 Hello everybody and welcome to this collab that's been a long time in the making. This is all about the top five skincare items that I have been using during quarantine. And this is a collab with the absolutely beautiful Mrs. Melissa M. And if you're here from her channel, thank you so much for joining me. Please consider subscribing. Leave me a comment, thumbs up the video. I love engaging with you all on my channel. So this was super, super hard, but I've narrowed down my top five skincare items that I've been using during quarantine. If you're interested, stay tuned. Thank you so much for joining me. Before I get into the top five items, I just have to say this collab is something that Melissa and I have been talking about doing for, I think maybe three years now, maybe two and a half, I don't know. But we've been talking about doing this for a long time. And for various reasons, we just have not been able to pull it off. You know, she would get busy. Something would happen. I would get busy. Something would happen. And we just never found the right time or the right topic. So we started talking again a couple of months ago and we said, yes, we've got to do it. We've got to do it. We talked about doing some sort of a collab, you know, and then the quarantine hit. It's like, oh no, no what. So Melissa said, why don't we talk about skincare, the top five skincare items that we've been reaching for and we've been using during our quarantine. I've basically been at stay-home orders since the third week of March. So haven't gone shopping, haven't bought much of anything except for one new foundation. And that's it. So when Melissa said, let's do this, I was like, all aboard. So if you don't know who Melissa is, I'm going to link her channel below. I'm sure you do. She is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, vivacious woman. I think her beauty resonates from the inside out, even though physically she is extremely beautiful. Her eyes, oh my God, are mesmerizing. But in her heart, she's a wonderful, kind, beautiful person and I am deeply honored to do this collab with her. So if you're here from her channel, thank you. If you haven't been to her channel, check it out. Top five skincare items. I could do top five foundations. I could do top five eyeshadows, skincare items. Oh my God, it was such a hard thing to come up with. So what I did is a week or so after I started my quarantine, I ran out of my face soap. I have been using CeraVee cleanser. I've been using soap and glory cleanser. I've been using a whole bunch of different cleansers, but I ran out of it and I said, oh, now what do I do? About that same time, I got sent and most of the products that I talk about, I bought, but this initially was sent to me. But I was sent these five products actually and I've only tried two of them so far from, this is from Open Formula. And Open Formula very much reminds me of the ordinary products in price point and also in quality. But more importantly, you could actually understand the ingredients. You don't have to be a chemist to try to figure out the ingredients and how to apply it. So they sent me five products complimentary. The two that I've been using is the oil cleanser. I never, ever, ever, ever thought I would love an oil cleanser on my face. I never thought that. This cleanser has just been amazing. It is like, I think it's like 80, I can't read without my glasses, 87% like olive oil and some other really good things in here. But anyways, long story short, when I ran out of my Sarah review, I decided to use this. I, on a dampened skin, I put some on my hand, probably the size of a quarter and I mix it and I just go in circular motions all around my face. And then I concentrate on my eyes. It removes, I just go in like little circles around my eyes. It removes every bit of eye makeup I have on. Mascara, eye shadow. It removes it all and I'm just gently massaging it. Not even, not even a hard rubber or anything, just gently massaging it in. And when I'm done, it's like, it's amazing to me. My whole face is pretty well black as much for my makeup. I take a warm face cloth and I just wash it off. It just rolls off. My skin is so clean. I don't even have to do a double cleanse or a triple cleanse. I'm just using this and I'm loving it. So then afterwards, I, after I wash, I said, I don't know whether it's the combination of the two products to gather or what, but then I started to use the powder exfoliant. I've only used a powder exfoliant once and I have all sorts of other exfoliants that I use and love, but I've never really used a powder exfoliant continuously. So started to use this because I was out of my soap, my washer cleanser, and then I went into this. So after I've washed my face to put this powder exfoliant on my hands, I kind of make a little pasty mixture, not a whole lot. And then I put it on my damp skin and I just gently massage. I don't go over my eyes, but just all around. I just gently massage. I'm telling you, it's, it's, it is amazing. And I think these two products combined, they have sort of like a club membership thing where you can pay a yearly fee. It's very affordable. And then you get extreme discounts on their products, which is probably the way to go. But these two products combined without the club membership was under $20. It's like 18 or something of that nature. Amazing. So during quarantine, this is all I have been using on my 66 year old skin, washing with this, doing a gentle exfoliant. So my washing, these go hand in hand. I'm counting this as one of my five. Absolutely, absolutely love it. No matter what I've done with exfoliation, my skin has never felt quite as soft as it has after I've used this product. It's almost like I, my skin feels like a baby's bottom. It just feels so soft and so smooth and so nice. I absolutely love it. Now at night, I am using Retin-A and Retinol products. So, you know, my second is going to be the Retin-A family. And I use 1% all over my face. And this is after I clean. Sometimes I use my CBD oil before I put my Retin-A on. Sometimes I do it afterwards. But Retin-A is my next product or Retinol. I'm going to count this as product number two. So I have the 1%. This is the Tretinoian cream. I buy this off of a pharmacy in India. And I have the link below. I am an affiliate member now. But to be quite honest with you, I think I started this in 2016. And I think I don't know why I never did it. I never followed up with it. But I think I've been an affiliate member for three months. I've been using this for years. It just finally did it. So it's up to you whether you want to use my link or not. So this goes on my face. And then I use... And I kind of feel bad mentioning this because I know you can't get this readily in the States. But this is the Ole Pro Retinol Eye Treatment. I've been using this for a long, long time. I think since 2016 as well. I put this on all around my eyes. I concentrate on where my laugh lines are. You know how you have those ridgets, those deep ridgets. And I concentrate there. And at night, I also put it on below... What is it? The orbital bone here. I put it all around there. But I've been using this, I think, since 2016 or maybe 2017. I really have to look it up a long time. I've noticed a huge difference in my wrinkles over time using this around my eyes. Now, you have to be really careful just because a YouTuber says she uses something around her eyes does not mean that it's something that you should do or that would be safe for you to do. So you have to really do your own research. But I would not be without this. I would not be without this. So my retinol also includes... And I don't have it in here. I have some Rosehip Seed Oil, which is vitamin A. And that is really the derivative. That's where retinol comes from. So I have Rosehip Seed Oil that I use and go all the way down my neck into my decolletage. And I use that every day. So product number two is my retin-A. And then we get to product number three. Depending on the time of day, at night, usually, I will, after I've done my wash and some nights, I put my CBD oil on before my retin-A, sometimes afterwards. I've not noticed any difference one way or the other. So follow your dermatologist's suggestions if they suggest you do this. The CBD oil packs a huge, huge punch for me. It's multi-functional. I take it a little drop of it. Sometimes I mix it with another CBD-based oil or just any kind of an oil. Or just any kind of an oil. And I put it on my face. Now I use it very lightly. This, if I have a breakout, if I have a massive peeling section, this stuff really works. Now this initially was sent to me maybe a year ago now. I've used it for a while. And then I bought my second one. And now I've just started, just about two weeks ago, became an affiliate member. I do believe in this. It is pricey, but if you compare the CBD ingredients and you read the reviews and you read some of the information and the reports that are available on the website, you'll understand there's a difference between CBD and CBD. They're not all created equally. This works really well for me. The current bottle I'm on is 2,500 milligrams of CBD. Pretty strong. I use a tiny bit and I mix it with another oil. So this, I would not leave home without it. And so that kind of brings me to the, in the morning. I mean, you can do moisturizer. There's a whole bunch of different things you can use and you can mix and match, but I am a firm believer in a vitamin C. So for the longest time I've been using timeless. This is their 20% CE, folic acid, serum. This is, this is the huge refill size. I've been using this for the longest time and I use the vitamin C every morning on my face. I don't, I don't think I would ever give it up. Now I've used different vitamin C's. Currently, I'm using or I'm trying to finish up another vitamin C that I don't like as much as my timeless. And then I have another bottle of vitamin C that I want to use, but I don't want to open it until I finish the one I'm currently using. So I won't, I won't go without my vitamin C. My vitamin C brightens my skin. I believe it does a whole lot of good to my skin. I'm 66. I know I'm not going to turn the clock back, but I'm hoping that I can kind of slow it down just a little bit. Just a little bit would be better than nothing in my opinion. So my vitamin C goes a long way to making my, making me feel like my skin is bright and that looks good, which I really like. The other thing, and so that my vitamin C is number four, number five would definitely be my trophy skin spatula. I have big pores. I also have pores that like to clog up and when your pores get congested or clogged up, you know what happens. You have breakouts and it can just be, it can be ugly. So I bought this when, and this was expensive. I don't remember what I paid for it, but I remember buying it on QVC and I had the three payment plan. I bought this and I also bought the trophy skin microderm abrasion, which I use like every six weeks. So I'm not counting that in my top five, but this I use about four times a week and I love it. It's like a Sonic. You have wet, your skin is wet and Sonic. You just gently glide over. You can't even see with your naked eye too much anymore, but when I do this under my magnifying glass, I'm horrified at what comes out of my skin. Horrified. So I just keep doing this. When I first started using it, I could see the big difference, what was coming out. I could physically see it, but then after a while your pores get cleaner and cleaner and so what's coming out isn't quite as clogged because you're not letting it get clogged. When I went away, I went away and I hadn't used it for two weeks. I noticed a big difference in my skin in my pores. So this to me and there are many other brands like some people say, Oh Monica, why don't you try this one and compare it to the trophy skin? Well, you know, the LaBelle spatula has worked really well for me and I'm not willing to, oh, I'm sorry, I have like all these blisters we've been doing at work. Anyways, I'm not willing to spend the money to compare another product when this is working so good for me. If I were to buy it again, maybe I would buy a cheaper one. I don't know, but I really like this. It's done an amazing job on my skin. So definitely, definitely a must. And I know, I mean, I think I mentioned this. I use my, my, I love a Jade roller, a quartz roller, any type of a roller and in the morning, a lot of times I have a caffeine solution that I put on from the ordinary. I know I didn't include it in here because top five, but that's going to be a little bonus. I take this out of the refrigerator. It's cold and it helps with the bags and, you know, being in quarantine and going through this COVID-19 stuff, we're all under stress, you know, and that means we don't sleep that well. So when you get up in the morning, sometimes I look at myself and I'm like, I'm just seeing two big eye bags. I see nothing else but eye bags. So this, with a caffeine solution, I have three different ones that I use under my eyes, which has been amazing. And you can do the same thing with cold face cloth. You can do, you know, a little compress that this does, but I really, really like it. So that's my top five skincare. Like I said, I could, I've been doing an experiment with my eyes and shadows and all that. And I could do a video just on that, but I was super, super thrilled to do this collab with Mrs. Melissa. If you, if you know Melissa, you've been to her channel, you know what I'm talking about. She does the most amazing product reviews. I can't tell you how many times she's influenced me to buy a product. Just listening, listening to her talk about it or seeing it on her. We have, we have a lot of the same kind of tastes. Our skin tone is very similar. Our coloring is very similar. And you know, diet, diet issues. She's done fabulous. She's lost a ton of weight. She's, she looks fantastic. I need to lose a ton of weight. I mean, you know, so we do share a lot of things in common. And one of the things that, that we shared common is that we have YouTube channel and we love, love, love our subscribers. So it's, it's a pleasure to do this with her. If you don't know her and I'm sure you all do, I hope you all head on over to her channel. Tell her I sent you and enjoy. And if you're new to my channel from Melissa, thank you so, so much. I'll see you in my next video. Bye-bye.