Pictures and Reviews of Products below!

I’m very lucky to have good skin. I’ve been using sunscreen and wearing hats since my 20s. And my mother and grandmother blessed me with good genes for skin. Plus I have all the various lasers and dermatologic tools here in my office.

And women ask me all the time, what products do you use? So, I thought I would tell you about my own product regimen. I have fair skin, and like many women over 45, I have skin that tends toward dryness. But all skin is different, so what works for me may not be right for you.

My regimen is also pretty expensive. But remember that skin is my profession! So it’s worth it to me to have great products that work for me.

I have included brief reviews and pictures of these products at the end of this article, so you can buy them if you want. Please remember that I have no financial ties to any of the companies that make these products. I get a small commission if you click through and buy any of these, but that is the only way I pay off the costs of building and maintaining this website.

My Morning Regimen

So, let’s start with my morning regimen. Number one, you need a gentle cleanser. And the one I use is called Eminence Lemon Cleanser. It’s an organic lemon cleanser.

Truth is, you don’t need to go spend a lot of money with a cleanser. You can buy Cetaphil Lotion Cleanser in the drugstore for a good price. It’s just fine. I just happen to like this because I like lemon scent. So I love the scent and that it’s organic.

Like a lot of people I’m thinking more and more about the impact on our planet and our health of all the chemicals from this multi-billion dollar product industry. So I’m trying more and more to find good organic products that really are as effective as non-organic. And it’s tough but it’s getting better. So the cleanser is what I do first.

This is my morning regimen, so next I put on TNS Recovery Cream. It’s made by SkinMedica. It is cell growth factors.

I think of this like fertilizer for my skin. And that’s kind of what it is. There is some data behind this product. I have a lot of experience with it. A lot of patients really swear by this. A lot of dermatologists use it. I do think it has an anti-aging effect on skin. How to quantify that is always tough. But again, it contains cell growth factors from young fibroblasts, which are the cells that make collagen.

The two downsides to this product are that it is expensive ($141) and that it takes a while to see results. So some patients give up on it.

Over the TNS Recovery Cream I put an antioxidant, which is the Vitamin C Complex by SkinMedica.

The reason I use this one is because the vehicle is compatible with the TNS Recovery Cream. Some Vitamin C’s that are perfectly excellent will get a little grungy or flaky on the skin if you try to apply them together. The reason I use this one is because they go on together really well. And then if it’s really dry out there, I’ll put a moisturizer over it. If not, then sometimes I just use my sunscreen over it.

So the moisturizer that I’ve been using these days, which I really love, is, again, an organic one by Eminence called Sugar Plum Whip Moisturizer that smells like heaven. You could eat it, a really nice product.

They also make a Blueberry Soy one for even dryer skins, which I think is nice because the soy can have kind of an estrogenic effect in skin. And for post-menopausal women who are really dry, I love that Blueberry Soy too. So, really nice product.

And then, sunscreen. Which I think is the most important product you use. You can’t forget that, right? In general, I prefer Zinc as a sunscreen, because it’s a natural mineral rather than a chemical.

So if you’re really in the natural end of things, you might want to go for Zinc. Of the Zinc ones I love ZinClear SPF 30 by DermaQuest. It has 18% Zinc, which is hard to believe because it does not go on chalky at all.

The only beef I have with this product, other than its cost, and, DermaQuest, I hope you’re listening, is that this 2 fluid ounce size is ridiculously small. It’s absurd. You need to make it bigger and bring the cost down a little bit because, using this, I can go through a tube of it in a month or less. But it is a great sunscreen.

Okay, so don’t forget your eye area. I use Dermalogica Total Eye Repair. Some of my patients drive across town to get this product.

There’s also another product made by Colorscience that I adore called My Favorite Eye Cream. It doesn’t say sunscreen on it, but, you know what, it has a high percentage of Zinc and Titanium in it. It works great as a sunscreen around the eye.

My Night-Time Regimen

Now, how about my night-time regimen?

I start with the same Eminence Lemon Cleanser.

Then, at night, I go to my Vitamin A cream. You always want to use your Vitamin A creams at night because sunlight inactivates them.

I use the prescription Renova, except in the summer when I am in the sun more, or if I get irritated. Then I use a gentler Vitamin A cream, the Retinol Complex by SkinMedica.

I really can’t recommend the drugstore Vitamin A creams because I think their concentrations are too low to be really effective. So go with the prescription version or the SkinMedica Retinol Complex.

And if you’re a person who’s tried all these different Vitamin A creams and you still get irritated, don’t go there then. I mean if you really have tried them, over your moisturizer after waiting for ten minutes, all of that, and you’re still having problems with irritation, then try this: just substitute. Try, instead of a Vitamin A cream, another antioxidant.

This is a good antioxidant to use instead of a Vitamin A cream. It’s 90% Polyphenols from Green Tea Extracts. It’s made by Replenix and it’s a possible alternative to Vitamin A creams. It doesn’t do exactly the same thing, of course, because it’s an antioxidant, but it’s well tolerated by sensitive skins.

And then I want to talk about a couple of specialty products for the eye area. The skin here can be more sensitive and can show aging more. So you may want to give it more product attention.

If you want to go organic, try the Eminence Wild Plum Eye Cream. Really nice.

If you have dark circles, the Replenix Intensive Eye Lightening Serum is the only one I’ve ever found that my patients and I actually think has a prayer of making a difference. It seems to a little bit. So try that if you’re having trouble with dark circles.

This is another one that’s kind of nice. This is a Cellex-C Advanced Eye Firming Cream. It has a little Vitamin C in it, but it’s gentle and it comes in this huge jar which lasts forever. So if you’re working on your budget, with this thing, you won’t run out for 6 months to a year.