My Top Beauty Tip from 2022

Hey friends!

Today I'm gonna be spilling the tea on what my best beauty tip from 2022 turned out to be.

So I kicked off 2022 fresh from back-to-back pregnancies, newborn sleep deprivation, regular mom hormones, and the SKIN to show it. My skin had deep forehead wrinkles, dehydrated texture, and was just... not great. My entire life, I've been on the dry skin spectrum. It's nice to not have to deal with as much oil or breakouts until you find yourself with fine lines at 26 due to your chronic dry skin.

I had resigned myself to premature aging, though I put up a small fight with frownies (crazy tape you can put on your forehead while you sleep to flatten out the wrinkles LOL), nighttime skin cream, and all sorts of sunscreens. I had seen moderate success through these efforts during pregnancy and after, though the flattening effects seemed to only last for a morning before I was yet again, drowning in lines.

Now, do I expect to say wrinkle-free forever?

Absolutely not.

Did I come to terms with my forehead?

Kind of!

I really don't think age is something to despise as a woman. I have honestly always loved the idea of being in my thirties: it has always felt like the thirties were the age in which a woman could wear sophisticated high heels, a pencil skirt, and designer sunglasses without being judged or questioned. I remember seeing my mom in a pink tweed suit headed to work, or a black skirt suit with cheetah print high heels, her short blonde hair flicked over her shoulders, and her purse immaculate and stylish at her side. I adored this image of womanhood as a child... and I still do. I've always planned on being a stylish, elegant, and dynamic middle-aged woman, fully alive in her thirties, not balking at aging but rather taking hold of the confidence and wisdom that comes with living over three decades.

So as I approach thirty, do I fear wrinkles? No.

But does that mean I'm going to do nothing for my skin?

Also no.

So the tip I have to share with you happened to really smooth out the deep wrinkles on my forehead, but just know, my suggesting this is not in an effort to stop aging or to make anyone with forehead wrinkles feel self-conscious: rather, it is to promote healthy care of our skin, nourishing it, and reaching for vibrancy as much as possible, even as we enter into the glorious years of aging.

(At this point in the blog post, I expect you're probably wanting to throw your laptop across the room, yelling "GET TO THE POINT WOMAN! SHARE THE BEAUTY TIP!" the way it feels when you're reading a recipe blog post and the blogging chef in question happens to be mulling about their childhood memories or perhaps their latest trip to the zoo with their two-year-old twins before accurately describing how to roll cinnamon roll dough)

So I'm going to stop musing and get out with it:

SLUGGING.

Slugging.

That's the tip. I've shared this tip in passing in my GRWM for the Nutcracker ballet vlog, but really it is too important to not go over it again in detail.

So the advice is to slug your skin every night.

Slug? Sounds gross you say! I agree, for the record, but this method yields anything BUT gross results. So what is it?

It is simply putting Aquaphor or some sort of petroleum jelly OVERTOP your nighttime skincare to help trap in the amazing moisture before you go to bed. I began doing this six months ago and I have seen incredible results on my face. My skin feels hydrated and supple when I wake up, not dry, tight, oily or anything. Just fresh. It was strange at first to put a pile of Aquaphor on my face and I worried that so many layered products were overkill, but the results speak for themselves.

Because not only is my skin amazing right after I wake up, I've also noticed increased elasticity in my face throughout the day. I no longer reach 4pm with dry patches or flaky sections around my nose, makeup running off or tightness in my texture. I no longer feel like I'm fighting a moisturizing battle all day, having to choose between foundation or lotion in the morning, wishing for more of a dewy glow. Nope!

The nighttime slugging has caused me to have trapped moisture all throughout the day, the after-effects help me go from morning to night with perfectly soft and supple skin, and where my forehead lines would once be deep and angry by the time I went to bed, they are now fine and barely there.

We're all going to experience a transformation in our skin as it begins to sag and starts to wrinkle, but we don't all need to be suffering from dehydration or dry skin. Dehydration is dryness from within your skin, and dry skin is dryness on the outer layer of your skin. I've noticed that slugging addresses both of these forms of dryness, trapping moisture deep in my skin for overall glow and preventing dry patches on the outside.

So slugging. A true miracle technique!

So if you want to try, all you do is wash your face, apply your toner or chemical exfoliant, a layer of the serums and night creams you usually use, and then pause for a few minutes, maybe brush your teeth or do some pushups (lol) while your skincare sinks in before slugging by adding a thick layer of Aquaphor all on top. Don't wash it off, and just sleep just like that with the wonderful jelly trapping your skincare. I really recommend Aquaphor over other options because it's a little more moisturizing rather than just a straight petroleum jelly.

Yes it will get on your pillow, and yes you will feel like a crazy person, but YES, you will get results.

Again, I've truly noticed better skin throughout the day, reduced fine lines, and it has been a solution to the chronic dehydration my skin seemed to be suffering with. Because we're all going to experience aging.

I'm going to wrap this post up, but I cannot reiterate enough that I used to be a dry patch girly. I had a persistent dry patch that was red, scratchy and quite painful on the upper left side of my lip beside my nose. This was during my "glow-up" time before YouTube, and I remember setting up a tiny humidifier, using face masks, and crying as I put a serum or a bit of moisturizer on it in the evenings, the sting of the moisture causing my tear ducts to scream, only to see the patch come back angrier and redder the next day.

I felt similar hopelessness when I had the back-to-back pregnancies and I noticed my forehead becoming increasing aged, my lines and expression wrinkles taking over my face in a span of six months. It was so rapid and scary, I truly didn't even feel like myself.

But since slugging I've not had really any dryness at all, and it's a wonderful feeling.

Oh, and this technique hasn't clogged my pores or caused pimples either! Just so you know. It can be weird to put so much product on because your internal voice will probably try to scream at you about clogged pores and pimples, but it's just not the case. You can absolutely slug without fear of pimples. Just double-cleanse your face, making sure you're not trapping ANY bacteria or dirt or dry skin in there before bed, and you should be good to go.

Happy slugging!

xoxo,

Cait