One Stiletto At A Time

I’ve mentioned before in my current skincare routine post that Dermalogica was my go-to brand for an everyday cleanser and moisturiser but when my skin started to break-out and feel too oily I pulled away from it. As much as I do love the Mio Gorgeous Glow cleanser I do find it quite pricey to use every day. I go through a bottle far too quickly and found the balance of using Dermalogica Special Cleansing Gel throughout the month and the Mio Gorgeous Glow during hormonal breakout times to be the most cost effective routine.

I went in to buy a big bottle (the bigger you go, the more you save) and mentioned to the beauty therapist that I wasn’t sure if it was still the right choice for me. She suggested I have a face-mapping done.

Dermalogica Face Mapping® is a free 15 minute face analysis and provides insight into your skin’s past and present. A Dermalogica Professional Skin Therapist uses Face Mapping® to divide the facial landscape into fourteen zones. Each zone is examined to determine where conditions such as congestion, breakouts, dehydration, and/or hyper-pigmentation are present.

I won’t lie I was quite nervous to see how bad my skin was. I’ve been blogging for over 5 years and have been so fortunate to have the opportunity to use excellent products so surely that would show too. The experience was incredibly revealing and enlightening.

Firstly, as I always knew my face is a classic combination skin type with an oily T-Zone with comedones with slightly drier areas on cheeks zones. My hormonal breakouts on my chin I also already knew about and have been taking steps to deal with that zone.

The incredible news was that I zero pigmentation and very, very little sun damage on my actual face and neck. Thanks to protecting my face from the sun and rather opting for bronzers over baking out in the sun. However, I did have some pigmentation on one area…my ears!!! I admittedly never apply sunscreen there on a day to day basis and it showed up.

My neck and décolleté didn’t show any fine lines or sun damage, this thanks to years of applying fabulous anti-aging creams to that area.

But the one area fine lines did show up were around my eyes. I’ve all too often skimped on eye cream as I have very sensitive eyes and they tend to water soon after applying any eye cream. My therapist said on apply to the top of the cheekbones and the brow bone and even a tiny amount will suffice.

The therapist then handed me a page with my full analysis and which products I should try to combat my problem areas. With over 12 products recommended they do suggest everything from pre-cleanse to masques. I simply opted for the Special Cleansing Gel (which she said is still perfect for my skin type), an Active Moist moisturiser which I’d never even tried before. She said it would seem that my skin was originally dehydrated when I was recommended the Skin Smoothing Cream and as I have a naturally typical combination skin type the cream became too rich for my oilier areas and caused comedones or clogged pores. The Active Moist should provide more balance and hydration to both areas without being to heavy on my skin.

She also said that I should only ever multi-mask and shouldn’t use one mask over both areas as it will do an injustice, for instance I need zero oil control on my cheeks so a deep clay mask will dry out that area but be great along the T-Zone.

The two products that I really want to purchase next are the Breakout Control for targeted treatments of the breakouts along my chin area and the Sebum Clearing Masque.

Overall I’m really glad I got to learn a bit more about my skin and see what areas I need to work on more. Dermalogica recommends that one comes back for another face-mapping in 4-6 weeks to see if the products are working.