Hello Helen! Welcome to La Fayre! Tells us about yourself and your skin care experience.
Hi! Nice to meet you, thanks for letting me use a sample of your cucumber and aloe vera sheet-mask. My name is Helen, I was born in San Francisco but I currently live in New Jersey, about an hour from Manhattan. I’m a mom and I have two beautiful kids.
My story is a bit different, but I guess everyone is unique. As a kid and a teenager, I didn’t have any negative experiences with my skin. I was pretty lucky: no breakouts, no pimples, no need for any special treatments. That was as a kid, though. As an adult, that’s a whole other story. After my thirties, I started to have skin issues. I had some breakouts here and there, and my skin became really dry in certain parts of my face. The driest parts were usually around my nose, mouth, and chin area.
So, did you have to make any changes or buy anything for the dryness?
It was weird. I never used any skin products. I was in my thirties and had no idea what to buy, where to go, or what to look for. All of my life I had never used moisturizers or anything like that, and now I found myself experimenting with different things to see what would work. I found a moisturizer and a sunscreen at a pharmacy, but I then realized that it was burning my skin. The products made my skin red and dried it out even more. I switched to a different brand, and it worked great for certain parts of my skin but not on the spots where I was having this drying issue.
Something we see often is that skin care can be so personalized. There isn’t a one size fits all approach to understanding and solving our skin problems. Would you agree with that?
Of course! I stopped using those products, the store brand ones, and I started looking for home remedies. I wanted something more natural. I found that certain things worked better for me, and my skin would frequently go back to the same issue. It’s an ongoing learning experience for me, and I am still now testing the waters. Like I said, this is very new to me and I’m still trying to figure out what works for me since I have combination skin.
Also, as I get older, my skin texture changes. We all have this issue.
Any suggestions or recommendations for people dealing with similar issues?
If someone is in my situation, combination skin or just a general lack of familiarity with changing circumstances, I suggest that they stay away from brand name products that are used by everyone, and try to look for natural items that may work on their skin. Like I said before, we’re all different, and not everything works on everyone. What works on me, may not work on you, and this is something we should talk about more often.
Thanks Helen. Soooo, you used our cucumber and aloe vera sheet mask. What are your thoughts?
I actually loved it. It was very refreshing, and it didn’t dry out my skin, not even in issue areas. My skin was left smooth, and I liked how it looked the next day, it looked soft and bright. And I didn’t breakout! And I tend to breakout when I use new products. Most important to me, it didn’t dry out my skin, and it still hasn’t several days later. I would recommend the product to someone who has the same issues as me.
