 In this age of the 12 step, 10 step Korean skincare routine is less really more. I'm going to show you my 5 step morning skincare routine that takes me under 5 minutes to do and you can do it too. Let's get into this fun AM skincare. Do you know that for me this is one of the hardest videos for me to record because I have a bare face and I'm so self-conscious about my skin because I have so many imperfections. I have age spots. Look at my dark circles. I mean I don't know if you I kind of have to go out but they're so dark. That's why I focused on makeup because I love the way that makeup transforms me but in order to have beautiful makeup you have to have beautiful skincare. This is Lacey. I don't show her very often but right now she's intrigued because she sees some lights on the ceiling of my bedroom. She really loves a little spotlight or a little you know laser light to play with. She's a chunk and she is my lovey girl so she is an easy easy dog and I don't show her often enough but this is Lacey and yeah let's get into skincare routine. Okay into the morning skincare. It doesn't have to be 12 products. If you enjoy that, go for it. Do what you want to do. But recently I have really kind of stepped back and I wanted to know what products were being super effective and you don't have to get these products. You know if there's products that you're already using you go ahead and use those. If you love them just you know stick with it. That's one of the things that I'm learning about skincare is I don't necessarily want to change my skincare up every time I turn around and I have so many companies that approach me about trying their skincare and I want to but at the same time if I'm on to something that I really love I'm not necessarily going to run out and get the latest and greatest. My favorite thing in my skincare routine is water. Distilled water in a spray bottle. Nothing too fancy about that. Okay I just sprayed into my hand because the sprayer is a little bit intense and I just put that across my face. This is before I start washing or anything. I'm just kind of getting my face wet in preparation to loosen that skin up and I kind of just really kind of wake my face up. Don't be afraid to rub your face. I don't think there's anything wrong with rubbing your face. You don't want to get you know crazy with it but when you get massages that bring the blood supply up to your face you really you know they really use a lot of pressure. Okay after I do that I use the pixie skin treats hydrating milky peel instead of a cleanser. That's because this is super gentle and it doesn't have those stiff grains in them that you you know whatever they're called. I always say granulars and that sounds weird to me but those little grains that you get that just kind of you know make your face feel like it's being rubbed raw that doesn't have that in it. I'm not exactly sure what it has in it. It just feels like it's really just sloughing away everything. So you're definitely getting like a texture in this product but you're not getting anything that is going to make your skin feel raw or anything like that. It's just a milky consistency. It's extremely hydrating. It feels really good. I really like it. I don't mind bringing it up underneath my eyes although I'm noticing some eye makeup from the night before. I will go ahead and take that off with something else before I start this. Occasionally I will do a chemical peel. I like this because it's so gentle and I can use it every single morning. All right just a regular washcloth and I go across. I like using washcloth because this also will do a little bit of exfoliating. Paula of Paula's Choice the founder of that company is a firm believer that the only exfoliating that you need that is the physical exfoliant is simply from a washcloth and I like both so you can go either way with that. So I just go ahead and take all of that off. It doesn't leave any residual behind. I love that about it. Then I will go into the bathroom and I'll splash some water on my face so I'm going to go do that. Now if you just want a good suggestion for a cleanser instead of using this milky peel I write or die CeraVe whether you use the hydrating one or the gentle foaming one um you know whether you have dry skin whether you have regular combo oily whatever there's a cleanser for you from CeraVe. I find that it's super affordable and it's super effective so I just love it. It's really really good. The hydrating one is perfect for my dry skin. I didn't plan for this to have two products from Pixi but I do happen to be using up a big Mac Daddy of the Pixi Glycolic Toner. I love this stuff. This Glow Tonic I should say but it's got glycolic acid in it and I believe it's about five percent. I love this. Pixi did send this to me. It's all beat up because I put it in and out of my little bin that I have but I used to say Melissa's Glow Tonic. I love that they said that to me and that they thought of me. It was so sweet of them to do that. So I do really love this. This is the bottle that I'm using up right now but honestly if I was going to suggest something to anyone it would be the ordinary glycolic acid toning solution that is in seven percent. This is so good and I like them both. This one doesn't have a fragrance and this one does. The Glow Tonic has been so many people's write or die for so long. So if you love it stick with it but you're going to save quite a bit if you go with the ordinaries. It's quite less expensive and it has a little bit more glycolic acid in it. I'll tell you why I love glycolic acid in the morning. It's because it makes my face feel so soft and so after I've done I'm done cleansing and getting all of that skin off this will help to loosen skin up even more if you need that but for me it just helps prep my skin for everything else that I'm going to put on it and I really like that. So I just use one squirt in my hand. I don't use a cotton round. I don't like to waste my products with cotton rounds and I just kind of got away from that a few years ago and I just find that it just gets all the product on me instead of in the cotton and don't forget to go on the back of your hands. That's what I didn't talk about when I was cleansing. Lately I've got a lot of questions about my hands. Now I don't have the young looking hands. They're just normal. They don't have a lot of age spots and stuff on it because anything that goes on my face goes on my hands including my retina and I just make sure that whatever treatment I'm doing to this from you know my decletate up goes on my hands and up my arms as far as I can take it. You know so you know I'm just pushing everything up. I'm really rubbing it into my hands when I'm done. Okay after putting on that toner, taking it all over my hands, I go in now with my nice Niacinamide Brightening Toner from Good Molecules. I love this. I've been using it ever since it came out a couple years ago. This is formulated with Niacinamide, Vitamin C, Alpha Arbutin, Licorice root to brighten and improve the appearance of enlarged pores. When I originally got this within two to three weeks I was noticing a difference in the size of my pores and I was feeling like my pores were really diminishing and I was just shocked. I was like am I imagining this and I've told this story before but Mary from Glitzy Fritzy she said the same thing in one of her videos like in the same month and I was like it's not just me. Alright this stuff works and again I just pour it into my hand. It's very watery. It's like a toner. It's that consistency toner essence. I really like using this consistency because I feel like it doesn't build up anything on my skin. If I'm using a lot of serums or a lot of lotions they don't I feel like they don't sink in as well as all the other stuff that I use that are essences or toners so I really really love this product and I did immediately notice a difference in my pores. Now it took a while for it to brighten and I feel like it really did. Nothing's going to brighten my dark circles except for makeup so I really enjoy this. I love it. I buy it over and over again. I buy it in the three or four pack whatever they sell and I love it. If you want to you can go in with another vitamin C serum if that's what you like. I would absolutely say that vitamin C is so important antioxidant. I feel like I get enough in this but if you're somebody that wants a little bit more go ahead and do a vitamin C serum and then my next step is moisture. I use from Sukoyako Suhara. This is the moisture what they call lotion. It's not lotion it's an essence but for me because of my dry skin this is worth it. 100% worth it. This is a urea product and I say this again every time I talk about my products that I love and I don't switch up a lot. You're going to find that when I do a lot of skincare videos you're going to find a very repetitive theme of it being something for aging for brightening or for hydration because my skin is so so dry. So I apologize to my oily skin gals but those other two products like the glycolic acid and the niacinamide toner are definitely for my oily skin girls as well. If you are normal to combo anywhere in there this routine is just fine for you. If you're super oily these two steps that I'm going to show you next are the ones that will be a little bit you know tricky. Now as I'm talking so much here with you I know that you're thinking this is not a five minute routine. This video is 12 minutes long or however long it's going to be. That's because I wanted to specifically tell you what these products all do. Okay again it's water. I've just pat it and push it into my skin but this is so hydrating that this is my final moisturizing step. A lot of people have a cream and that's fine but I find that putting this on is my last step. I'm hydrated all day and if you're somebody that really likes creams at the very end there was one from Radiance Soul that I had in my empties video that I just loved. It was such a light airy cream but super hydrating and I really liked that. Okay this one is available from Sukoyaku Suhara. This is the eye cream. This cream has been my holy grail rider dye eye cream for I can't tell you how long. I use a pretty generous amount large size P amount and I go in and I really smother my eyes with this because I have super creepy super dry under eyes actually all around my eyes and I will also push this into my lips so that it gets that lip area and hopefully those vertical lines a little bit plumped up. Now that's it except for SPF which we know is so so important. If I'm going to be in my home I just use the Revlon Color Stay Prep and Protect Primer base. This has an SPF of 34 in it and I love this and so this will be my next step as far as I don't have to do a primer when I'm getting ready for makeup because this does have a little bit of the dimethicone in it but it's a mineral based which is so lovely. I'm using a lot. It's a mineral based and it has the SPF in it and I just I really love this. It's one of those ones that I purchased over and over and over again and I make sure that I always have an extra of it set aside because I just really love it. It's a really great one and then I will use that same amount for my neck and my decollete and I didn't talk a lot about my neck and my decollete. I usually do. I usually always talk about the neck area. You can use another sunscreen for the back of your hands. I just happen to have this one sitting here. What's beautiful about this sunscreen and the primer as well as it does have a little bit of that dimethicone in it so it's going to help smooth out your pores for makeup. It will create a barrier between your makeup and your moisturizer so your foundation isn't melting with your moisturizer and kind of sinking into your skin throughout the day. I really love that about it but on days that I'm going to go out and I know I'm going to be in the sun I will use just specifically an SPF separate and I've been enjoying this one as we're getting into warmer months. I've been enjoying this one from Canmake and it's an SPF of 50 and it's called Mermaid Skin Gel. I really enjoy it. It plays so well underneath my makeup. It's just beautiful underneath my makeup. So many SPFs will just ball up on me but this one doesn't. It's very light feeling. It feels like it sinks into the skin quickly and I just really like it and so you know if you're looking for something that is separate from your primer instead of is separate from your primer instead of having the two combined I think that you will really like this. That's it. I know that I talked a lot but honestly there's not that many steps in here. I am just cleanser or exfoliation. I use the exfoliation and then it is my glycolic toner. It is the niacinamide toner. It is the urea toner that I use for my lotion and then it's an SPF. Use the eye cream too so if you want to get technical it's six but it's five steps as far as cleanse, tone, treat, moisturize and then sunscreen. I can do this in about three to four minutes. It doesn't take that long. The longest that anything takes is just me getting that dead skin off my face and what helps so much is to put that water on first, loosen up the skin, go in and do your thing. And one last thing I've been enjoying CityLips. I put this on to plump up my lip lines and it helps out so much. This is a pricey little number. This does go on sale quite often which I will put on my Instagram and my Facebook book page when they do. They just had a sale and I wasn't feeling good enough to be able to post. My morning skincare routine. Go ahead and tell me in the comment section what you do in the morning that you just absolutely love. Maybe it's a little bit of pampering. Maybe it's a little extra serum or something that you can't live without. I would love to hear that because I do like trying things out even though I'm getting kind of stuck where I'm at because it's so effective for my skin and my skin type. I love you guys very much. Please take care of yourselves and I'll catch you in my next video. Bye!