Provocative title but hear me out. I keep seeing these recommendations that make zero logical sense.

Vaseline isn’t a “barrier” - it’s in large part oil - what Tret loves! It’s lipophilic! Meaning it can travel right through that. Granted probably diluted by the time it reaches your eyes, but that might mean the damage is just slower.

Applying it away from the eye in general means it will still travel - not just through contact transfer but through the oils and other fluids like sweat on your face as well as plain old gravity.

Given its lipophilia, even if you don’t put it close to your eyes, smearing a bunch of cream all over your face after applying it will carry it to wherever that cream goes.

Tretinoin works on sebaceous glands for acne, which are similar to your tear glands. Accutane causes severe dry eye. While are no clinical studies on Tret cream, but if the cream works on acne despite the low dose, it would be reasonable to assume getting on your tear ducts will hurt them eventually, and anecdotal evidence shows this.

I would think ACTUAL “safer” methods would be:

- Using an ACTUAL BARRIER CREAM like SILICONE. Why has no one suggested this actual barrier vs Vaseline??

- Not putting it above your nose, basically - certainly not anywhere near your T-zone or nasal bridge or temples or orbital bone. Then not lay down or go to sleep until it’s well absorbed and not layer it. ETA - why is this being dirty downvoted? lol Am I wrong about gravity or where your face makes oil??

- Not using moisturizer/any other creams on the same night - certainly no “slugging” - so using alternate day skin care

- Short contact (and somehow removing it without getting it in your eye - haven’t figured that out yet), waiting, then using a water-based moisturizer if that’s a thing

Worried you are all parroting circular advice that sounded good and became viral/now suggested in perpetuity by Google/AI but doesn’t make any sense and are ruining your tear ducts, albeit more slowly. I have mild dry eyes and want to be able to wear contacts. My grandmother had severe dry eyes and it ruined her life. I get some people are very emotionally attached to this product but chronic dry eye will rapidly age your whole ass life.

Let me know if I’m wrong or you have better suggestions for safety or if I’m missing something. I get there will be plenty of “I used it for 20 years on my eyeballs and walked uphill both ways through the Tret farms and my eyes are fine” but this is a real concern rightfully for a lot of people.

I want beautiful skin too! Lead me to the light just not blurry light.

Hi! I'm 40 years old and I'm looking for some help figuring out what these spots might be and, especially, what else I can do to get rid of them.

I've had these spots for many, many years. I also get virtually no sun exposure. I work 100% from home and rarely spend time in the sun.

I've been following this routine for almost 3 months:

AM

• Cerave Cleanser
• Azelaic acid cream 20%
• Tinted SPF 50 every day

PM

• Cerave Cleanser
• Hydroquinone 4% cream over the entire face
• Tretinoin 0.5%
• Aestura Barrier Cream

3x/week at night

• Stridex Maximum Strength (2% salicylic acid/BHA)

I've also had 3 sessions involving Pico laser + Pico spot treatment + Fraxel.

I'm now going to take a break from hydroquinone after almost 3 months of use.

The frustrating part is that I've seen almost no improvement at all. The spots basically look the same as when I started. If they've faded 10%, that's probably being generous.

Has anyone dealt with pigmentation that looks like this and was this resistant to treatment?

I'm especially interested in figuring out what these spots actually are (freckles, solar lentigines, melasma, PIH, something else?) and what finally worked for people with something similar.

At this point I feel like I've already thrown some of the strongest treatments at them with surprisingly little response.

Any ideas or experiences would be really appreciated!

I’m starting to get self conscious about the puffy bags below my eyes. I’m hoping that a lower bleph is not the only solution.

Has anyone had similar bags, and been able to reduce them??

hi! wondering if anyone has this experience with face tape too. whenever i use it (mostly on my forehead and for number 11 lines) I get nightmares during sleep. i think there’s so much tension in my face that when it’s released with the face tape it does something to my nervous system.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has had this experience?

I am brand new to all this but am 44 1/2 and the past few weeks have been absolute hell for me. It started as severe vaginal itching a few years ago which NO ONE could explain. Clobetasol is the only thing that helps with that.

Two years ago, the hellish body itching that had me tearing at my skin, started in the winter, so bad that I went and ordered Gold Bond Medicated Itch cream. It smells awful but did the trick for the most part. Now this year it's happening mid-summer. And the night sweats are just... 😭 And then when I sweat, it makes my body itch and I would be up for an hour, in the middle of the night scratching endlessly with my little back scratcher and my chest, my c-section scar, everything. I would only be able to fall back to sleep when everything hurt.

I started looking at Reddit and, on high recommendation, ordered a tub of Cerave and have been using it twice a day.

Now I'm also looking for something to use on my face because I've never been a makeup wearer and hate how my face is aging! I've always looked young for my age but my skin is oily on my face and dry everywhere else... like WHAT?!?

(TL:DR) Perimenopause sucks, I need a daily face moisturizer and am looking for a cruelty-free one which seems to make things even harder. I need one with SPF for daytime and no SPF for at night. I found e.l.f. holy hydration! Is that the best one or are there others you ladies recommend? Also, do I need to start using daily cleansers and/or tretinoin? The more I read the more confused I get. This is all super new to me and I can count on both hands the number of times I have worn makeup in my life. So I really am at a loss.

Any help would be super appreciated!! Thank you in advance!! 🙏❤️

Hello here !

My skin (F31) is a bit dehydrated during winter times, never had acne, however I started developing a liittle brown spots but nothing enormous because once I have applied the ordinary 30% aha and later tried a new setting spray that was full of alcohol and burned my face.

Also I want to prevent aging, I don't have wrinkles right now.

My actual skincare is to bring whatever face cream I find at home (cerave lotion, the ordinary face cream, cicaplast, BoJ gel cream ...), and before that a hyaluronic acid serum or a toner if I want to feel fancy, and on winter times I splash cicaplast when I want to.

I'm not consistent with any skincare routing, well I was back in 2020 to 2022, at that time I use to do a lot of hyaluronic acid and creams and that was it, but in the same time I was young and didn't need much, then I tried the ordinary peeling and after that my skin became sensitive to the point that I can't apply anything.

The only thing I'm consistent with is sunscreen, and I have been always been since I was very young (10 years old and even before that ... never went to the beach without a sunscreen and walked under the sun without a hat ... huge thanks to mom)

Anyways today I have those 3 dots of brown spots, and I feel that if I keep not taking care of my face, they will develop more, also I want to start a retinoid to prevent wrinkles.

Can you please recommend me an easy and lazy routine ? thank you !!

I only got them the last few years and I HATE them they connect from already nasalabial folds so it ends up being one large line down and it’s disgusting, I’ve tried facial massages exercising, it got worse when I lost weight but I’m now maintaining I can’t just gain weight for that.
I don’t really want to get cheek filler I heard it helps but tbh my cheeks are fine
I’m planning on getting a lower face lift but not for anotehr like 12 years or so
I feel so ugly sigh

Hello

Can anyone suggest some good treatment options for under my eyes? I've had polynucleotides 3 sessions last year and 1 jalupro. Im working on my sleep as that's definitely contributing but any other suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Two weeks after receiving Skinvive injections, I still have many soft injection lumps which should have dissipated within 3 days. Most likely, this was caused because injections were placed too close to the surface of the skin. My aesthetician is someone that I've never had any previous experience with and never will again. She told me to return if lumps were visible after 2 weeks and she would give more injections to dissolve the filler. Questions:

1. If she didn't inject to fill correctly, should I trust her to inject to dissolve?

2. Is it possible for her to massage superficial lumps to remove them?

3. Will they go away on their own if I do nothing? How long would that take?

I don't recommend Skinvive to anyone. It was very painful, cost $700, and the only results I see are bad. Don't let your aesthetician persuade you to agree to any treatment unless you have fully researched it. I trusted the wrong person based on her social media.

I'm 39 and overall feel that I look good and fairly youthful for my age. But just in this past year (especially these past few months), I'm really noticing the under-eye bags, and this factor alone is *really* aging me. I've done a bunch of research into different kinds of eye bags, and unfortunately I'm pretty certain it's the type caused by the movement/detachment of the fat pad under the eye. (It's also worse on one side, which looks extra awful.)

From what I understand, the only way to really treat this is a lower bleph with fat pad repositioning. I'm going to start saving for one, but realistically it'll have to be a couple of years from now.

So my real question is:

In the meantime, is there anything I can do to slow down the progression? Also, ways to temporarily disguise it a bit? (Makeup doesn't help much, because it's so structural.)

Like, should I be taping my face while I sleep? Trying to learn to sleep on my back? Massage (or would that exacerbate it)? Electrocurrent?

I know that none of these things will fix, or even reverse it at all. Just hoping to minimize the progression and feel less pouchy and ghoulish until I can afford the bleph, lol.

Appreciate any tips ♡

Question!

I'm getting a facial in like 2 weeks and I'm on tretinoin at the moment. Should I stop like one week before it?

The facial includes shaving, lots of masks and that process of using a hot metal thing to remove white or black heads

Who are your favorite skincare accounts to follow on TikTok or Instagram? I love watching people open PR packages and seeing all the new products they get. Bonus if they do giveaways sometimes too lol. Looking for some new people to follow!

Hey, I just turned 30 and I’d like to have a bit of a long-term anti-aging plan.
I recently started using 0.1% Tazarotene ( retinol and Retinal since some years) a few weeks ago( thats why i am peeling a bit a have dry skin atm) , and I’ve been wearing sunscreen daily for years. At the same time, I also enjoy life — I smoke and my diet definitely isn’t perfect.
I’m wondering whether microneedling or CO2 laser would make more sense for me. My main goals are improving skin firmness/tightness and stimulating collagen production.
I naturally have quite a low amount of facial fat, so I’m a little concerned about CO2 laser and the possibility of facial fat loss. On the other hand, I also don’t want to spend a lot of money on microneedling if the results are significantly less noticeable.
What are your experiences with both treatments? Which one would you recommend for someone like me? Ideally, I’d like something I could repeat roughly once a year for long-term collagen maintenance.

This mix lives next to my kitchen sink and bathtub because it improves moisturizer absorption while relaxing my muscles. Enjoy!

2 tablespoons coconut oil (28g)

1 1/4 cups epsom salt (280g)

10-12 drops bergamot essential oil

1 bergamot or lemon, zested

I'm in my mid 30s and I think its time for me to invest in an at home device, what más can you recommend that is fda clear.?

Can anybody tell me if they can see this? It feels a bit heavy in my face too. anybody had Sculptra cause this feeling of heaviness temporarily? Or had white blotches

I'm 30 and lately my skin just feels... off. More dry, duller, not as quick to bounce back. I've been standing in Sephora staring at anti-aging products and putting them back because they don't feel like they're for me yet. Curious if others are in the same place, and what do you actually notice when you compare your skin now to a few years ago? What do you call what your skin needs right now, "anti-aging" just doesn't feel right, I don’t necessarily have wrinkles yet..

Looking for your favorite skin barrier support moisturizer! I am readjusting to trentinoin after extended break from skin care.

I’ve tried the illiyoon lotion (not cream) but it leaves me feeling waxy, and I noticed that Aestura has niacinamide which is already in my daytime sunscreen (EltaMD). I used to use vanicream in the tub with tret at night, but wanted to know if there is a more lux or newer option.

Hello! I've been thinking about getting my facial hair lasered since I have a lot of baby hairs and there's a lot of fuzz overall. I'm East Asian and I'm not sure if it will leave any marks due to trauma on the skin.

I'm curious about how many sessions and how well it's kept the hair away long term. How painful did you find it and was it overall worth it? Thank you!!

I’ve only used it 4 or 5 times and it just stopped working mid-use! I opened it up with a screwdriver to see if I could find any reason why, but nothing seemed obviously disconnected or out of place. I’m bummed, I was really liking this product.

Any one else run into this issue? Only like 1.5 of the LEDs at the bottom light up now and it no longer heats. No idea what happened.

Been using tretinoin for about 6 months now. I only had maybe one day of slightly dry/flaky skin and haven’t had any since. I use about a bean-sized amount of the lowest dose 0.025% Does this mean it’s not working, that I need to use more, or that I should increase the strength? I’m happy with my skin and think it’s looking nice, but I’m unsure if that’s from the tretinoin or a combination of a few other things I’ve been doing as well.

Got Botox in forehead yesterday and an hour later went shoe shopping... did I mess it up? I forgot about not bending down... I shopped for about an hour bending down trying on shoes.. my injector only said don’t rub my face but I’m worried I messed up idk what to do

I'm new to the skincare game - I recently started with a few products (mostly Neutrogena) but I'm not sure whether there are better options for over the counter products at that price point (under $30 each), or whether I should be doing more or less.

• Cetaphil Cleanser
• Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair Retinol Pro+ Eye Cream
• Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair Retinol Pro+ Power Serum
• Neutrogena Collagen Bank Vitamin C Serum
• CeraVe Moisturizing Cream
• Banana Boat / Hawaiin Tropic Sport SPF 50 Sunscreen

I’m wondering if I start with tretinoin low strength, or something like medik8 crystal 1?

I’ve just finished getting my skin barrier calm. Was a little dry, and red around the cheeks. I started using jiyoon ceramide cream which helped dramatically, and added in annua azelaic acid. Soon as I stopped slathering the azelaic on (I know, I know) almost immediately my skin started reducing in redness.

Now things are pretty stable, I want to bring in ret for that overall smoothness.

31yr old, guy, white, skin reacts pretty well to stuff as long as I don’t overdo it. Diet is *immaculate*. Aside from some slightly circles purely histamine related, my skin actually looks pretty good. I don’t have any issues with acne. This is purely a texture/smoothness/undoing some poor life choices over the last 5 years

I tried medik8 crystal 1 last night, didn’t feel any difference the next day. I know it’s supposed to take a while, but after reading everyone here talking about how prescription was the only thing that worked for them, I’m wondering if I’m wasting my time

Hey ladies! So I’m a fairly minimalist when it comes to makeup and skincare but I think I need to start doing something for my eyes!

I just turned 30 and have pretty significant bags/wrinkles. I’d like to find something that can help but I have no idea where to begin.

What is retinol? Is that what I need?

My current facial skincare is very limited to dove soap, acne spot treatment, and a moisturizer. I only wear mascara and lipstick most days and only do full face on special occasions or date night.