 So for the past few years in my skincare, I've been adopting using essences and that is what this video is all about. The benefits of essences, do you need an essence? Is it necessary? Why would you want to use one of those kinds of things? Essence for me falls into the same category as a toner and that's because of its consistency. Toners are very liquid and they also have the ability to sink in the skin very quickly. So I've kind of adopted in my skincare routine many different toners and essences because I find that on my skin, layering up an essence or a toner is so much more beneficial than putting a cream on top of a cream because they sink into my skin so much faster. The other thing that I find is that my mature skin needs to have multiple things going on with it. I need to have those AHAs, BHAs that turn over the skin. I need to have a vitamin C serum. I need to have some sort of a peptide. Those kinds of things are all things that fight aging, brighten your skin, cellular turnover, all those kind of things. So I'm going to go over several different toners that I have. There's eight in total, but I want you to know before we begin that I don't use these all every single time I sit down. I might use them at different times. I might use them in different ways depending on how my skin feels. I am developing a little bit more sensitive skin as I'm going through menopause. So I'm going to just show you what I have, what I do, why I purchased these, what effect I think that they are having on my skin. And we're going to talk all about essences and their benefits. Okay. So the first thing is really kind of about toners more than anything. And I'm sure that you've all seen this bottle right here. This is from The Ordinary and it's the Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution. I use this in the mornings and I use it approximately every other day to help slough off dead skin. And I have been bumping up my Retin A use to the 0.1% from the 0.05% and it's been really a change for my skin. My skin is really having a hard time getting used to it. So I have a lot of dead skin sloughing all the time. And this is what helps with the skin turnover. This isn't about on the cellular level. This is just about taking off that dead layer of skin so that the pretty new skin can come through. I prefer glycolic acid over a salicylic acid simply because I feel like salicylic acid it has geared more towards somebody with oily skin or somebody that might have acne. And my skin is more on the dry side. So glycolic acid has been touted as an acid that also helps with wrinkles and fine lines and the texture of skin and all that. And the reason is because of that rapid cellular turnover. But this is like my third or fourth bottle. I love this stuff. I will continue to repurchase it. And it's one that is a really awesome product for me as far as an essence goes. The next one is from Pixie Beauty and this is their Glow Tonic, the original one. And you guys are probably looking at this going how in the world did you get that huge bottle? Well, Pixie Beauty was kind enough to send this out to me and you guys this was one of the first PR things that I've ever gotten and they printed my name on the bottle. I don't know if you guys can see that or not. I'm going to try and get a little bit close. Can you see they put Melissa's Glow Tonic on there? I was like squealing. I was so excited because it was like the first thing that I'd ever gotten like that where it had actually acknowledged my name. But anyway, the product in here is really good and the Pixie Glow Tonic people have been using forever. And they find that it has the same thing as the ordinary glycolic acid, but it's in a little bit milder form at being 5% glycolic acid. And so it just really has a nice toning exfoliating effect, brightening effect on your skin. And that's why they called it the Glow Tonic because it's turning over those dead skin and the pretty bright new skin comes through. And the one that you can normally buy, I know that you can buy bigger ones, but the one that you can normally buy is about $15 for the four ounce one. And I want to mention right here that anytime I use an essence or a toner or anything, I actually don't drop it onto a cotton pad. You can do that if you want to. I put it into the palm of my hand, rub it together and then just pat it all over my face, my neck and my decollete and the back of my hands. And the reason is because I feel like if I put it into a cotton pad, it soaks up in the cotton pad and then I'm not getting as much on my skin. So that's how I apply essences. If you're a person that really likes cotton pads and does that, it's not a problem. I just find that my product seems to last a little bit longer and I get a little bit more on my skin. Okay. The next few that I'm going to talk about are all about brightening. And this one is the secret key starting treatment essence. This one has galactomyces in it. And this has been likened to the SK II or the SK II, whichever it is, that they sell at Sephora. It is really an awesome fermentation process that they use in here that actually goes onto the skin and it just brightens and lightens the skin, the fermentation in it. Just really has a tendency to show brighter, pretty skin through. But as far as it doing what it's supposed to do and brightening my skin, this has been awesome. And it's funny because I heard about this on Penn Smith Skincare, Penny's Channel, which I will make sure I link below. But what is really cool about that is that I had already tried a bottle of it and she reminded me of it and I went back to it and she had done the dupe for the SK II product. So definitely if you're looking at getting something with that fermentation process in it, the galactomyces in it that help with brightening, definitely look at this because it's the same product, but it's so much cheaper. And I really like that one. And then as far as another brightening product, this actually has become my holy grail toner in the mornings. Now, what I do is I will use a glycolic acid every other morning. And if I use it, I make sure that I let it set completely down. It's my first one I use. I completely let it sit there. It dries all the way until my skin is feeling like that is really, really soaked in. So it's going to take a couple of minutes. But then I go in with the good molecules, niacinamide brightening toner. This one has it says it's formulated with niacinamide vitamin C. And licorice root to brighten and even skin's appearance. And it also says that it helps with diminishing the large pores. Now, I feel like this is one of those products that I got. And I was like, I could truly see a difference after just using one bottle. Lots of times skincare, you really have to stay with it. You have to stick with it. You have to go over the long haul in order to see differences. This wasn't one. You guys, I really feel like the niacinamide in here really does its job as far as unclogging those pores, the congestion in the pores. What we get in our pores is we get dirt. We get dead skin cells. We get all that kind of stuff. And then our pores look bigger. If we can clean all of that out, then our pores can go ahead and, you know, kind of close up a little bit and look much more refined. And I truly have felt like this product does that. The licorice root, the vitamin C and our buten, those are all so good for brightening, and this does a fantastic job of that. So while I use the secret key at night, I use this as my toner in the morning. So this is every single morning, whether I use the glycolic acid or not. This is what I use. And I don't know if getting up close or not is going to be able to show you my pores, but I'm going to do it anyway as close as I kind of can get. You can obviously see my wrinkles, but my pores have been diminished so, so much. And I just love how pore refining it is and how good my skin looked after just using it for a very short time. So good molecules hit it out of the park with this. Then I have one from Hada Labo, and this is their sea serum. Actually, it's more of a lotion. Again, it's an essence and this one is supposed to be a very stable form of vitamin C, as you probably know, vitamin C has a really strange pH level where it has a really hard time keeping a stability as far as being in its pH level. I believe that Hada Labo is a Japanese company. It might be South Korean, but I believe it's a Japanese company. And what's interesting is that they all have beautiful skin. If you look at those people that are over there, they have this gorgeous skin and it's because they really know how to take care of their skin and they treat it well. And Hada Labo has several different essences. I've tried their one that is the super brightening one, fantastic one. I also have another one that I'll show you here in a second. But what I absolutely love about the vitamin C one is you get that vitamin C. It's very stable and it does its job of brightening and fighting off free radicals. So it's a super antioxidant. And that's the best part of having a vitamin C in your routine is that that antioxidant will fight off any pollutants that come to our skin that can cause us to age faster and get wrinkles quicker. I really do like this one. This is a very watery essence. I use this one particularly at night because niacinamide doesn't necessarily always play really well with vitamin C. So I do use that one at night, but I really love it. And this one sinks in so fast because it's so watery. So I really like that one. And then one that I found from Cos de Baja, this one is such a fantastic one. And I cannot believe that it took me so long to get on this train. This one is PT multi peptide facial toner. This one has Matrixle 3000 and it has Argyraline. Now, both of those are peptides that have been touted to help with aging. The Matrixle 3000 is actually a really good one for helping you keep wrinkles at bay. So that means you're not going to get wrinkles. You're going to be preventative. But then you also have the treatment in there that is from the Matrixle as well, which is awesome. And then the Argyraline Argyraline has been touted as Botox in a bottle, people that don't want to go the radical way of having needles in their skin. They have been saying that for a long time, this can help with expression lines. And I just think that these two together, you get that punch on your skin for helping with anti-aging and helping to prevent wrinkles, but also helping with the wrinkles that you've already got. And this one is a little bit thicker than the actual watery ones. It's more along the lines of almost being almost being a serum, but not quite. So it's still in the toner category and you get this big bottle of it. And again, it just sinks in so beautifully into the skin. And I love it. It's just one of those ones that I wish that I had been using for years and years. And I think when I'm done with my actual serums of peptides, I'm just going to be using this one because it is so effective in what it's got in there. And there is absolutely no irritation when I use this one. So Cos de Baja Peptide Facial Toner is absolutely fantastic. Love that one. And then another one that is more along the lines of a treatment. And this is from Hada Lobo. And I forgive me because the packaging came off of it or the actual label came off of it. This one is their premium hyaluronic serum. And this, you guys, is so good because it doesn't just contain one hyaluronic acid. There are multiple different kinds of hyaluronic acid. And if you have had problems with that in the past, then the reason is probably because it only has sodium hyaluronate in it. And sodium hyaluronate sodium, it really can dry out your skin if you use it on its own. Now, what you do with the hyaluronic acids, if you live in a very dry climate like I do, is you spritz on some water before you go in with this, which gives you something for it to draw off of. Now, we know that hyaluronic acid can hold a thousand times its weight in water. And so that's what makes it so outstanding as a product. So let me show you this one again. It's quite thick. It's about the same as the Costa Baja, but this is so hydrating. And so I use this one in the morning and at night. But when I use it in the morning, I put it on after I spritzed my face, after I've used whatever else I'm going to use and I put it on. Well, I spritz my face, put it on, and then I'm going to go in with my moisturizer. And so as a moisturizer, it just is fantastic to hold that water in and to make my skin plump up and look so much more youthful than what it looks like when I wake up in the morning and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I need like five gallons of water in me right now to make my skin look better. So this one is awesome. I really love the Super Hyaluronic Acid Serum from Hada Labo. It is one that I'm really, really enjoying and have been enjoying for a while. And as a very last step, after I use that in the morning, this is what I use for my moisture. This is from Sukoyaku Suhara. This is their Urea Moisture Lotion. Heard about this from Penny's Channel originally, too. But this is about probably my third year going on of using this. And I will not be without this product. This is the lotion or the essence that I use every single morning as my moisturizer. I don't use creams anymore in the morning because this is so fantastic about holding in everything that I've put on my skin. And when it gets in there with that Hyaluronic Acid as being layered, I've got my skin looking so plumped up and so bounced back like in it just is a great, great product. Now, I will mention because I get this question a lot, Urea, yes, is a byproduct of urine. However, the Urea that is in this bottle is not from urine. It is actually recreated in a lab so that it can be used on our skin and be safe. So no, this is not from urine, even though it says Urea. And yes, we all know that that is a part of urine. So just wanted to make sure everybody knew that. But this is amazing as far as what it does for my skin, how it makes my skin feel plumped up all day long. There is not any loss of moisture throughout the day. And that is because of the Urea in here. For me, this one is Holy Grail status. I've had it forever. I've tried other things, nothing's been able to knock it off of its perch. And it's just one that I absolutely love. And you can see how watery it is. It is very much like a water. It doesn't matter if I've used any of those other products before that are a little bit thicker, I can still go in with this, pat it on my face. And I have something magical as far as moisture is. The other thing that is so awesome about Urea in your skincare products is not only is it a super hydrator for dry skin, but they also have this property in them where they do a tiny bit of exfoliating. So you can take it right up underneath your eyes and it will exfoliate that skin around your eyes very, very gently. So it is really a wonderful, wonderful product as far as that is concerned. So let me just go over really quickly what I do and how I layer these. Now, I talked about using the ordinary glycolic every other day. When this is gone, I'll go ahead and I'll use the Glow Tonic. I don't use both of these at the same time. So this one is the first one that I use every other day, not every day, because I do have a little bit of sensitive skin. And then in the morning, I go in with the good molecules. Nice and in my brightening toner. That one is my next step after I let the glycolic acids dry a little bit. I'll go in with this one and then I'll go in with that spritz of water that I talked about, the hyaluronic acid and then the Urea moisture lotion as my last step. I do use the Sukoyaku Suhara eye cream in the morning as well. And then I'll use my SPF after that. And that's my morning routine. At night, I go in with the secret key and I use that one first because it's very, very light. And then I'll go in with the caused Baja. I'll use that one as my peptide serum, my anti wrinkle, my anti aging. And then I'll use my vitamin C on that. And after I do all that and I let it set, then I'll go in with my retin A. I don't do that every night. I do that every other night. But these three products, I do use every night. So and then I go in with my moisturizer, my heavier moisturizer after all of that to lock in all of those yummy products that I have on my skin. So that is everything. I hope that this wasn't too overwhelming. I actually am trying to transition mostly over to these kind of really light products because I find that my skin does so well with them during the day, but at night actually really like being able to layer those on there and feeling like they're sinking into my skin too. And you really get a lot of product for the amount that you are paying. Twenty dollars in a little serum would be one ounce. Most of these are anywhere from four to like this is eight ounces, some are five ounces, so you're getting a lot of product here and it's going to be able to last you a long time. So that's how I consider it to be so affordable. Even though the twenty dollar mark might seem like it's really steep, you're going to have these around for a lot longer than you would one little ounce bottle of a serum. So hope that you like this video. Please give it a thumbs up if you did. Leave me in the comments section if you have a favorite essence or a favorite toner, because I know that there's a billion out there and that we're always searching for the next best thing or things that are highly effective. And that's what I feel like. These all are. I feel like they're very effective, but affordable at the same time. So I hope everybody is doing well. Please hang in there. I know that we're in a really stressful time and I know that things are really hard right now, but please hang in there. I love you guys so much. Thank you for spending a bit of your day with me and I will see you all in my very next video. Take care of yourselves. Bye bye.