patience is a virtue
The world we live in is wildly different than the one I remember as a kid. I remember sitting by the radio with my fingers on the record button, waiting for the DJ to introduce the new Backstreet Boys song so that I could listen to it on my cassette tape later. If you ordered something from a magazine to be delivered (I don’t think I shopped online until the mid 2000s), there was no Amazon-esque two day shipping. Have a question about something or wondering if you spelled that word correctly? No square in your pocket that had access to every single piece of information ever, no sir-ee! Better grab that dictionary or encyclopedia on your shelf to try to find the answer. I may sound like a dinosaur to the youngsters out there, but it’s true! Because of technology, we now have immediate access to…well, everything. And because of that, our attention spans and patience levels have dwindled. There’s a reason those short videos on TikTok are so popular. Our brains are now wired for MORE, and FASTER.
The problem with more and faster is that it’s not always conducive to success. This is true with everything, but I’m going to specifically bring it to the beauty world. Remember being a teenager and having a pimple, so you grabbed your tube of Clean & Clear salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide and put it on 14 times a day until…the entire area around the pimple was red, flaky, irritated, and angry but the pimple itself was bigger than ever? Yeah, not very helpful. So many of my clients are new to skincare, having spent most of their time prior to meeting me buying products from the drugstore or Sephora and not getting any guidance on whether they were right for them or not, or whether the combination of products in their regimen were too much for their skin. It takes time to build proper habits and start incorporating more active ingredients. Trust me, you don’t want to go from being a person who used Apricot Scrub on their face twice a day to immediately using retinol. Ouch.
Your skin has a protective barrier, and if that protective barrier is not functioning optimally, there is no point in using any active ingredients on the skin. This is why I start almost every client off slow-a proper cleanser, moisturizer, and SPF that will get the skin in a good place. After that, we can slowly start adding to and tweaking the routine if need be. I understand how frustrating this can be for someone who has skin issues to hear. If you have acne, you want a professional to be able to help you get rid of it, like, yesterday. But if the skin is inflamed, bringing the inflammation down and getting the barrier intact is the only way to make acne fighting ingredients do their job properly. And it can take several weeks to do that! This is where patience comes into play.
With skincare (and in life), there are short term goals and long term goals. You can’t accomplish long term goals without the smaller steps that need to be taken along the way. I take the same approach in my treatments. If you are a person that only gets a facial a couple of times a year and doesn’t have the suggested products at home, I always err on the side of caution and will simply use gentle, hydrating products during a session. If you have invested in regular facials and have purchased the proper homecare products, I’m able to use stronger products (if applicable) because I know the skin’s barrier is thriving. I’m happy to have both types of people in my treatment room, but only one of them is ever going to see real results.
While I know that we live in a world of RIGHT NOW, how about we slow down a little and take a different approach? It’s kind of like when someone speeds around you because you’re going too slow for their taste, but then you both end up next to each other at the next red light. Why rush? We can make progress and see changes even if we aren’t speeding through. Slow and steady, y’all. Slow and steady.
love & lipstick (& healthy skin barriers),
Cherrie
P.S. If you are nervous to get started on a routine because you’ve been (literally) burned before or worry about the cost, reach out! It’s more affordable than you think to get started.
