her dye job. Boom. Truth Explosion.

Your Friend, The Charlotte: (I should really just never write anything ever again.)

Too Faced Snow Bunny bronzer.

I guess your friend Charlotte could use some bronzer for her trips to Aspen. She’ll never bag a lesser Kennedy family member with that pasty mug. I mean, she can try to tart herself up as a romantic all she likes, but we all know dat bish is only into marrying money. Bands’a make her dance…

Your Friend, The Samantha: (I am officially The Worst.)

Philosophy Hot Buttered Rum Bubble Bath

This stuff smells like maple syrup, who would want their body to smell like maple syrup? Probably your trollop friend Samantha, who is always up for sharing her lady-waffle.

“Let’s go see the last Twilight movie at 9:40,” he said, “for all the lulz.”

   My boyfriend was having a bad day, and I suggested a movie to cheer him up. It had been a really long time since I’d seen the first, and maaaaybe second, installment of the series. I had given up, I guess, because other lulz were easier to come by and were sans the stinging dose of Le Shame attached to the whole Twilight mess. He was not seriously suggesting we see it, and I was not seriously considering it, but this morning I found myself drawn (belatedly) into the last of the Twilight media roundup. Most notably THIS Vulture post about the staggering cache of acrylic hair used in the Twilight series.

   I had completely forgotten about this, but this level of wigginess in a production IS a bit odd. Thanks to Stephanie Meyer’s Mormon roots, these films are full of Caucasian actors who are perfectly capable of growing their own hair (exempting Kristen Stewart’s understandable need to cover up her Runaways shag), so WHY are there more wigs in these films than in all of Crown Heights?

   It can’t be that they thought they’d save money on hair throughout the production. Wigs, even the seemingly budget ones (a far cry from such successfully be-wigged productions such as ALL the Lord of the Rings movies where not one single cast member sported their own hair) used in these films, are hella expensive and require a ton more prep and manpower than styling regular hair. Even for continuity purposes, wigs are not easier.

   My theory is that A.) These films had more budget than sense, becauselike, “Heyyyyy, everybody, we’re making a TWILIGHT movie!! Nobody’s gonna care in 5 years and I’s gittin’ PAID, WOOOO!” I really imagine the people making these ridiculous films to be completely belligerent and on a bender, like Jake Johnson’s character Teddy in that movie Ceremony that was so cute but that nobody saw (if you haven’t seen it, you really should). B.) I think that the actors involved in these films soooooo did not give a fuck about these movies to the degree they flouted continuity and did whatever the hell they wanted to their hair and appearance between films. I mean, nobody’s pulling a Christian Bale and dropping 80lbs for The Machinist and then immediately bulking up again for Batman. It’s fucking Twilight. Nobody cares. Not one person. In fact, I care so little, that here and now I’m considering deleting this post, because “meh.” Whatever, let’s laugh at wigs and then go watch Ceremony.

   People are never NOT asking me what I do to my skin to make it so lovely*. I’m never NOT willing to tell them everything I do to keep me looking perpetually teenaged. However, giving the full run-down is often too time-consuming for most people, whose attention spans have been rendered all but non-existent in the age of Twitter and the 24-hour news cycle. NO ONE is willing to sit still on the carpet long enough to make it through Story Time. And it’s not even that long of a story! The print is HUGE! And there are usually pictures!

   Thing is, I’m not so much of a windbag that I feel deprived not to be able to spill my secrets. The trouble with ADD-hijacked conversations is that a lifelong pet peeve of mine is people asking for advice and either tuning it out, or not even considering taking it. OMG, it burns. Being a logical, sane person, *I* never ask for advice without actually hoping to receive useful life instructions. Fancy the fuck out of that, eh? Don’t ask me for advice if what you really want to do is hear yourself talk. If you want to talk, just talk! I’ll listen! I fucking love Story Time, you guys! I take notes…

   Anyway, my bitching is not the point. The point is that we still have a problem of many people not knowing how to take care of their skin. I’ve been wrestling with this problem for a while, actually. HOW to approach writing about skincare in a way that’s brief, concise, and fun? I’ve worked in beauty for 12 years, and Sephora has sent me on 3 separate week-long trainings to make sure I’m versed in skincare (with likely MANY more trainings to come). How can I possibly convey hundreds of hours of lecturing and years of experience into usefully pithy, sarcastic soundbites? Eliminating even some of the information would be to do you all a disservice. I read plenty of beauty blogs and they all give out the WHAT (“use this product!”) and the HOW (“apply x, leave on for y, remove, PROFIT!”) but never, ever, ever the WHY. What I am proposing is a comprehensive, no-bullshit, skincare series presented encyclopedia-style from A to Z. Stay tuned.

*I’m not being conceited. That my skin looks awesome is a fact, like “water is wet,” “the Miami Heat has dubbed the Memphis Grizzlies ‘the team to beat’ this season,” and “cocaine is a helluva drug.” In fact, I was flipping through last month’s Memphis Magazine, in which my boyfriend and I got papped eating dinner at a food truck event, and couldn’t help but notice a marked difference between my visage and that of many other photographically-assaulted Memphians. Memphis Magazine is basically a society magazine with nothing but pictures of parties and the poor saps who attend them, so the field for comparing my skin to that of others in exactly equal lighting conditions was quite large. My glow was off the chain, and not because I gots me a new MAN and I’s in LURRVE or anything like that. Nope, I look good due to a little work and a lot of hard-won know-how, which I’d love to share with the entire world.

This morning I tried the new holiday sequin manicure by Nails, Inc. It’s called “Bling it on Rocks.” Ooookay. Anyway, a “sequin manicure,” for the uninitiated, is not only So Hot Right Now, but it’s a way to bring your glitter bukkake-loving lifestyle out in the open. Rather than using regular glitter nail polish- which is glitter floating in nail polish all suspended-animation style, doing a sequin mani amounts to painting your nails and then letting them roll around in a pile of glitter. I know, I know, this is what your life has been waiting for, right?

Is it easy to do? No. This set is Nail Skill Level: Advanced. Do not attempt if you suck at painting your own nails. And no, I don’t believe another person could do it for you. It’d be just as difficult if not more so. Is it messy? Hell yes. Glitter, as we all know, is the herpes of craft supplies. It is forever. I have glitter everywhere right now. My couch, my floor, my ottoman, my tights, my shoes, my skin, even on my cat who lives on the porch. And I haven’t even been outside yet today. I know I’ll be finding remnants of Bling it on Rocks in the delicate folds of my ears in a week’s time. Is it worth all the effort/mess? Eh. Sure. Yeah. Let’s go with “yes.” Actually, I’m withholding judgment until I get my first complement. Such is my weak-assed commitment to Sparkle Motion.

    This is not going to be a funny post today, guys. I’m feeling strictly service-y. I feel like, yeah, I can be funny all the time, but I also need to prove my credibility from time to time, you know?  

    Yesterday at work, my friend Amy asked me what I’ve been doing to my skin. She told me it looked so glowy and luminous, like a picture (killer complement, BTW, I blushed). Interestingly enough, her skin looked pretty fab, and a little investigation revealed that we had been using at least some of the same products. Very cool. In the course of the conversation, I told her everything I’d been doing- which is, admittedly, a lot. But I LOVE products, and the truth about skincare is that less is not more. MORE is more. The more products I use and the more I do to my face, the better I look. #truthbus

   So today, I stumble across THIS article about skincare on xojane, and it pretty much amounts to summing up the conversation between myself and Amy. Great minds do indeed think alike! The basic point is that if you want to look young & fresh & awesome, you have to incorporate a peel into your routine. This may not be the time or the place, but I’m going to outline my whole routine below, so as to elucidate where and when you can add a peel into your routine.

1.  I begin in the evenings by removing my makeup with Sephora Collection Supreme Cleansing Oil. I have dry skin, so my skin likes oil, but any skin type can use this. If you’re uncomfortable with putting oil on your face (which, you shouldn’t be! Try it! Beauty dare!), try another gentle makeup remover like a cleansing water.

2.  Because removing one’s makeup does not equal cleansing, I then cleanse my face with my Clarisonic skincare brush and whatever gentle, foaming cleanser I have around. Right now I’m using Shiseido Pureness cleanser.

3.  On days when I’m not using a peel or mask, I follow cleansing with a toning mist. I prefer mists because it’s less wasteful than dumping toner onto a cotton pad. If you want to save $$ on toner, buy whichever one you like and put it in a pump spray bottle. Right now I’m using Boscia Balancing Facial Tonic.

4. Next up is serum. I usually use 2 at a time, because I’m decadent with my skincare like Marie Antoinette was with pastries. I usually start with Perricone Cold Plasma and top it with a treatment serum targeting a specific skin concern. My concern right now is dry, dehydrated skin, so I’m using REN Rose O12 serum. It is DIVINE. If brightness/uneven tone is the concern, I quite like the PTR Camu Camu referenced by the xojane piece.

5. Eye serum/eye cream follows. My skin is dry, so I use both a serum and a cream. Right now I’m using PTR Laser-Free eye Serum and Murad HydroDynamic eye cream. When that runs out, I’m switching to Perricone Acyl-Glutithione Eyelid Serum and Algenist Complete Eye Renewal Balm for the coldest winter months.

6. I top this off with night cream, I’m using REN Frankincense Revitalizing Night Cream because I love the smell and it relaxes micro muscle function like some kind of herbal botox.

7. In the morning, I skip washing and toning and instead put on my serums, eye stuff, and my day cream, which is Korres Wild Rose 24-hour Brightening cream. When that runs out, I will likely be switching to Truth Creme Advanced Hydration by Ole Henriksen.

8. Treatment products I use as needed: When my skin is dull, irritated and dehydrated (like after traveling) I use Caudalie Cream Mask. I exfoliate twice a week with either the Dr. Dennis Gross Alpha Beta Pads, or the PTR Laser-Free Resurfacing Scrub (can’t find a link, sorry). If my skin is less-than-smooth in the morning and I want to look extra fly under my makeup, I’ll use Amore Pacific Enzyme Peel, because it’s super-gentle. Lately, for shits and giggles, I’ve been skipping the peel pads entirely and just using the Dior Capture Totale One Essential Detox mask, which has peeling properties. I quite like it. I’m so weird about my skin lately, that I’ve been using an extra treatment product nearly every day, and my skin is loving it. I’m extremely dry and sensitive, and none of these products are irritating me in the least, so if my skin can handle it, yours can, too!

   One day I will take the time to explain exactly why I’ve chosen these products and what they do for me, but today is not that day. Sorry. If you’re looking for personalized skincare recommendations for your skin type and skin concern, do hit up a Sephora (preferably a store with a Skincare IQ machine and a trained skincare specialist, *ahem*) and ask for help. Sephora has a plethora of brands to suit anyone’s needs and budget, and they boast a highly knowledgeable, highly-trained, friendly sales staff (*ahem*).

   “It looks like you’ve been feasted on by little bugs!” Said my coworker as I showed her the painful, itchy rash on my leg. She was not being cruel, and she was not wrong. I may be _____ing* myself here (whatever the geographical location version of “aging oneself” is), what it looked like was chigger bites. Ugh.

Me.

   No, gentle reader, I had not been LARPing in the woods prior to my shift yesterday. What I had done, apparently, was go insane from a particular lifelong vanity. You see, I am goddamn hairy. As a “joke,” when referencing my formidable thicket of bodily hair, I refer to myself as “The Lost Kardashian.” Tired the daily slog of waking up, shaving and then being confronted with my 5 ‘o clock shadow as if I were some kind of be-stubbled Punxsutawney Phil- “Oh! Looks like six more weeks of no sex, people! The Groundhog hath spoken!” -On the advice of my good friend, I purchased myself an Epilator.

Behold the Braun SilkEpil 5, Elizabeth Bathory-approved torture device. I’m naming the epilator “Blair.” Because Blair is a *bitch* name.

   Promises, promises. My dear friend has been using her mom’s 30-year-old Epilady to apparently good results. She swears it’s kept her smoother longer and that her mom no longer grows bodily hair after using the thing for a decade. The promise of permanent follicular damage was music to my ears. Over to Amazon I flew like a flash, tore open my wallet and… Something that rhymes with sash. Anyway, $48 poorer, the thing arrived on an afternoon I’d already shaved. Too excited to wait, though, I used it on the downey hairs on my upper arm, just to see if I could take the pain. *PAUSE BUTTON*

  Hol’ up a second and realize that I, marginally sane person, had ordered a prouct that comes with an accessory called an “ice glove.” This is for numbing the skin prior to epilation. Which should really tell you all you need to know about the device in question. Except that perhaps a better accessory to include in the box would be called “Percocet” or “Delaudid” or “a time machine that takes you back to the time before you ordered the thing and then Future You comes out and shows Past You a picture of SilkEpil-induced chigger bites and then you guys go get a sandwich.” You’re welcome, Braun, feel free to use my ideas all you like.

   *PLAY* It turns out I could take the pain! The thing felt like tiny, stinging pinches as it was cruelly ripping my arm hairs out of their cradle of life. This experience only served to reinforce biases that I already had about myself, my internal monologue going something like, “Yeah, motherfucker, I am RUGGED! My appendix ruptured 3 times and I didn’t even DIE!* I’ve got the pain tolerance of a freakin’ prize fighter, GODDAMN!”

   So the next day, (non-downey, regular-strength) hairs finally grown to the appropriate length, I was ready, excited even, to usher my boyfriend out of my door early so I could make myself hairless and dolphin-smooth prior to work. The sensation, friends, was mildly different this time. I was audibly gasping and furrowing my brow as I attempted to pass the thing up my shin. I’m not really sure what I expected, I mean, the description of the machine included the words “40-tweezer head,” meaning it’s like 40 pairs of tweezers are passing over your skin and yanking hairs out of your body all scorched-earth style. More surprising perhaps was the messiness. For such a sleek and compact little device, it was flinging discarded follicles everydamnwhere. Hair was cascading down like a ticker-tape parade for a trichotillomaniac. Ew. Srsly.

   The pain was a lot to take, the mess was a lot to take, the little droplets of blood from my follicles and the itchy red bumps that followed were borderline-unacceptable, but the REAL tragedy was this: I had passed the device over the front-left side of my calf like 10 times, and it had not even come close to evicting HALF of the hair-tenents residing in that neighborhood. I was far from smooth. In order to achieve full-bodily smoothness, or even one full leg of smoothness, I would have to go at this for HOURS and endure pain to the point of losing consciousness. It was then that I had a complete existential crisis.

   “But my friend uses this,” I thought, “and she showed me her smooth leg! It was smooth!” And then I remembered- my friend does not have the same hair texture as me. She’s Argentinian and only thinks she’s hairy. *I* am Armenian, apparently. I mean, people have been “joking” that I’m adopted my whole life! I don’t look anything like my sisters… Nobody else in my family has black hair… My eyes are super almond-shaped… This ass! Have you *seen* my giant white-girl ass?! Khloe and I are the same age… That’s it! My mom took home the wrong baby! I am entitled to the ill-gotten OJ money and all the trashy goodness that my Kardashian pedigree allows!

    Anyway, bottom line: I am one hairy motherfucker. So hairy that there is no at-home solution to what amounts to a clinical problem. My body hair is much too thick and much too dense for this, or any, device. My Sasquach-like nature cannot be tamed. I am now $48 poorer, but I learned a valuable lesson about myself that day: I need to marry a mediocre basketball player, get my own reality show and get Oprah rich so I can afford laser treatments. If you need me, I’ll be in Calabasas with my people, suckling at Mama Kris’s power-teat and hopefully getting advice about how to better market my sex tape.

*true story.