skincare chat with us!

In this episode of Dim Sum Chat, the hosts discuss skincare. They mention the stereotype that Asians age well and share some tips on aging gracefully. They emphasize the importance of knowing your skin type and mention that there are three main types: oily, dry, and normal combo. They talk about their own skincare routines, including double cleansing, using serums, and moisturizing. They also discuss the importance of hydration for preventing wrinkles and fighting acne. The hosts mention the brands and specific products they use, such as The Ordinary and Laneige. They discuss the benefits of certain ingredients, like vitamin C and niacinamide zinc. The hosts have different approaches to trying new products, with one being more cautious due to sensitive skin. They also mention the benefits of toners for hydration and absorption of other skincare products. Overall, they emphasize that skincare is a journey and that finding what works for your skin type is important. Welcome to another episode of Dim Sum Chat. I think today we're going to chat about skincare just because one of the stereotypes that Asians get is that we don't age or we age very well. Well I think we have a saying for Asians, Asians don't raise it. Yeah. So today we'll just share some tips on how you too can age gracefully. Well disclaimer, we're not professional. Yeah. We don't know everything about skincare, it's just something that we have been using and we think it helps our skins and also genetics play a big role here. Also like what you eat, your lifestyle. This is just like one piece of how to age gracefully but you should definitely eat well, exercise, do all the good things that you're supposed to do. Drink water. That too. I think that's the most important part. To rehydrate your skin itself. Exactly. So I guess the best way to kind of go about skincare is knowing your skin type. Mm-hmm. There's probably tests online that you could take to tell you what kind of skincare you have or skin type you have. Tell me how many skin types are there. I think the three most talked about is probably like oily, dry, and you know the normal combo. So what's your skin type? My skin type is normal and combo. I just, my t-zones are a little bit. I don't know, I don't really know about my skin type. For the longest time I thought I had combo skin and then recently I realized that I may have dry skin because I know my cheek. Most of the places I are dry but my t-zone is kind of oily but it's not to a point that I need to use the oil paper to. I think that might just be normal skin but I think you also said you have sensitive skin as well. Not really. I mean I use a lot of different skincare products and it never irritates my skin but I do have very thin skin. Like people laugh about me when I say I have thin skin. I actually took a makeup class when I was in high school and then the teacher said that I have thin skin because they can see my blood vessels. Like my skin is very light. So that's how I know that I have very thin skin. Okay. We're gonna talk about the ingredients in most of the skincare products that we like to use, that I like to use. We can talk about each ingredient and how it works differently on different skin types. At least for dry and normal combo skin it works this way but it may not work with oily skin or it will work better for oily skin for some of the products. So I have, since I have combo normal skin and sometimes dehydrated skin, I know more about those type of products that work for me. In terms of products used for oily skin I'm not very well versed in that. I don't know a lot of products for oily skin. I don't have oily skin but I know AHA, BHA, they may help control your sebum and oil production but that's the only thing. The thing with skincare I think is that you kind of need to do a trial and error just to see which types of ingredients work for you and your skin type. There's gonna be products that are obviously marketed towards certain skin types that you can check out but sometimes some ingredients just don't work for you because maybe it's too sensitive for you or your skin just you know doesn't like it. It's a journey. It is a journey. My journey is 30 years journey skincare and now I finally have a set that I like. To me it's not like they're working so well it's just it doesn't give me acne. I'm very short. I tend to stick with the ingredients that I know. I don't really like trying out new products because I used to have acne a lot but it's not hormonal acne. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's hormonal. It's not oil, it's not caused by oil. That's for sure. So I tried niacinamide plus zinc from The Ordinary and I also tried like vitamin C just to brighten up my skin. So my usual regimen is I do double cleansing. Every day? Every day. Well yes I now I have different types of makeup remover for the first step cleansing and then the second one is just normal face wash. It's because you just normally double cleanse regardless of wearing makeup? I put on sunscreen most of the time. But you do double cleanse? I do. I do do double cleanse. I feel like that's probably because I have acne that gives me peace of mind. Exactly. Peace of mind that I'm actually removing all the dirt in my pores. So that's why I do double cleanse and then I use my eye serum and then just night cream or day cream. Oh so you use eye serum before your other serum? Yeah. See I didn't I don't know much about skincare and that's my routine and it works for me. And I don't try a lot of eye products because it's expensive and I don't know why but it really doesn't show the effect on my eyes. My eyes have been the same over time. I just have a huge eye bag. When I try I have that little bags and dark circles. That's the problems I have. So I've been trying out different eye serum or creams that can brighten up my dark circles and also tighten up my skin. I don't have wrinkles. Yeah so I use just one type of serum just to rehydrate it to make sure that it doesn't have wrinkles and that kind of brightens up my dark circle. I've heard the best way to prevent wrinkles is hydration. That's what I learned too. Because I think the fine lines are mostly caused by dehydration. Yeah. Dry skin. Yes. Because you ever notice that people who stare or work a lot in the Sun have a lot of wrinkles because of the Sun. I mean obviously it's like UV damage but also the Sun's drying you out. You get wrinkles. I didn't know that. But to me I was like oh UV damage but as well as the Sun dehydrates you. Yeah. Also the best way to fight acne is also through hydration and strengthening your skin barrier. Well I am doing a lot more hydration and moisturization now because it helps my skin look better, look more plump. So that's why I've been doing it and maybe that also helps me reduce my acne too. Didn't know about that. Okay. What kind of skincare brand do you use? I mostly use The Ordinary. Maybe it's just my psychological effects. I think their ingredients are more pure. Not pure but cleaner. They don't put a lot of perfume. It's just really simple right? Exactly. That's why. And also because of the acne I don't try a lot of new products or inventive products because I don't know if it's gonna work for me first. Second I don't know if it's gonna cause me break out. So I don't want to do it. And also my skin tends to leave scars, acne scars or dark spots. So I don't also want to have more dark spots just because trying out new products. Is your cleanser also from The Ordinary? Or just like your serums and actives? Right. Mostly my serums and my night creams and day creams are from Laneige. So it's Korean beauty. K-beauty. K-beauty. Yeah. So those are the main brands that I'm using. And I use the active ingredients I use is vitamin C, copper peptides, niacinamide zinc and then AHA, BHA. I do like a weekly peel on the weekend. From The Ordinary? Yes. That purple. Yeah. Red, purple. That's my holy grail. It gives me a peace of mind that like okay that kind of controls my skin a little bit. Even though I have dry skin. I know that a lot of people say that you shouldn't use the peel if you have dry skin. But it works for me. You know what's crazy? You don't look like you have a lot of pores. So it's good. Maybe your makeup is just flawless. I don't know. Thank you. Again Asians don't raise hands. Okay so I talk about my routine. What about yours? My routine. I'm very different than you. I like to try different products like all the time. Once I finish a product I'm like oh I get excited because I get to try a new thing. It's probably not good for my skin if you do that. But it hasn't really broke me out. Maybe because my skin is not as crazy sensitive. But my routine right now is just I double cleanse only when I wear makeup. So normally I don't usually wear makeup. So I don't double cleanse. So I use the Suruasu the cleanser. It's my first step and then I go on to apply toners. I love toners. My favorite step in my skincare routine over anything else. What does toner do? See I don't use toner and I'm like I don't know a lot. Toner just gives you an extra step of hydration. In the beginning back in the day toners used to kind of have a bad rap just because it was more drying. And it's supposedly supposed to help you know normalize your pH skin. But these days a lot of the toners are for hydration. Adding back of the hydration that you lost while cleansing. I see. Yeah and then some toners will help the other ingredients kind of absorb better into your skin. And how do you apply the toner? They tell you to either you know put some on a cotton pad and then put it on your face. But to me I think that's a little wasteful because it gets soaked into the cotton pad. And then what do you do? You throw the cotton pad away. So I just kind of pour it you know into my hand. And then you know slowly kind of press it into my skin. I mean I don't flap my face but just gently press it in. Wait a few seconds and then I go on to apply the rest of my skincare. Which is I sometimes do serums but it's not my first step. Okay. Because sometimes I feel serums. It leaves your face kind of sticky and tacky. And I kind of don't like that feeling. There are some serums that actually do like the Niacinamide from The Ordinary. I think it's bought three bottles of that. It's very good. So good. Like absorbs into your skin so well and doesn't leave a sticky feeling. I think that's because it's water-based. They have water-based and oil-based right? So maybe water-based it helps you absorb faster. I think with the toners it helps even more. Okay for you. So after serums I use vitamin C a lot more than any other actives. A lot of people use retinol but I just don't feel the need to use retinol I guess. I think vitamin C is my best friend. But have you heard of the other routine like morning you use vitamin C at night you use retinol? So I think we'll go out maybe explain why you should just use vitamin C every day regardless you know if it's daytime or nighttime. So after my serum I put on night creams. I actually my routine doesn't really change whether it's nighttime or daytime. I still use the same steps and same products. Okay. Daytime and nighttime. So after serums I use my creams. And then whether it's daytime then I put on sunscreen. At nighttime obviously you know sunscreen. And that's that's it going about my day. And if I want to wear makeup after that wear makeup. So do you you said that you use the same product for morning and night. Do you rotate different kind of products every day? No I really don't. So you will use the whole set until it's done? Until I try another product. I'm not like opening five different products and then rotating through them. Is it better this way do you think? Not really sure if it's better. It's just what I do and what works for me. Because I use different serums every day. That's crazy. Yeah. And you just like choose whatever you want to do. Yeah. So I use vitamin C in the morning mostly. I don't use it at night. And then niacinamide it depends. Like I can use it a.m. or p.m. right. And then for a copper peptides I usually use it in the p.m. And I just realized that I can also use it in the a.m. So I open these three serums and just rotate. It depends on oh I'm gonna go out most of the time then I probably don't use vitamin C because I know that it kind of breaks down when it contacts to UV light. We'll talk about that. Yeah. So that's why it really depends on the day that I'm what I'm gonna do in the day. Sometimes I think about like using different products in the same week it's just not really showing that. Oh there's not enough time for it to work. Right. Because sometimes you have to use the same product for two weeks in order to show the improvements right. And I don't do that so I don't know if it's because of this I don't see a lot of improvements. But at the same time I'm not saying I don't think my skin is so troubled that I have to improve a lot of areas. Maybe rotate through them because sometimes you just have a lot of products that expire really fast and so you want to go through them. Right. And I know some of the products you can combine. I know niacinamide is very not as strong. It's very versatile. Exactly. You can use it with anything. Right. But like copper peptides you cannot use it with vitamin C or retinol. So I think those the serums that you may want to use it once it's done and then you start a new one. And also vitamin C kind of oxidizes really fast so usually for vitamin C I think they give you you know the little month after opening date usually three or six months so you have to quickly use that up otherwise I just turn orange and brown and oxidize and then it won't be as effective. But you can still use it. You can still use it. I don't think there's any like crazy side effects it's just that you won't see the same type of effect as intended. I see. So talking about like the ingredients that you've used which is one of them was niacinamide. So I looked at what niacinamide is. It's basically a vitamin B3 which is a water-soluble vitamin. Maybe that's why it absorbs so well into your skin. So like niacinamide helps with hyperpigmentation and redness so that will also help with skin texture and it's great to prevent any chance epidermal water loss. When you sleep overnight there tends to be a lot of water loss so if you're using that it's good for skin hydration which helps smooth out your skin and wrinkles. And some studies have shown that niacinamide has the ability to kind of balance your skin's oil production so it helps with oil and sebum control and if so in essence it will also help with prevention of blackheads. Blackheads is just you know oil and grime that gets stuck together into your pores. That's why I always use niacinamide when I feel like I have trouble skin. Some people actually are a little sensitive to niacinamide so I can have to watch out for that. I didn't know is it too strong or just they don't work well like their skin type? Maybe it's too strong or maybe their skin just can't handle it. I want to talk about the trans epidermal water loss. Recently I started researching about ingredients in makeup products or skincare products and one of the ingredients or chemicals that I stumbled upon I can't remember the name but when I research it it says that it helps prevent trans epidermal water loss. So what it does there are two types of environment so one is very humid that chemical whatever that does will draw the moisture from your ambience and transport or like transfer it to your skin. Hyaluronic acid? Is it? Maybe because I was just researching a bunch of chemicals at that time and another situation is when the environment is dry but your skin is also dry so it will actually pull out the moisture deep down in your skin. That's why hyaluronic acid does that. The correct way to apply hyaluronic acid is your face needs to be a little bit moisturized or it needs to be hydrated well in order for hyaluronic acid to kind of work because like you said it will draw out. If your face is dry it's gonna draw all the water from your face and evaporate. I see. Well good to know because I have been using a lot of hyaluronic acid because that's the biggest ingredient to moisturize your skin right? Hyaluronic acid can like hold hydration really well that's why people use it to hydrate your face. I used to use it the wrong way and used to complain that this doesn't work for me but if you use it if you apply it correctly then I think it might be beneficial for you. If I apply serum before that because I have hyaluronic acid in my night cream so if I put my night cream at the end and I put serum first that will help moisturize my skin? Yeah. Okay. Most serums, this is why I like toners because it's for hydration. Serums a lot of the times have, it's more viscous and has a lot more active ingredients in there so it's not really for hydration per se. So I normally put my hyaluronic acid serum after my toners so that the toners can absorb into my skin. There's a layer of hydration there and then hyaluronic acid will maintain that hydration and then you put your creams which are mostly like emollients to kind of lock in that moisture. Now I know. Well, don't listen to my advice, love. I'm just doing what I'm doing. Okay, so niacinamide can help prevent redness and also clear your pores. What are the other types of ingredients or active ingredients? I love vitamin C. I think it's probably my most used ingredient just because it's so effective at doing what it does. So vitamin C is just ascorbic acid. It's another water-soluble vitamin. It's the most plentiful antioxidant in our skin but humans can't really synthesize vitamin C and so we kind of have to get it through the foods that we eat like veggies and fruit. It's involved in making collagen and kind of cross-linking it to create a better collagen network and the vitamin C that's found in a lot of your serums is probably L-ascorbic acid because it's the most stable form of ascorbic acid and usually found in the range of like 3 to 25% but the higher you go it can be irritating to your skin. Don't just apply the 25% at first and think it's gonna work really well because it might be a little irritating for your skin. You just don't know that. It's a lot of trial and error, right? But when you say irritating, is it dryness, redness, or acne, breakout? You know that little burning sensation that you feel? It could be like inflammation. Like a skin burning. So it's definitely recommended to kind of apply to bare skin because L-ascorbic acid and ascorbic acid are not very good at penetrating the skin because your skin is a really pretty strong organ. That's why it's good to kind of buff up your skin barrier, right? So L-ascorbic acid is not very good at penetrating the skin so it's usually formulated with other acids in there to help penetrate the skin barrier and better for absorption. What other acids do they mix it with? That I'm not too sure. So this is another thing where you kind of have to trial and error, right? Because it could be formulated differently and some of them might work better than others for better absorption. But like I said, you can't like use it before. You can't use it with copper ions or like benzoyl peroxide because I think it will just inactivate the ascorbic acid. Again, I don't know the science and how they do it but probably somewhere along the pathway. It breaks down the ascorbic acid or something. That's why you need to research your skincare products and what you're trying to achieve for your skin because it's not like you buy ten different products and you put it on your face and it will improve your skin the next day. Some of them they don't mix and you just need to, you know, less is more. Also you can't just look at our ingredients and be like, oh it has this ingredient, it must be like really bad for you. Sometimes it's formulated in a way that is really beneficial for your skin. So when I hear people just demonize a lot of these ingredients because it didn't work out for them before or something happened, maybe the product that you're trying wasn't formulated very well and so that's why it gave you problems. When I do my skincare, I always look for the highest concentration and I know that it's not always the best when you have higher concentration but there are a lot of scientific papers have been doing research about how skincare products work and most of the time skincare products don't have enough concentration, a high concentration to make it work. So how do you think about that? Is it still worth it to try or just that product in general? Because I'm saying is let's say vitamin C 5% compared to 25% you would expect 25% work better than 5% but is 5% enough for you to show the facts already or it's not even enough to show the facts? It might not be enough but like I said it's a trial and error thing right? For some people it might just be enough. I see. For you maybe not, I'm not sure. That's what I always think about those questions. When I buy expensive products and I know that they don't put single ingredients, they probably put a bunch of other seed oils, plant oil and perfume and all this other stuff to make the product and at the end the active ingredient is probably 1% or 2% which doesn't really show the effect anymore. So that's why I don't really want to buy expensive skincare products because of this reason, just because of the concentration and I don't know if it's true for all the ingredients. How I think about it, like I said it's just how it's formulated right? What if it's a low ingredient but it's better absorbed into your skin? Or if you have a higher concentration but what if it just doesn't, it just sits on your skin, what does that do? So I think in terms of formulation it's also important. But you don't know how it's formulated anyway, so it's trial and error right? They don't tell you how much we put in there. Well that's one thing I like about the ordinary because they would say how much the ingredients. But for me when I choose products to use, sometimes it depends on the sensorial user experience of the product. If it's a good product but you don't want to use it, what good does that do? So a lot of products does kind of cater to how does it feel on your skin? What kind of texture does it have? Sometimes people add perfumes because some people like those from like essential oils. Well if I don't like fragrance, I'm not going to use it. So what good does that do? A lot of marketing has to do with also like the user experience of the product. I didn't know that part. I always look for the function. I mean some people just do really like simple ingredients like in the ordinary so it's fine. And I'm not saying that the ordinary works for me. It just doesn't hurt me. It doesn't make it worse so that's why I stick with the ordinary. So vitamin C is also really good to kind of help with UV damage and pollution. It's good for sun protection and it's good for preventing wrinkles and fine lines and obviously like hyperpigmentation resulting from UV damage or just acne. It helps with brightening and smoothing out your skin. I definitely see my skin is brighter after I use vitamin C for a while. That's why I always buy vitamin C. I just learned from someone that, I think she's like a cosmetic chemist or something, but she said it doesn't matter when you use vitamin C because it'll stay on your skin for up to 48 hours. 48? So technically you can just use it every two days. Yes, if you want to. But remember it does oxidize really quick even if you put sunscreen after. I meant the product itself. Oh I see. So you talk about how vitamin C, it will protect you from UV light and hyperpigmentation. So that's the reason why you need to put on sunscreen after you use the vitamin C. So there's a myth that vitamin C is photosensitizing which means that it breaks down once it sees UV light. I think it's been debunked that it's not true. Using in conjunction with sunscreen will help boost the UV protection of the sunscreen. I see. So it's not because, oh it's photosensitizing so I need to put sunscreen to inactivate that, but it's to boost up your SPF. So it's not like the UV light breaks down the vitamin C so that your skin doesn't absorb the vitamin C. Yeah. Vitamin C will break down the UV light. So basically you have less vitamin C to absorb if you don't put on sunscreen? No that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you can go outside with just vitamin C. Again this is what I'm understanding from what I'm learning. You can just go outside with just vitamin C on your face. It's not like it just won't work once you see the sun. But since it's an antioxidant and it helps with UV protection to help boost your sunscreen effects, you can have the best of both worlds by boosting that with vitamin C. So with sunscreen. I see. Because I didn't do a lot of research. What I heard is when you use vitamin C you should use sunscreen. I thought it was because it will break down vitamin C so basically you didn't put on any product after. I think that's the myth but it's not true anymore. So another thing I learned because I do facial and sometimes I do this DPL. It's kind of laser. It's like one level down than the laser. But after I do that they said that you have to put on sunscreen otherwise you will get darker. So I don't know the science behind it. If they're lasering your skin, it's damaging your skin in a way. But I think with lasering, it's damaging your skin but it's promoting new skin growth, right? But it's new skin growth. It's not like your tough skin that you have before. So you kind of have to baby it, right? Put on sunscreen to kind of protect your face from any more UV damage. I guess that's why. Every time after I do the facial, I would put on sunscreen and I'm always worried about like my skin is gonna get darker or like I'm gonna get worse. So that's the reason why. There's some questions that I've gotten from my friends about vitamin C and vitamin C supplements. She was asking, why can't you just put the supplements on your face? Well, like I said before, it's hard for ascorbic acid to be absorbed into your skin. If it's not formulated well with something else, how do you think it's gonna get into your skin? Well, it won't. It'll just sit on your skin and probably irritate you. So another question that I got was, if I just eat more oranges because of vitamin C, why won't it help my face? And your body can't really just be like, oh, you need more vitamin C in your face? Here, I'll just send some vitamin C to your face. No, your body's like, I'm just going to send it to all the cells like I normally do for bodily function and all the excess vitamin C. Throwing it out. You're peeing it out. People are saying like, oh, I've been taking this supplement, a lot of oral supplements, and it helps your skin boost collagen. Do you think that works differently? I think collagen might be different, but I know vitamin C, like your body just can't preferentially send it to your face. I see. Like, what is more important, your skin or the cells in your body? I don't know. That's true. That's true. Well, you also should think about distance from your stomach to your face without putting it straight on your face, right? Exactly. And then we kind of talked about why you should put on sunscreen if you use vitamin C during the day. Mm-hmm. Because it's gonna help boost your SPF. In general, you should put on sunscreen no matter what. If you go, I'll just put on sunscreen. Just to be safe. Yeah. So that's vitamin C. I think we all love vitamin C. I love vitamin C. The next ingredient that we want to talk about is vitamin B5. I don't know much about vitamin B5, but supposedly it helps with moisturizing and soothing effects. We're talking about vitamin B5. You said there is soothing effects and also moisturizing, and the only product that I use for vitamin B5 is from Bouche Posay. They have like the vitamin B5, and it really works for my eczema. Whenever I have troubled skin on my face or eczema on my elbows or anywhere on my body, it works. It definitely works. I just feel like you cannot get the same effects from vitamin C. Like, I don't put vitamin C on my face. That's true. But I mean, you're not using vitamin C for the soothing effects, right? You're using it for like type of fermentation. Yeah, exactly. Skin color. Skin texture and everything. The next ingredients that we wanted to talk about is retinol. Retinol, retinoid, vitamin A. Retinal. Any of the derivatives. There's so many forms. Derivatives. Like, to be honest, I don't know much about retinol. Just that it's good for fine lines and wrinkles and things like that. Yeah. So, I used retinol for a few times. I bought different types. It doesn't really do much for me, again. Maybe because you don't need it right now. That's what I'm thinking. You have a lot of fine lines and wrinkles, so it might not. I also believe that anti-aging should be started earlier. So, you're on that Asian mindset, prevention is the key. Yeah. Because it's hard to reverse what you have, what it did to your skin, than preventing it. So, that's why I started using retinol. But because it didn't really help me that much and it's irritating. It's not irritating to me. It doesn't do anything to me. I can put it on. It's fine. It just doesn't do much. So, I rather use copper peptides and because it's less according to, you know, like the comparison between two retinol is more irritating than copper peptide. It's oil-based. So, when I put it on, I do feel like there is layer of oil on my skin, which some people like, some people don't like. I like oil because I have dry skin, but it does oxidize very fast. So, I bought this from The Ordinary. They have this new... I use everything from The Ordinary because it's cheap. You can buy it from The Ordinary. Maybe The Ordinary can sponsor me so that I can... But I bought different types. At first, I bought the original retinol in squirt lean 5% and then they have this new form of brand... Wait a minute. I have one of their retinol with squirt lean. Yeah. I don't like it. Is it because it's too oily? Yeah. Yeah. That's the traditional and then they have this new form. That is water-based, but it feels like oil. It's very thick and sticky. So, I've been using that one because that one is a little bit higher concentration and it's more stable. The only retinol that I use is from Cervi. They have like a kind of retinol serum, cream. I still don't use it. It's not oily. It's a cream. It doesn't dry on my face or anything, but I just... You know, there's just some ingredients that you're more drawn to and retinol is not my thing. Do you think you would use it in the future? Later? Probably when I get old. I see. And then regret that I didn't start earlier. It's about the users. Yeah. I feel like if you want to prevent aging, sunscreen is the best. It's your best friend. Because you know what? I think in Asia, they use a lot more sunscreen or it's not like frowned upon, I guess. Or not like judged when you use sunscreen. Right here in America, it's not... Like, it's become more important in recent years, but when I was younger, sunscreen was not talked about unless you were outside playing sports. Right. Or like outside swimming for like eight hours or something, right? But now, it's kind of... A lot of people know more about that, you know, the benefits of sunscreen. So people use it daily now. Yeah. Or like there's a lot more products that are formulated to not feel like the heavy sunscreen that you're using. Yeah, I do want to say, I actually realized this earlier. I didn't start putting on sunscreen until maybe like five or six years ago, and I just didn't like the feeling of sunscreen, and I don't like clogging up my pores, and I don't stay out in the sun for that long. So I didn't realize the importance of sunscreen. But after I realized I have a lot of wrinkles on my chin, yeah. So I was just like, hmm, I need to stop this from getting more. So that's why I started putting on sunscreen. And then I realized it actually prevents aging, like having wrinkles. When I was younger, I used to go hiking without even putting on like sports sunscreen. It was crazy. The other ingredient I want to talk about is copper peptides. So that's... I know nothing about copper peptides because I don't use it like at all. I hope I can introduce you to copper peptides. Copper peptides is another anti-oxidant ingredient that you can use for anti-aging. It can prevent fine lines, wrinkles, and also promotes collagen production and even out your skin tone. So how it does is basically your skin, your collagens, already have this kind of peptides. It's a form of those collagens. And if you supplement your skin with copper peptides, it may prevent the breakdown of collagen and also promote collagen production and also destroy any free radical damage on your skin. That's why skincare companies started putting out copper peptides as their skincare products. And I have been using it because it's water-based, it's not oily, so I love it. And again, I'm using it from The Ordinary. And they have a little bit high-end brand, Noi, and they also make the high concentration of copper peptides and cream. So if you use them both, it really hydrates your skin and help prevent aging. But when I take more information about this copper peptide, doctors actually don't know if it really works on your skin because they make feelings about the concentration and if the pathway that this copper peptide works will help collagen promotion. The worst thing is it does nothing to your skin, so I'm still gonna use it. And because this is antioxidant, it also has conflicts with other acids, vitamin C, retinol, so you cannot use it with other products. So that's why I only use it with night cream. There's nothing else. I don't know if I persuade you to try that. Definitely not. After you said there's not a lot of research to see if it's actually effective, you lost me. So last thing I want to talk about is AHA and BHA. So AHA is alpha-hydroxyacinic acid and BHA is beta-hydroxyacinic acid. They are both exfoliants, so they can peel off your skin. Basically remove your dead skin. Well, your skin shed. And this is just gonna promote the cycle of your skin shed and also like clean up your pores. If you have oil in your pores, BHA can do this deep clean to remove the oil from your pores. So they may reduce your pore size or the appearance of your pores. They also can brighten up skin because they remove the dead skin, decrease inflammation, and also even out your texture. I would recommend people who have a lot of acne or oily skin to use it just to control your oil production, but you gotta do your own research on how often do you use it. Because the one that I use, there are different kind of acids you can use for exfoliants. Because AHA, there are different types. They have glycolic acid, lactic acid, tartaric acid. Tranexamic acid is one of them. So AHA is the superficial, the top skin removal exfoliant. It doesn't clean up your deep pores. So it can go a little bit higher in concentration, and that can promote your skin production. And BHA is the one that will clean up your oils in your pores. So this is salicylic acid, citric acid, and that tends to have a lower concentration compared to AHA. Because it's very strong. Mm-hmm. It is. I have been using, again, the ordinary AHA and BHA. What a surprise! You should sponsor me for Rare Earths, the ordinary. Rare Earths. Email her. For me, I have dry skin. I said it before, and it works for my skin. I also do mask after, because I can just leave it out without any hydration after the peel. But every time I use it, I feel my skin is super soft. So what is the concentration in that BHA? So BHA was 2%. It's 2% in the ordinary? Yeah. And then AHA was 30. It was pretty high. And I only use it once a week. I don't, or less than once a week. I rarely use it more than twice a week. That's what they recommended. You may want to build it up at first, because that's really high concentration. And it does the work for me, and I recommend it. You don't like it. So I use a lot more AHAs than BHAs. BHAs, I only have the Paula's Choice 2% BHA. What is it? I don't know if it's a toner, but it's like a liquid form, right? I think that might be a little too strong for me, because after I used it, my face does get a little red from it, and it does feel a little bit sensitive. So I tend to not use it too much. And it's crazy, there's like a purging period after you use it, right? Because it's kind of bringing all your dead skin to the surface, as well as like any type of gunk creating acne, right? So I also don't like that, that fact that there's a purging period. You don't want your skin to look bad. Also, seriously, if you have anything important the next day, probably best not to use it, because it will clean out your skin. But once you get past the stage, it is rewarding. I guess so, but then I could just use AHAs, kind of. I guess it just depends on your skin, right? Right, yeah, yeah. So I use a lot more AHAs. Do you get milia's? Really? Okay, so I had a very, kind of a big milia, like near my eye, and it always looks like I had like, you know, eye boogers and eye cramps. I used, not the Paula's Choice, but I used an AHA to dab onto it. It's kind of, well, it's close to your eyes, so it's kind of dangerous. But I did it, and I swear to you, it took it off. That's good! That means it's working! Yeah, but I had to do it, like, constantly, though. Yeah, yeah. Consistency is the key. But I'm glad that it works. At least science is working. Otherwise, I would have had to go to the dermatologist and get it removed, which obviously cost money. You know, just in case I have milia in the future, I can just, you know, use some AHA to remove it. And then, all the doctors were saying, like, no, you cannot do that. You cannot put it on your eyes. I'm like, hmm, well, if it's, like, close to your eye, don't do it. And if you have a lot, it's probably better to go to a dermatologist. Yeah, yeah. But I only had this one, and it was bothering me for, like, I'm telling you, years. Hmm. Because I never thought about, like, maybe I should try a product to get rid of it. But then, I read somewhere that someone was using it, I guess. And then, I was like, let me try it. So, I tried it for, like, probably three months or so. Three months? It came out, though. That's a long time. Yeah. I would have given up in midway. I'm like, it's fine. If you, if anyone wants to know, it's the Some By Mi AHA, I think, AHA glycolic acid type of AHA. Is it Korean? It's Korean. It's in, like, a green bottle. I've heard of Some By Mi. That's the only product that I use from them, though. Okay. But I don't use it anymore, because, um, I don't, I don't think I tend to use AHAs anymore that much. So, what's the biggest concern you have for your skin? My biggest concern, I feel like I have are big pores or visible pores. I don't know. You can tell. I don't think so. Maybe it's just that I'm looking at myself too closely or something. But I felt like I always had big pores, and that's why I started using BHAs to kind of clear it out. But I just realized that, like, honestly, pores are necessary. Yeah. Everyone's gonna have them. Yeah. It's whatever. It's whatever. I also heard that pores, they don't shrunk. Yeah, they don't. Like, they just, they are there. So, the only thing you can keep it is to keep it. Yeah. And the best way to, like, not make your pores visible is just hydration. It's just masking it, I guess, and preventing it from getting bigger. Okay. So, now, I have another question for you. You talked about La Mer before. La Mer, yeah. That you don't like expensive products or just La Mer? It's not that I don't like expensive products. I just have not seen a lot of efficacy with La Mer. Maybe it does work for some people. Maybe it is really effective, but from me, I haven't heard a lot of noise about how it's so good. And because it's, like, high-end, it's not very accessible to other people. And to me, why would I spend hundreds of dollars on something that may or may not work when I could just buy something that's cheaper that is proven to work? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's your ability. It's not that I have anything against La Mer. Please do not hate me. I'm just saying that, you know, this is how I feel. You're just a sore loser. You can't afford La Mer. You can't afford La Mer. That's why you think it sucks. It sucks. It's not that. One of the concerns I have for expensive products is I can find cheaper products that work the same. Then why am I spending 10x more money on the product? And I just feel like if you buy something so expensive, you wash your face every day, you're washing money down your face. I know, I know. But I do have a friend that loves La Mer. Is she bougie? She is bougie. That's why. She uses the most intense La Mer cream that you need to put it on your hands to soften it before you can put it on your face because they have different types. Yeah, that's too much work already. The user experience is not there. But, you know, when you are rich, you have money to spend. You have the time. When you're rich, La Mer is like $3. True. That is true. It's just like a penny to them. I said there is one brand that I want to try and it's like a hundred euro ginseng or something. It's from a more specific brand that basically owns like, if you know Innisfree, Laneige and some other brand. But it's a K-beauty company, right? But they own a lot of other companies. They have like a, what is it, a ginseng toner that's like a hundred some bucks. I want to try it because I follow someone who raves about it all the time. And she has dry skin and she was like, it helps even out and makes my skin so soft and smooth. And I swear by it. And I was like, okay, maybe I'll try it someday. Did you buy it? I did not buy it. I don't have, you know, a hundred bucks laying around just to... Just for the toner. Just for the toner. But I have other toners that I do really like too. Yeah. One day. Just one day. With Ambushin. A hundred dollars for a toner. I don't know. A hundred euro ginseng though, maybe it does work. I mean, I think there's some scientific proof that ginseng is really good for you. Let's talk about sunscreen and how not wearing it is a mistake. Sunscreen, obviously, it prevents UV damage and skin cancer. It's a very serious thing. And I used to not wear sunscreen. I'm so ashamed of myself, but now I do wear it. You still look fine and young, so you didn't miss out much. Maybe I was younger, but now as you grow older, it's probably more important that you protect your skin from any type of damage, whether it be UV damage, pollution, and obviously skin cancer. I just cannot talk more about sunscreen because it's just the first defense line that you have. Why people have flawless skin? It's sunscreen. It's the most important step for anti-aging. Oh, oh. Like if you can just, you know, don't use any actives or anything, you can use sunscreen, and I think it will still help out or benefit you a lot. Oh, another thing that I need to emphasize is reapply sunscreen. This is something that I don't really do, but I only do it if I stay out the whole day or I sweat a lot or I contact with water. No, yeah, that's a good way to think about it. Yeah. It's like, obviously, it recommends you reapply like every two hours, but if you're just going to be sitting at home and not seeing the sun, I think it's okay not to reapply. Right. But if you're out and about, because like think about you sweat a lot when you go outside, and so a lot of your sunscreen shifts around, and so you might have like, you know, patches where it's not protected. Yeah. So it's probably best to reapply every two hours, especially probably more so if you do a lot more activities, like sweats a lot or you're in the water a lot. And there is like physical sunscreen and chemical sunscreen too. Yeah. And I tried physical sunscreen one time and caused me a bad breakout, so I just stopped using physical sunscreen. I don't know why. Interesting. Because they say that physical, which is mineral sunscreen, is good for sensitive skin, so it shouldn't have caused much of anything because it just sits on your skin. Maybe the one that I tried is bad. I didn't believe that it was the sunscreen causing me breakout, so I reused it again and caused me breakout again. I'm like, nah, not going to. I only use it for my body. For my face, I would just use chemical sunscreen. So talking about chemical versus physical sunscreen, there is a myth that physical sunscreen blocks the UV rays, whereas chemical sunscreen absorbs the UV rays and turns them into heat. That's why there's a big difference between the two, apparently. But apparently that's not true. Both types of sunscreen absorb UV light to some extent and then turns it into heat, right? The best way to kind of differentiate between the two is just calling one organic and one inorganic. Organic is the chemical sunscreen that is carbon-based or has a basic carbon structure. Then the physical sunscreen is an inorganic, which is minerals that are made of ionic compounds. Chemical sunscreens have just a little bit more ingredients than physical because physical has more traditional zinc oxide, titanium dioxide. Chemical has oxybenzone, avobenzone, tinosorb S and M, octylcholine. A lot of those, like tinosorb S, might not be ingredients that are approved in the U.S. for use. That's why I personally like chemical sunscreens. In Asia, I think they use a lot more chemical or hybrid. That's true because I feel like in Asia, physical sunscreen will leave you a cast, like a white cast. I don't usually see that in Asia, so I guess that's why they use a lot more chemical. Okay, that makes sense. To me, I just love chemical. Me too. There are some chemical sunscreens that kind of burn my eyes. If you put it too close to your eyes or if you sweat or whatever, it gets into your eye. Some of them might sting my eye a little bit, but most of the time it doesn't. But I still would prefer chemical over physical just because I don't want to look like Casper. That white cast is strong. I think that's why, when I was younger, I never wanted to use sunscreen because it was just terrible. It just looks like I'm putting spray paint on myself. When I grew up and learned about chemical, and it feels just like moisturizer, so I'm just more prone to use it, because I grew up with that user experience. Whatever works best for you, do that. Whatever makes you want to use it more, you should definitely use that. I also wanted to say a lot of makeup products also combine with sunscreen or SPF, so that saves you a step to put on sunscreen, which I think is amazing because a lot of people just don't put on sunscreen because it's an extra step for them. Also, maybe pay attention to SPF. Some sunscreens have SPF of 20 or something. That's definitely not enough. And also, too high doesn't mean it will prevent a lot more. Because I think once you pass 50, the increment is so little. Because I think, compared to 50 and 70, it would just increase by 0.7% of the UV light. Do you need to pay extra 20 bucks for 70 SPF? Or you can just save that. It's up to you to make that decision. We talked a little bit about skincare and sunscreen. Maybe we can move on and talk about K-Beauty and J-Beauty, which are the products I use most of, rather than Western brands. To start off, K-Beauty has a lot of affordable options than Western brands. You could try a lot of new stuff that might work for your skin at a fraction of a cost. For me, that's what I think. Everyone I know is really into K-Beauty to me. Not J-Beauty. K-Beauty doesn't get talked a lot because I think they don't promote as much outside of Japan. A lot of the stuff is kind of inaccessible. And because a lot of the packaging is just in Japanese, and it's hard to read Japanese. I mean, it's harder to read Korean. But they're more English-friendly. They have a lot more English on their packaging nowadays because they're trying to market to the West. K-Beauty uses a lot of popular ingredients in the media, or a lot of innovative ingredients. Oh, such as seaweed. Seaweed from La Mer. Seaweed, algae, a lot of these plants, extracts, green tea, honey. I mean, those things are pretty soothing, so it's not hard to believe. But in the West, you don't see a lot of those as much. The difference I see between, I would say Asian beauty in general compared to Western or American products. I think Western skincare products are more aggressive. To me, they are more chemical-based. It's not like they're bad. It's just they care about the compounds or whatever chemicals that they're using. But for Asian beauty, K-Beauty, J-Beauty, or, I don't know, Chinese beauty, they use a lot more plant-based derivatives from seeds, oil, flowers, to do the same thing. And as an Asian, I feel like that's more soft, less aggressive to my skin. That's the thinking of treatment versus prevention, right? For Asian, it's, I want to prevent all this skincare by using all these things. But with Western, it's like, what's wrong with my face? Let me treat it with these compounds and chemicals. Yeah. It's two ways of thinking. It's not like one is inherently better than the other. Do you think it's cleaner and safer to use those derivatives from plants or seeds compared to synthetic compounds or chemical compounds? Because at the end, I feel like they have the same chemicals. Probably. I think, like you said, it's just less aggressive. And I would rather take that approach than attacking your face with things that you might not know might work for you. That's true. It's different. And plus, Asian beauty has, I don't know, the packaging always looks so cute. The marketing team is popping off. And then Western brands are just a bit more simplistic, maybe more chic that way. They care about the functions, the functionality. It's more than the packaging. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. Well, that's why I love the ordinary. Exactly. For me, I just like, it's about the user experience for me. Yeah. I just want to be able to look at my, you know, the toner bottle. I'm like, that looks so cute on my little countertop. So what toners do you use? Yeah. You know, we can talk about our little holy grails here. I know you're on the ordinary train, but my K-Beauty train, let's see. My holy grail. It's crazy because I try a lot of stuff and I don't really have, like, a holy holy grail. But one thing I do have a holy grail, it's the vitamin C serum that I use. It's from a Japanese brand called Roto Mentholatum. Oh. You know what I'm talking about? I think I know. Yes. It's in the box packaging is yellow and basically it's in, like, a little tube. The tube makes it so it doesn't oxidize as fast as, you know, in a dropper bottle or something. So I like using that. And when you, it's so effective for me and my skin. If I see any type of, like, you know, a little pimple or some type of, like, textural issue on my face, I use it and the next day, gone. So it's like a spot treatment type of thing. I think you can use it as kind of a serum, but I use a spot treatment because the tube, you can only, like, you know. So little. Squeeze out a little bit. And it's, like, kind of oily, oil-based, but it's not too oily that I don't like using it. It just soaks into my skin so well. I just love it. Maybe I should try it out. And if you use it, you can actually smell, like, the ascorbic acid from it, which is... Sour. No, it just smells like oranges. Oh, that's good. It's amazing. I love it. I used to use True Skin or whatever, the brand on Amazon, and it works for me. I heard that probably the most effective skin suitable is vitamin C. What concentration? I don't know because I didn't look into it. Isn't it, like, when I first used vitamin C, they were saying, like, you need to use 30% otherwise it's not working. I don't know about that. It's crazy. This one, I don't know what concentration it is because everything is in Japanese and I don't read Japanese, but it's definitely really effective. You can also get, like, I think there's, like, a premium version that might have a higher concentration, so you can check that out. But, yeah, it's amazing. Thanks for the recommendation. Well, okay, this thing, so I'm looking at the picture right now. It actually says that it's for medication. It's not like... So, I know J Beauty, they have, like, a normal skincare product and they have one that is kind of like a medicine. Like, over-the-counter. Yeah, and they use that for typical, like, daily skincare routine, too. So, I think this one is actually part of the over-the-counter. There's actually another product that I was recommended. It's kind of for hormonal acne, but it's... What's the name? I forgot what the name is. I can't read Japanese. I don't know, but it's, like, in a little, like, blue and silver box. I haven't tried it out, but I heard that it's really effective. But that's my recommendation, my holy grail. There's, like, a lot of products that I like using that I would re-buy over and over again. But off the top of my head, that's vitamin C serum, which is probably my holy grail. I told you about the Ordinary Niacinamide. Yeah. I'm, like, three times finished it. Oh, the Amfram Rice Toner. I don't know if you've heard of it, but... Rice Toner. It's just literally rice toner. But it's, like, goes onto my face so well. It's smooth. I can feel it sinking to my skin. It's so, like, hydrating. Uh-huh. A little pat, enough done. Do you feel the difference the next day using those products? It doesn't make my face oily or anything the next day I woke up. It's really soft. But I don't know if it's from, like, one product or it's, like, a combination of a product, but I wake up and my face is pretty soft. Yeah. Yeah. I think, for me, I didn't experience it until I tried Laneige Water Bank. Mm. That's one of... Or, not Water Bank, but Sleeping Mask. So I use both of them, but Water Bank is, like, a daily use, and then I think before I didn't know that they recommended you to use it once a week, but I use that, like, more than once a week. But Water Bank was, I try it at night, and the next day my skin was so soft and supple, I'm like, I need to buy it again. Mm. So that's just for me. I had the same experience, but I was used to Sleeping Mask. Mm-hmm. That's basically just a moisturizer. Right. It's a wash-off, supposedly, mask, right? Mm-hmm. So I just use it overnight, and I usually wash my face in the morning as well, so... A mask, yeah. I just... But the texture is so thin. It's literally kind of like water. Yeah. It's really nice. Exactly. So that's why I didn't know that it's a mask. Like, they said Sleeping Mask, but I thought it was just, like, a gimmick. Yeah. It's just like, you know, it's just night cream, so I put it on every day. Dude, I do the same thing. There's no side effects. It's just, it's nice. Yeah. You wake up with really soft skin. I know. That's nice. So I use the Laneige, like, cream skin mist refiner product. It's a little too oily for me and too, like, hydrating for me. So whenever you have, like, really hydrating products, do you get breakout easily? My face just gets super oily, and I do see a little bit of, like, red spots, kind of like similar to pimples. But that's it. But that's it. So I try to avoid things that make me too oily. Which one? I don't want to look like a donut. Not in a bad way. You can look like a donut and, like, you know, be, like, hydrated and glowy. Yeah. That's what I would look like, but I don't want to be too oily. Oily, yeah. There's a fine line between glowing and oily. Yeah. I know, yeah. That's what Koreans are trying to achieve is the glow you do. Yeah, the dewy, glowy effect. Like, your skin is plump and hydrated. Yeah. Not, like, it's oily and slick. Yeah. Do you have any holy grail besides the ordinary? Is that AHA, BHA? No, I still went through a lot of bottles. I'm going to keep buying the same stuff, vitamin C, copper peptide. Oh, so you don't branch out to anything else? I don't think so. Because right now I'm pretty happy with what I have. I do want to try out new stuff, such as I'm tempted to try, like, expensive skincare. Is that my hair? I tried. I didn't like it. It didn't really do much for me. So I didn't really... I was thinking to... Sulwhasoo? Sulwhasoo, I tried, and it didn't really work out. I mean, the cleanser is good. I'm going to rebuy the cleanser. For moisturizer, serum, or oil, I want to try Chanel. Oh, okay. Because I heard people were talking about their cleanser also, and also their oil. So I'm just like, do I want to spend that money? I also want to try some other Korean beauty, K-beauty. Well, you've already tried Laneige. Maybe I could give you some recommendations. I mean, the K-beauty industry is kind of saturated a little bit because they're always going to see some kind of, like, new product out. Last time you told me you had sunscreen from two of the brands. Oh, so, yeah. Well, the most, like, talked about sunscreen from K-beauty is the Beauty of Chosun sunscreen. Dude, it feels amazing on my skin. It's just like a moisturizer. It gives me a little bit of a glow, but not too much where I'm, like, a disco ball. But it's good. And it doesn't really have a fragrance, which is what I prefer. So there's another sunscreen by K-beauty called Round Lab. A company called Round Lab. It's called the Birch Sap sunscreen. Birch. And the manufacturing company is the same for both. It's just that I think with Round Lab, there's the birch sap ingredient that's added that's different than Beauty of Chosun, which added, like, rice probiotics or something. But the manufacturing company, the foundation for their sunscreen is kind of the same. So that's why the texture for both of those kind of are similar. It's just that I prefer the Beauty of Chosun just because it's a lot. It sits better on my skin. And it doesn't have a fragrance, whereas the Round Lab one has kind of a, like a, yeah, like a birch tree kind of scent. I mean, it goes away, but it still smells it. Yeah, I see. That's for sapication. And I just prefer the Beauty of Chosun how it sits on my skin. And when I put makeup on, it's better. Okay, it melts together. Yeah. I may try it in the future once I use up my current sunscreen. Well, I will do my research. I will let you know. Oh, there's also another Japanese sunscreen that I also really like, too. It's called, it's by the company Canmake. I think it's the mermaid sunscreen. I know Canmake, but I don't know mermaid. I don't use a lot J Beauty. I don't either. Compared to K Beauty, I use a lot more K Beauty than J Beauty. But this one, it's kind of pretty popular. But the downside is that it's probably like, yeah, 40 grams. It's like not that much. It's a small tube of sunscreen. Well, the only J Beauty I use is Polar Face Wash. And I used to love it, but now compared to Suasu, it's just they give up two different outcomes or like feelings at the end. And I prefer Suasu. Oh, Biore makes sunscreen that's pretty popular with Japanese people. Oh, because it's Japanese. The thing with like Japanese sunscreen is that there's a lot of alcohol that's used in there. So you can definitely smell the alcohol once you use it. Nothing wrong with alcohol, right? It's good for evaporation and, you know, leaving the products behind. It dries on your skin? For some, it dries on your skin. And for me, it dries on my skin. And I just don't like the smell of it. Oh, I see. It's pretty strong. Because I was going to say the RISE mask that you like from Japan, they have alcohol in it. I don't smell it, though. I mean, I don't smell it. I want to check the ingredients. Yeah, yeah. I checked the ingredients and they have alcohol. I mean, I'm pretty sure other things I use have alcohol, too. We talked about ingredients in skincare as well as, you know, skincare holy grail products that we use. Talked about ingredients that we both like to use. And we already talked about our skincare routine. Hopefully, this episode will help you on your skincare journey in becoming or in aging gracefully. Yeah. And I just want to say use sunscreen. For sure. Drink a lot of water. That's the first line. Step. Step one. Step. Exactly. Whatever you use, just do your research. Try it out. Build it up. And you also need time to let it do its job. Yeah. Also, we didn't talk much about cleansers, but there's just so many out there. And you're just going to have to find ones that you like for your skin type. Because I know a lot of foaming cleansers are stripping of your skin just because it's probably more basic. And your skin's pH is like 5. And so if it's stripping your skin, it's probably too basic. Got to try it out. Because I think a lot of the foaming ingredients in there, it's formulated because it has to be certain basic pH. So that's why a lot of the skincare cleansers are kind of a little stripping, drying for your skin. Yeah, you got to find one that is good for your skin type. And for oily skin types or oily skin folks, don't just shy away from certain ingredients because you think it's oily and it will increase your oil production. Some of them are formulated really well that it will help control your oil production so that you have less acne or skin texture or whatever. The skincare journey is ongoing forever. It is. We will see you guys in the next episode. Bye. Bye.