Skin Care and Exfoliation tips!! feel free to ask for advice!

the reason hope in a jar is so great, other than the rave reviews and the amazingly reasonable price for a high end product, is other than the antioxidants, etc that are great for your skin but it's mainly the lactic acid and the other aha's that REALLY help out our skin. one of our main skin issues is the build up of dead skin, which we develop at an amazing rate, daily...... it causes acne, lines, our sun spots and damage are sitting on the surface as well as underneath, depending. also dullness, uneven pigmentation and texture. it's HUGE, but especially as we get older, it slows down our new skin renewal rate and even worse, our own natural sloughing of the dead skin. that is why I get dryness and some peeling and such on my own skin!
so with the lactic acid (The best aha) and the other ahas, it is MAKING the skin then renew and make ready to shed that dead skin. which it can do on it's own, but i think that everyone needs to exfoliate as well, to help it along cause it's still too slow. and as i mentioned oprah uses this cream and i NEVER see A DROP of dead, peeling, dry skin on her face! granted she has the best of everything and surely gets great facials and all to take care of that.
some of that stuff is hype and bs though, that's what i hated when i was working for cosmetic companies. lying about stuff that doesn't work. sure some does, but the cellulite stuff no, it can create a SMOOTHER appearance, because it's caffeine which is a diuretic and makes the area lose water so it's doesn't look so bumpy. get this, i was working for christian dior, lancome, guinot, etc in bev hills and there is a famous famous dior ad for their cellulite cream that was in vogue and all the huge magazines for years back in the 90's, maybe even now and we had one in our store. it was a pic of a "woman's" ass and long, beautiful, thin, perfect thighs. just that, no face, no body and she had some fabric, i think it was orange? draped around her vagina area and of course cosmetic co.s use false advertising all the time which i wonder how they can, i know it's a fine line...for example EVERY mascara ad, every one i've ever seen....the model/actress ALWAYS has false eyelashes on in the ad or on tv. every time. and yet they can pretend it's just the mascara. how do they get away w/that?
sooo.....that pic, that ad, he legs/butt were incredible and i used to always look at it and go "man that cream must really work!" then at one point, the dior reps came in to give us product classes and tons of gratis, man i LOVED the gratis! nothing better than free makeup/skin care. so dior was out and one of the reps told us that "woman" in the cellulite ad was a 14 yr old girl!!! figures huh? once again a lie to make us feel not beautiful or perfect enough.
ok yeah so the lactic acid is great but you always have to make sure it's a high enough percentage to be effective, cause most aren't. but even w/that i recommend exfoliation, at least twice a week, depending on skin type, more for oily skin. and i DON'T like the ones that are too creamy or the exfoliation delivery is too tiny, it's not enough. and the creamy thing is a cheat, leaving on a residue so your skin feels all soft, making you think it's from getting the dead off, when really it's just the leftover emollient on your skin surface. and i like one w/a stronger grain BUT you have to be careful, some are apricot shell kernels and such which are TOO hard and too sharp and are cutting and damaging your skin, almost microscopically, but still damaging and yes, visible to the eye, upon close examination
. i really like the mary kay microderm system. i can see the results RIGHT after using it. so much dead skin is cleared off that i can then sit at my magnifying mirror and all these pores are now free and cleared up, well, meaning all the dead skin blocking the surface of them is gone. or a good amount of it. and THEN i can "empty" my pores, do extraction very easily, wheareas i couldn't before, with too much blockage with the dead skin.
ALL my life, since i was a kid, i ALWAYS gave myself facials. i would steam it over the stove, exfoliate, masque, etc and i swear that's when my skin was pretty much always amazing. then i stopped for the most part some years ago. it's rare that i ever use a masque anymore. once in awhile i will use a moisturizing masque, when i'm dry and flaky and dull looking, but i stopped the thing that i had done my whole life! and duh! it finallly hit me! why did i stop? my skin was much better when i was. i'm now getting back into that. funny considering i've spent years giving people facials. even my son! he would bitch and moan when i'd insist, cause he'd get blackheads, not a lot, and congested pores, a few pimples....so i wanted to clean that stuff out for him. he HATED the extraction part but i would do the whole kit and kaboodle too. the steaming, the cleansing, masquing, exfoliation, so on, and then the massage, the best part, which is soooooo good for your skin, circulation, removing toxins, keeping it firm, moist, pliable, youthful. but feels amazing too. so he loved the massage so much and i do back of neck, top of shoulders, scalp, occipital bone.
any skin, makeup or hair questions....if anyone out there is reading this, please feel free to ask me!
thanks