 Hi guys, it's Monica. I wanted to share with you a little bit of the sea festival of trees that I went to the other night. I'm going to include some of those clips in here. And then I wanted to address some of your questions about dermarolling and my retinae use because those are questions that I've had sent to me in my inbox. So I wanted to address those messages in the video because I did mention that I had changed my mind a little bit on the frequency of my dermarolling and the frequency of my retinae application ever since. I bought the Trophy Skin Microderma Abrasion MD and the Trophy Skin Spatula. I said that I was changing up my skincare routine. We're going into the winter time. We have some pretty cold weather here in New England right now. And typically when the seasons change, your skin changes, at least mine does. So I am in the most drying time in New England for me, meaning dry air because of my heat system and it's cold. And even though I do use a humidifier and I do try to keep myself as moist as possible, if you want to call it that, it is still an ongoing battle taking care of your skin in the winter. So yes, things have to change. One of the things that I started to change when I decided to buy the Microderma Abrasion MD, which I talked about the Trophy Skin, I talked about that in a couple of videos, that I would drop down on my retinae use before I would use my Microderma Abrasion. And so I've decided to use that once every three weeks. I normally will drop down the retinae two to three days before the day that I'm going to do that. That is a deep, deep, deep exfoliation for me. When I use it, I absolutely love how my skin feels afterwards. But because I'm using retinae and I'm concerned about over exfoliation, I'm very careful. I'm not going to use it every week. Maybe I will in the spring and summer. I don't know. But right now I'm not going to use it every week. So it's once every three weeks or so is the timeframe that I'm using that. And the spatula that I bought, and I'll link all these products in the description below, these products I purchased myself. So they weren't sent to me for review. They just purchased myself. I bought the spatula and I use that about two to three times a week. I really like how that works. When I use that on my skin after I've washed my face, very carefully to hear my heat kick on, I use a magnifying glass and I can actually see the spatula sort of like deep cleansing out my pores. Of course, the more I use it, the less comes out of my pores, which I think is a really good thing. But I'm really liking that. So where does, you know, when you think about it, where does derma rolling fall into place? So I was derma rolling once a week and it was derma rolling my scalp once a week on a pretty consistent basis. I never derma rolled more than once a week, you know, every now and then maybe, but in general, usually at once a week a girl when it comes to that. And the same thing with my derma rolling my scalp. I would not derma roll my scalp aggressively and I would never derma roll my scalp with dirty hair. So it kind of worked out that if I washed my hair on a third day and depending on the timeframe, if it worked into that timeframe, I would derma roll. Now some people derma roll their scalp more aggressively than I do. I may go back to that. I don't know, but right now I'm not. And when I derma roll my scalp, I'm very, very careful clean hair, clean scalp, and I'm very careful that I'm rolling it. And I have, my derma roller is not a real, you know, not a really deep needle derma roller. So I'm just like hoping when I do that that it penetrates a little bit of where my hair is sparse, which I have thin hair, no secret, that it helps the serums that I'm using for my hair sink in better. The serums that I'm using currently, and I use the Nutri-Ox serum, I use that almost religiously every night. In the morning, I end up taking the equate version of Rogaine and pulling a few drops of that in my hair as well. Every now and then I alternate it with the Ordinary's Hair Serum. So I've been, you know, just switching around between those two. I'm not seeing any massive regrowth, no. And right now, because it is wintertime, more of a shedding going on, I'm not seeing a ton of hair fall out in the shower, which I remember previous winters I would have that. So I think I'm able to contain my hair from not going crazy and, you know, having a ton of shower hair with the products that I'm using. I cannot use the Nutri-Ox shampoo and conditioner more than once a week. It is too drying on my hair. I use Marula Oil on my hair. I've used a few other hair oils, but the Cacay Oil, but more often than not, I have a little bit, I got some samples of the Palm Mitchell Marula Oil, little tiny bottles of it for the hair, and I will put that on my hair because the Nutri-Ox just totally dries out my hair and I don't like the feeling of dry hair at all. So I've been doing that. You have to use your common sense and all of you know your skin better than anyone else. You cannot just blindly take the suggestions from a YouTuber. I mean, I watch a lot of YouTube videos and I listen to what some of the content creators say that works for them and I say, hmm, you know, that sounds interesting, but my skin is completely different. I can tell sometimes visually my skin is completely different. So, yeah, I mean, and part of being a woman is the prerogative to change your mind. And I can drop down and do Marula Oil once every two weeks, figure out exactly how it's going to work into my schedule, and I'll be fine with that. And then who knows, you know, what spring brings and summer brings. I mean, I change it up a little bit. My core skincare elements remain the same, Retin-A. I just don't use it every night anymore. I've dropped back on my Retin-A use, and it could be because I'm peeling more. It's the winter time. I don't know, but I've dropped back on that. But my Retin-A, my vitamin C in the morning, my retrixal in the morning, my morning serums stay the same, my evening serums, Niacinamide. I've been using that for years. I will not stop using my Niacinamide. I don't use my Niacinamide in the morning in conjunction with my vitamin C. Don't ask me why. Just in the beginning, everyone said don't, and I just never, you know, I just stuck to that. So my Niacinamide, and typically in the evening, I use the ordinary buffet. I use, I buy my Retin-A overseas. It's much cheaper. It's affordable. My insurance would never pay for that, ever. And I could not afford the going prices of Retin-A here in my area, over $300 for a little tube. I just couldn't do that. So that's how I get my Retin-A. But being a woman, you do have the prerogative of changing your mind. And that also means being smart when the seasons change and go, okay, what do I do? How do I switch it up? And you do have to listen to your skin. And that's exactly, exactly what I'm doing. I would never give up my Retin-A, ever. Yes, I drop down slightly. I really didn't give a, at this point in time, I have no intentions of giving up dermarolling. I don't do it every week anymore. And will I pick that back up in the spring? Probably. Will I dermaroll my scalp more? I don't know. I do believe that it's helped sink the serums in, but I have a very high forehead anyway. So I do kind of look and I see my widow's peak. And I'm just one of those freaky people that my hair grows straight up rather than down because I have two cowlicks on either side of my forehead and then in the back. So that's always been a frustration. But I could very, I'm hanging out again. I hope you guys can't see that. I mean, I could very well change up my skincare next week again. But to answer your questions, dermarolling roughly every two weeks. I still use a numbing cream for those that you've asked. I've used a numbing cream for a long time. I never was one that said, it's dermaroll night tonight and look forward to it. I was one that said, oh, I have to dermaroll tonight and I'm going to numb my face. And that's how I do it. The other systems that I'm using, the microdermabrasion every three weeks, the spatula a couple of times a week. I really, I really like what I'm doing. I couldn't sit here and tell you or stand here and tell you that you should do it. All I can do is stand here and tell you and share with you what I'm doing and then tell you that you need to make a decision for yourself based on your skin, based more importantly on your wallet. I mean, we can all get caught up in the YouTube hype and buy, you know, I love buying the makeup, you know, but this, my core skincare stays relatively the same, but we could. I mean, I can, I'm so easily influenced and we could all jump on, you know, this and that product. But at the end of the day, it's your pocket. It's your skin. Do it you need to do for yourself. It's the same thing when people say to me, I want to create a channel, but I don't have the money for a camera. I don't have the money for lights. You don't need to have a good camera to do a YouTube channel. You can do it on your cell phone. Just be careful if you're going to be doing it on your cell phone, that you're actually clean your lens on your cell phone because it can, you know, depending on what side and you're going to be filming on, it can get covered and coated with film and then it can distort your image. So whatever you film with is what you can afford, but just try to make sure that you, I have ceiling lights here. I have a light here. So I'm lit up here and that's the good and the bad about that is you guys get to see everything. I wish I could put a filter over it and say, okay, here I am totally diffused, but you get to see everything because of the clarity of the high definition camera. So I'm kind of miss filming all my videos like I used to years ago just on my iPhone. I look better. But anyway, so I just wanted to address those few questions and I want to share with you the Sea Festival trees. Now I'm going to include a couple of clips for you guys to see what the evening was like, but Jay and I went to the event and we went with another couple from work and it was just really a beautiful night out. We had a sort of an appetizer dinner and we walked all around the trees. The trees are decked out like crazy. This is a fundraiser. They do this every year and I happen to think that the tree that my office put forward, meaning our seacoast office of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services was the best. It was made out of ladders and it was full of really cool household items. So typically what happens is people vote on the best tree and they buy raffle tickets and they stuff the box and then there's a drawing and someone wins the tree and there's a ton of trees and some of the trees had sorts of gift cards. You know, there was one tree that was worth like, I mean had like over $2,000 worth of cards and gifts and stuff. So it was just a great fundraiser and I hope you enjoy the clips. I'm going to insert it and that's it for me. It's kind of like trying to address some of the questions that I've had and do I really want to do a whole video on this topic and the answer is no, but I did want to address those questions and anytime you have any questions just reach out. Let me know and I'll try to address them in a video as well. So that's the scoop for now and I will see you guys later. Thanks so much for watching and be sure to subscribe and thumbs up the video. Bye guys. It's like a lot easier. What did you say? You'd want to use the sword? Oh my gosh, honey. I'm sorry. Thousand and prizes for this one. That's kind of cool because you get the signed autographed. Thank you so much for watching.