"Nic's Picks" Chanel Precision Rectifiance system

Chanel day and night cream

I’m out of my Remede Moisture Emulsion so I’ve decided to give another brand a try. I went with the Chanel Precision Rectifiance set, using the day cream, night cream and eye cream. My first impression is that the glass containers are incredibly heavy and I wonder if the company uses thick glass to imply luxury, or perhaps it keeps the ingredients better preserved. Either way, it would be massively unconventional to travel with these products. My second impression: it smells. There is WAY too much fragrance in this product to be doing anyone any good. The fragrance was so strong, even when I went to bed I could still smell my face. This was enough to make me want to never use the product again. However, the following morning when I used the day cream (still too much perfume), I discovered I actually like this product. It feels incredibly hydrating, leaves my skin looking dewy and shiny but I was still able to put my makeup on without it getting tacky. My skin felt soft though out the day, but it didn’t get greasy. I still prefer my 3LAB SPF 55 over this day cream however for three major reasons: it is in a plastic tube, it has a higher SPF and there are no overbearing scents erupting from my 3LAB. Lastly, it does just as good of a job as the Chanel at 1/3 of the price.

"Nic's Picks" Chanel Precision Rectifiance system

Chanel day and night cream

I’m out of my Remede Moisture Emulsion so I’ve decided to give another brand a try. I went with the Chanel Precision Rectifiance set, using the day cream, night cream and eye cream. My first impression is that the glass containers are incredibly heavy and I wonder if the company uses thick glass to imply luxury, or perhaps it keeps the ingredients better preserved. Either way, it would be massively unconventional to travel with these products. My second impression: it smells. There is WAY too much fragrance in this product to be doing anyone any good. The fragrance was so strong, even when I went to bed I could still smell my face. This was enough to make me want to never use the product again. However, the following morning when I used the day cream (still too much perfume), I discovered I actually like this product. It feels incredibly hydrating, leaves my skin looking dewy and shiny but I was still able to put my makeup on without it getting tacky. My skin felt soft though out the day, but it didn’t get greasy. I still prefer my 3LAB SPF 55 over this day cream however for three major reasons: it is in a plastic tube, it has a higher SPF and there are no overbearing scents erupting from my 3LAB. Lastly, it does just as good of a job as the Chanel at 1/3 of the price.

A little ditty on Skin condition vs. Skin type

A lot of people come to me with concerns of their “oily skin and breakouts” and usually I’m their last resort. It’s a shame it happens like this because I probably could have saved them a lot of frustration and money. Being in the skincare industry, I find that I rarely see true oily skin anymore. It occurs a lot more in the prepubescent/teenage demographic, but that’s to be expected. Most of my clients range between 30 and 60 and by the time they get to me, they’ve scrubbed, scraped and depleted their skin of any natural normal oil production. Why? Because they breakout.
When someone has a big fat pimple on their face, it doesn’t mean that person has oily skin, it means they have a big fat pimple on their face. But when a person sees that pimple, they mentally go right back to their teenage years with the acne and the oily and the shiny. The problem is a person’s skin is not the same as it was 15 or 20 years ago.
Each person has a skin TYPE, whether it’s oily, dry, combination, normal or even sensitive. What happens to that skin type is a CONDITION such as acne, redness, flakiness, eczema, rosacea, sun damaged, etc. The way a person treats their skin type should be completely different than how they treat their skin condition. Yes they go hand in hand, but a person with dry skin could have breakouts because of stress, hormones, food allergies and environment just to name a few. Treat the skin type FIRST, and then the condition. For example if a person has dry skin and blemishes/clogged pores, they should have a skin care routine similar to this:

AM
Creamy cleanser
Antioxidant/Moisturizing Serum
Eye cream
Moisturizer with SPF 30-55

PM
Hydrating foaming cleanser
Exfoliating serum such as retinoid products or AHA/BHA products
Spot treatment for the blemishes – I like products with glycolic acid and/or salicylic acid 2% in them
Eye cream
Slightly heavier moisturizer for night WITHOUT sunscreen

As you can see, this person’s skin regime is based around their skin type (dry) but also has a part in treating the skin condition (breakout). If this person used a line made for someone with oily problematic skin, they would only exacerbate the condition, the breakouts wouldn’t get better and their dry skin would probably develop another condition: sensitive skin. If we can figure out our TRUE skin type, base our skin care routine around that and then treat any conditions that may arise, the skin will naturally balance itself. The body is a well-oiled machine, it is nearly perfect and if we take more of a “hands-off” approach, whatever problems that are popping up will most likely give up. Give me a shout if you can’t figure out which skin type is yours and we’ll also treat any conditions as well.

Anniversaries

Time flies. Just the other day I was counting down the weeks until my cousin arrives and she has come and gone. I just had my two year anniversary with Los Angeles – we’re in love now and doing much better, thank you, and the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 is quickly approaching as well. Just like everyone else I still remember where I was (Webb City, MO – my Victorian apartment), what I was doing (getting out of the shower and ready for school – a junior at Missouri Southern State University) and what my first reaction was: “why are they showing old footage of the World Trade Center bombing?” And then it dawned on me that this was different. I stood there; completely naked in my living room for several minutes while I watched one of the greatest and most terrible moments in history unfold in front of me. My journalistic instinct quickly kicked in and I realized I had to go to campus to see how we would cover the story. Once I was at Southern, I learned that all the other students were leaving – meeting up with loved ones, roommates, family to make sure everyone was ok. While they went home we went to work covering the events. Photographer Whitney Benfield and I found our story, like a lot of other journalists did, at the gas station. I covered the reactions of the people at the pump while she took pictures. That story ended up in the Associated Collegiate Press special edition book covering September 11th. If you had told me ten years ago that I would be living, surviving and eventually thriving in LA I don’t think I would believe you. I’m sure I thought I would be running some newspaper or married or something. I’m glad I chose this path. When I first moved here two years ago, I had almost no money. Literally zero. I had a car that to this day I still don’t know how it made the trek half-way across the country. I lived in a crazy party house with a group of guys I’ve never met before as my new roommates. I didn’t even have my own furniture, I sublet another girl’s life for 6 months and I still credit Steffany for getting me through that first grueling, depressing yet wonderful first half of the year. I worked every second I could and went to school over 45 hours per week. I ate food that was well past its shelf life and I got sick from it. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for 9 straight weeks. They started out “fancy”; with nice bread and natural PB with organic jelly, to regular wheat with name brand PB and jelly to bargain generic brands of all three. I drank Two-buck Chuck on a very regular basis…To this day I cannot willfully or naturally consume either of these things. Ten years ago the MTV VMA’s were postponed because of 9/11, two years ago I remember watching some awards show for scary movies and now I’m sitting from row at the VMA’s, so close to the stage one of Beyonce’s extensions threatened to whip me in the face. Did I work harder than anyone else who has ever moved here? HELL no, I just worked as hard as I possibly could and I kept going, even when I knew I was at the very bottom darkest part of the adventure. Have I reached my peak? Not by a long shot, this is the absolute beginning. At this very moment I’m taking a mental snapshot of where I am in my apartment in the Hills, on a Friday night after a great evening on the Westside, glad to be in bed and excited to see where I’ll be 10 years from now.

Why day creams don't work in place of night creams.

A lot of my time in the treatment room is spent educating my clients on their skincare routine and usually we’re talking about undoing the habits they already have in place. My first question is always “what do you wash your face with?” – not because I want to literally know the brand of their face wash, but because if they are able to somewhat quickly answer this question, I know they are washing their face. And then I ask what they moisturize with…again to see if they are performing the two MOST important steps in skin care: washing your face and applying moisturizer. Finally I ask them if they are doing this when they wake up and before they go to sleep. Sometimes it’s a little like getting your child to admit they didn’t brush their teeth before bed or wash their hands after using the toilet. You have to trick them into giving you the truth. My clients like to believe that they are taking care of their skin and they don’t know why they’re breaking out-dry-sensitive-dull-congested (insert verb here). If you want your skin to remain youthful for as long as possible you MUST wash your face in the morning and moisturize/protect with a sunscreen made for the face. And at night you MUST wash your face and apply a night cream. Use a washcloth too! The face is so much dirtier at night than in the morning. Once you have this routine down, you can start adding serums, peels, eye cream, spot treatments, masks, exfoliants, etc. I like creamy cleansers in the morning because the skin is just waking up and sleeping doesn’t make you too dirty, but cleansing is still a must. At night your skin goes to work while you sleep and it’s basically running a marathon. So while you’re going through your four phases it is repairing everything that you did from that day. It is killing free radicals which causing aging, fine lines, wrinkles and cancer. It is also producing collagen which fights the affects of gravity and keeps your skin "bouncy." You skin loses moisture and it needs water and a night cream in order to do its best work. That being said, this is why night creams cost more than a daytime moisturizer. Night creams have more concentrated and stronger ingredients than day creams. Same with night serums, a la Lancôme Absolue Night Serum, Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Serum, DDF Restoring Night Serum and a slew of others. These products are created to help your skin perform its repair functions. Smart, right?