Combination Skin: Your Skin Care Guide

Hi, I’m Katie and am a self-professed skin care junkie. Some women need separate closets, I REALLY want to install a separate bathroom cabinet. Don’t get me wrong, I do love makeup, but what really gets me excited is skin care. I am always down to be a guinea pig for whatever new serum or scrub Susie is masterminding.

I came to 100% PURE, about 8 months ago, to work on the social media team. My background has always been in cosmetics and luxury products, feeling as though “I knew” my beauty products, but it wasn’t until I came here, that I got a harsh dose of reality. Working here has really opened my eyes to what is ACTUALLY in other brands’ luxurious makeup lines and all those celebrity-touted skin care creams. And before you read on, I also thought I was using a “green” brand. I won’t say who they were, but I was their #1 customer for a very, very long time; buying up every new product and telling my friends and family how wonderful and “green” they were. I was even fooled by the price! Of course this $$ skin care cream is helping (never did I think it could actually be poisoning me)! Whelp...it took me doing a deeper dive into their ingredient list via some hardcore research to decode those hard to read names. The results were the cold, hard undeniable facts: I now know what was actually lurking inside my ex-beloved products. If you are still thinking, Katie, but not “my” brand. Well, let’s put it to the test, head to EWG’s cosmetic database and give it a whirl. Let me know what the results are; I hope for the best for all of you, but am expecting not so hot results.

It might be a result of my East Coast up-bringing, but I can tell you, since I moved to California in 2012, it’s a whole other world out here (in the best way ever)! What my Mom thinks is healthy (sorry Mom!) is just a result of a long line of mis-education and being so brand loyal you might be blind to what they are actually doing to you. Thank you all West Coast-ers for taking me in and accepting me as your own. I’m a lifer, for sure.

Let’s get into the real title of this post: MY skin care routine. My first week after work (maybe second, it was all a blur) I got home and took out every. single. product. in the bathroom. I am not joking. I looked like a complete crazy person reading every single ingredient, on every single bottle, jar, tube or vial in my bathroom. RIP to all my old products but they were getting left behind. I didn’t need a New Year’s resolution to know these toxic guys had to go starting now.

Switching to an all natural skin care routine is not going to get you results overnight. In fact, the exact might happen. There might (stressing might) be a horrible limbo period where your skin is freaking out and basically just detoxifying itself. Stay with it. There is a light at the end and I promise you it is SO worth it. Just like deciding to take the plunge into healthier eating habits, drinking one fabulous green smoothie this afternoon, is not going to have you waking up tomorrow looking and feeling like Gwyneth Paltrow ’s top Goop health advisor. It’s a marathon, and one that won’t leave you almost crying and falling over at the end.

I can truthfully admit, there was just one of my ex-products that I truly did (and still do) miss. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about it...maybe even cheating, using it “just once” and then completely quitting it again. It was my perfect skin care soulmate and after the great purge, it left a huge hole in my routine. It’s the exact definition of unrequited love (at least in the skin care sense). Luckily, I found out a month ago that Susie is developing my dream, long lost love and it is set to launch around April...must hold on for just a little longer! More on that later, but stay tuned for the healthy option of my secret, can’t live without, skincare product. I’m getting giddy just thinking about it!

I’m a little more lax on my makeup routine, skipping parts...only doing the bare minimum if I can get away with it, but skin care is NOT to be messed with. Also, the order really does matter. Why spend the money on quality ingredients and products if you aren’t using it in the correct order and not letting all that goodness work it’s magic to its fullest potential?