How can I shrink my pores?

Pores aren’t like doors, they don’t open and close, but using exfoliating products can help make them less visible. Read more tips on how to shrink large pores.

How can I stop my skin from breaking out?

All breakouts are not equal, and it’s important to use products that are suited for the types of breakouts you get. Read about how to treat whiteheads, blackheads, pustules, papules, milia and cysts.  Also read tips to reduce acne, cysts and blemishes…

How can I get rid of blackheads?

Almost everyone has blackheads, and they certainly are frustrating. While there is no miracle product that removes them from the skin, there are definitely things you can do to discourage their formation. Read my 3-step plan for reducing blackheads.

My skin is really sensitive and products easily irritate my skin. What can I use?

I would have to say that probably 85% of the time I am asked this question, I determine that it’s the person’s use of harsh, irritating products that is the culprit. Simply put, avoid using irritating products and your skin will be less irritated. Pretty simple, huh? Read tips on choosing the right products for sensitive skin.

I have a busy life and need to keep my routine simple. What are the necessities?

A skin care routine doesn’t need to be complicated or take very long to perform. Here’s my recommendatioon for an easy, fast and effective 3-step routine that is sure to deliver beautiful results. Read more about the simplest skin care routine–ever!

How can I reduce the oil production in my skin?

As someone who has had oily skin, I certainly can relate to this one. The way to reduce oily skin is not by using harsh products, but rather by keeping proper hydration levels in the skin. Read five ways to reduce oil production in skin.

How can I get rid of brown sun spots?

Of all the skin conditions that one has, brown spots rank near the top in terms of most challenging. Exfoliating the skin, using a skin lightener, limiting exposure to heat and sun, and protecting the skin with sunscreen are all essential in the reduction of brown spots and skin discoloration. Read tips to reduce brown sun spots.

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To develop a good skin care strategy for my clients, I like to start by asking their top three concerns in order of priority. As an esthetician, this really helps me understand what is bothering them the most so I can develop an appropriate home care and professional strategy.

How does this help you, the client?  It also enables you to get a clear focus on a plan of attack.  Understanding your concerns by narrowing priorities down to the top three will give you a better guideline on treatments to pursue, habits to form or lose, and products to choose.  The end result is, well, better end results.  Get clear on what your concerns are and your skincare professional can be really clear on what to do with your skin!…

Questions about your skin? Be sure to email us with your top three skin concerns. We’re here to assist!

Read: What does Renée Rouleau think about OTHER skin care lines?

Read: Busy? Simple, Fast and Easy Skin Care Routines

Watch our skin care tip videos!

Skin care expert, Renée Rouleau offers expert advice to these commonly asked skin care questions…

Questions about your skin? Be sure to email us. We’re here to assist!

For daily skin care tips, read our Beautiful Skin Blog, follow Renée on Twitter and join our Facebook page.

Sign up here to receive our monthly skin tip e-newsletter delivered directly into your email box!

Get products recommended for your skin type by choosing one of our nine skin types.

For daily skin care tips, read our Beautiful Skin Blog, follow Renée on Twitter and join our Facebook page.

Compliance is the act of adhering to, and demonstrating adherence to, a standard or regulation.

You have to be willing to do the work.  Getting in shape means eating healthy and getting regular exercise.  Having healthy, glowing and cooperative skin means adhering to a good skin care routine for your skin type and getting professional facials done regularly.

Of course, there are certain genetic traits that give people beautiful, problem-free skin, without any effort.  But generally, having healthy, glowing skin takes some effort…

Are you ready to commit to your skin? Let Renée Rouleau show you the way.

Read Five Reasons Why You Should Wash Your Skin at Bedtime

Confused by the countless skin care lines available? Here’s helpful tips.

Read Simple, Fast and Easy Skin Care Routines

Get Renée Rouleau products for your skin by choosing your skin type.

Have a skin concern? Check out Skin Source—the A-Z guide on everything from acne, exfoliation and large pores to brown spots, sun protection and so much more!

What to do?

Give your skin a mini facial at home! It’s important to give your skin an extra boost of cleansing, exfoliation and hydration to compensate for the unhealthy state the skin is in—the result of not washing the skin before bedtime.

Step 1: On clean skin, apply Renée Rouleau Triple Berry Smoothing Peel loaded with five exfoliating acids and antioxidants to remove surface dry skin cell build up. Leave on 10 minutes and rinse well…

Step 2: Apply a calming serum to hydrate the skin and reduce redness and irritation. Try Renée Rouleau White Tea Soothing Complex.

Step 3: Apply a thin coat of an oil-absorbing, hydrating clay mask like Renée Rouleau Vitamin C Mask. This will brighten the complexion while drawing out skin impurities to refresh the skin and get it back in good, healthy condition. Leave on 15 minutes and rinse well with cool water.

Step 4: Apply a calming moisturizer, lightweight moisturizer like Renée Rouleau Sheer Moisture to give the skin stabilized antioxidants, like Vitamins C and E.

Voila! The skin is calm, healthy and refreshed!

Read five reasons to wash your face before bedtime.

However, my reason for doing a review on Clarisonic is because I have observed changes in my client’s skin that use the brush, and some of the changes have not been beneficial to the health of their skin. Since my goal is to offer helpful skin care tips to allow you to become a smarter skin care consumer, I feel that this is important information to share with all of you who currently use it, or are considering purchasing it.

What is Clarisonic? …

Clarisonic is a skin care tool sold at specialty beauty stores that uses a soft, gentle brush that oscillates back and forth over the skin and claims to remove six times more makeup than cleansing by hand.

Despite being promoted as a tool that “removes six times more makeup than cleansing by hand”, to me, Clarisonic is really just an exfoliating tool to physically lift off dry skin cells and, in the process, remove dirt and makeup.

My problem with Clarisonic is not the brush itself, because the exfoliating benefits are very important. However, I do have a serious concern with how often they recommend using it. They say it’s gentle enough to use twice daily, but it is my belief that this is way too much when combining with other exfoliating products you are probably already using.

While it may feel gentle enough to use twice a day, you have to understand how exfoliation affects the skin. Clarisonic brush, facial scrubs, acids, enzymes, wash cloths or whatever form you gets yours in can cause skin damage and may lead to aging if used too frequently.

Skin Fact #1: Too much exfoliation can cause dryness.

Exfoliating too aggressively and too often can cause dryness and disrupt the skin’s lipid barrier. This allows moisture to seep out of the cells more easily, causing them to get dehydrated. Many of my clients who I see monthly for facial treatments started complaining of dryness and irritation when their skin had been so perfectly hydrated and balanced with their Renée Rouleau skin care products. Come to find out, the dryness started to occur once they introduced the Clarisonic brush! I had already had my clients set up on a very thorough exfoliation routine, but once they added in the Clarisonic, their skin was getting too much exfoliation and that’s why the dryness and irritation occurred. Discontinuing use of Clarisonic, or cutting back its use to a few times a week returned their skin to a healthy and hydrated state.

Read: Must-Have Skin Care Ingredients for Those Who Exfoliate Regularly

Skin Fact #2: Too much exfoliation can cause chronic inflammation within the skin.

Exfoliating too aggressively and too often can create inflammation (even if not visible) setting off a response to create free radicals. A major cause of aging is chronic and prolonged inflammation, associated with tissue destruction, active inflammation and attempts at healing which is why it’s essential to eat foods high in antioxidants and use skin care products with stable antioxidants, like Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate (vitamin C) found in our popular Vitamin C & E Complex.

Skin Fact #3: Skin trauma is good…occasionally.

You do not want to exfoliate to the point of destroying healthy cells. When you give the skin trauma, the skin goes into repair mode and stimulates cellular regeneration. This can be very beneficial to the skin, but if you create trauma too often by over-exfoliating, then it’s continually setting up a cascade of free radical damage that triggers premature aging. This is the last thing that any skin needs that wants to stay looking young.

Read: Are Lasers and Chemical Peels Damaging Your Skin?

Skin Fact #4: Too much exfoliation might stimulate melanin activity resulting in increased skin discoloration.

You must use caution with physical exfoliants like Clarisonic, wash cloths and facial scrubs. For skin that is extremely reactive to stimulation (skin of color and for those prone to severe discoloration) you need to treat your skin gently to avoid post-inflammatory hyper pigmentation resulting in increased skin discoloration.

Read: A Safer Alternative for Treating Brown Spots on the Skin

Skin Fact #5: Clean skin is good…to a certain point.

Since Clarisonic markets it as a cleansing tool to remove dirt and makeup, I’d like to make this point. You do want your skin hygienically clean, but not clean like you want your kitchen floor. There is a certain amount of good bacteria that the skin needs to keep it healthy and functioning well so you don’t want to strip it by over-using your Clarisonic brush. This is also why I suggest using non-drying, sulfate-free cleansers. See my collection of gentle, sulfate-free gel cleansers.

Read: Five Things to Know About Cleansers

What’s the right amount of exfoliation?

I suggest using an alcohol-free Glycolic acid serum (see my collection of Glycolic Acid serums) applied to the skin every other night. Then on the opposite nights, you want to give your skin a break from exfoliation (remember, you don’t want to over-exfoliate) by using a serum for your skin type to nourish and hydrate the new cells.  See my collection of specialty serums. Always use a moisturizer over the serum to seal the benefits into the skin.

I also recommend using a gentle facial scrub like our popular Mint Buffing Beads OR your Clarisonic brush 2-3 times a week—and that’s it. The idea here is that using a Glycolic Acid serum will dissolve the dry skin cells while a physical exfoliant like a scrub or Clarisonic will lift off the dry skin cells. They both work differently but both are beneficial.

A professional chemical peel should be performed every other month and an at-home professional-strength peel (like Renée Rouleau Triple Berry Smoothing Peel) should be used once every 2-3 weeks.

Bottom Line:

Many people really like using the Clarisonic brush and I’m certainly not telling you not to use it. I simply want to inform you that using it twice daily, combined with other exfoliating products, may be harming your skin’s overall health–and this is the last thing you want when caring for your skin.

And just for the record, I actually did purchase a Clarisonic brush and have used it on my skin. For me, it was too stimulating and caused some breakout activity so I’ll stick with mild facial scrubs for my physical exfoliation. But if you love it and it works for you, then by all means, use it!

Which exfoliating products are right for your skin? Choose your skin type.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you can get more expert skin advice from Renée Rouleau, by checking out Skin Source–the A-Z guide on all things skin. Also sign up here for our skin tip e-newsletter, follow Renée Rouleau on Twitter and like our Facebook page. You’ll be your own skin care expert in no time!

For the most part, I don’t feel as though there are any bad lines out there, it’s just a matter of whether a product is appropriate for your skin type.

I discovered long ago that there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to your skin. You also can’t limit your skin to the standard—dry, normal and oily skin types that so many companies continue to cater to. Dry, normal and oily only refers to how much or how little oil your skin produces and for most people this, is the least of their concerns…

I am also picky about what ingredients people should let touch their skin since ultimately the results from your skin care products will come down to what’s inside the jar or bottle.  Here is my  list of recommended skin care ingredient no-no’s.

No matter what skin care line you use, you should avoid the following skin care ingredients.

• Mineral Oil & Petrolatum (pore-clogging and suffocating to the skin)
• SD Alcohol 40 and Denatured Alcohol (the “bad” alcohols commonly found in toners. They are extremely drying)
• Isopropyl Myristate & Isopropyl Palmitate (may encourage blackheads)
• Synthetic dyes (can be a skin irritant)
• Synthetic fragrances in our skin care products (the #1 cause of allergic reactions to products. Avoid products containing the word “fragrance” or “parfum” on the ingredient listing)
• Sodium or Ammonium Laureth/Lauryl Sulfate (commonly found in gel cleansers and are extremely drying and irritating to the skin)
• Apricot kernels, or seed/shell powders (naturally made particles found in facial scrubs can scratch and irritate the skin causing bacteria to spread)

All of the Renée Rouleau skin care products DO NOT use the above ingredients.

If you are using a product that works for you (even if it did have one of the above ingredients), and you love it, then that’s really all that matters. Happy skin = healthy skin.

Watch: VIDEO: What’s Your Skin Type?

Read: How to Donate Your Gently-Used Beauty Products

Read: How Can I Lessen the Amount of Chemicals I Use On My Sensitive Skin?

Read: When is okay for your products to tingle?

Read: Inexpensive products vs. expensive products. Which are better?

Read: Is the Clarisonic Brush Harmful or Helpful to the Skin?

Which skin care products are right for you? See our nine skin types and get products recommended.

For expert skin advice, check out Skin Source–the A-Z guide on all things skin. Also sign up here for our skin tip e-newsletter, follow Renée Rouleau on Twitter and like our Facebook page. You’ll be your own skin care expert in no time!

However, the foods that ARE most often linked to causing acne are dairy (when cystic acne occurs in the chin and jaw line area) and acidic foods (when the blemishes occur in the cheek area) like tomatoes, spaghetti sauce and citrus fruits. If you get acne break outs in these areas, try cutting back and your skin may clear up!