Skin Care Tuesdays: Lots to Cover!

So, skin care reviews are definitely the most time consuming of the reviews I write.

I test skin care for a very long time prior to considering a review. Usually 4-6 weeks so I have time to tell how my skin is reacting to a product.

Then there's all of the research involved in writing up the post. I typically try to cover the science involved in a skin care product, particularly if it is something new/unique for that product. For ingredients that are frequently found in skin care products, like retinoids, I refer back to free standing posts with a lot more info. I get my scientific info from a variety of sources, but I do own a few Cosmetic Dermatology text books, regular dermatology text books, and of course I do a lot of scientific literature searches. While I'm not a dermatologist, obviously as a pediatrician I have the medical background to understand the basics and translate that over to know if something works, doesn't work, etc.

With each review I try to let you know what the product looks, smells like and feels like as I apply. If it is a product meant to be applied in the morning, I think it's really important to know how much residue is left behind once everything has absorbed. Is it enough to interfere with makeup application? Did that retinoid seem more prone to irritating my skin than others? Did the mask make me glowy or just... oily? I try to include all of those items.

Read on to see my "normal" skin care post graphics.

When posting about skin care items, I've developed a few graphics that help get the point across really easily.




















Obviously this is the FDA's accepted UV range coverage for the currently approved sunscreen ingredients in the US. Next year when the "broad spectrum" term becomes standardized I'll be adding a line at the appropriate spot so you can see if that wavelength is covered. (Read more about the FDA's new sunscreen guidelines if you're not sure what I'm talking about.) I personally find this helpful enough that I'm not really doing to change this other than perhaps updating the look since it currently matches my blog layout from about 18 months ago.



This little graphic makes appearances on my anti-aging product posts and on some random products that you wouldn't expect to count as anti-aging every now and then. I treat this as my "Anti-Aging Routine Checklist", so I don't expect every product to have every ingredient. Instead, I use this to guide me in making sure I'm hitting everything (which truthfully I usually don't do since I'm product testing).

Lately I've been debating about changing out "Hydroxy Acids" for just exfoliation, but I need to do a little bit more reading to find out if simple exfoliation is enough to increase cell turnover or if the hydroxy acids add something special. I knew this back when I wrote about Hydroxy Acids, but I just don't remember. So, if a derm wants to comment and let me know, that would be cool.

As well, I think I need to write a post about what exactly this checklist is and link to it, just like each ingredient category can be linked within the graphic.

So, that's usually how I cover skin care and I plan to pretty much just keep doing that. Just more frequently because I'm WAY super behind. Let me know if you have questions/input/suggestions!