Fresh Skincare

Sorry for the three week hiatus, between the Thanksgiving holiday, working Black Friday, and finishing my university career, things have been crazy, but I’m back! So I’ve covered in a previous post all about my night skin routine (if you haven’t checked that out, I’ll link it here), but my morning routine is a little bit different. Where at night my products are more geared towards repairing the skin from damage after a long hard day, my morning routine is all about trying to prevent the damage to begin with. So the first big difference between the two are that there are a couple of more steps and definitely a few more products than in the evening.

Cleansing and Essence

A good place to start is at the beginning, and both morning and night starts in the same place: a good wash. I love using Fresh’s Soy cleanser on my face brush (the same every night), though I do now follow it with a new product, Fresh’s Kombucha essence. If you’re unfamiliar with an essence, it’s whole primary role is to help with better absorption of other products such as serums and moisturizers. What I love about Fresh’s is that by being based in kombucha means it’s high in probiotics that also help with skins luminosity as well as pollution protection.

Serums

When it comes down to serums, Peach and Lily’s glass skin serum has been a long time favorite of mine; with ingredients like niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, and peach extract, it helps to brighten the skin, gives beautiful luminosity, and reduces pore size and redness. It’s just an all in one serum that fits so many different skin types and needs. I personally also love using a vitamin c serum in the morning; it helps give the skin a beautiful glow as well as helps in the longterm in reducing the appearance of dark spots. I normally love experimenting with different ones just since every vitamin c is formulated a bit differently (vitamin c is notoriously unstable so quite a bit goes into formulating it). Currently, I’m using Tula’s which is a triple vitamin c complex, meaning that the vitamin c actually comes from three different sources.

Moisturizer

Winter is beginning to set in here in Texas, that means my already dry skin is entering drastic drought territory. So I’ve decided to switch it up and go back to one of my old favorites that I haven’t used in quite a while: Drunk Elephant’s Protini Polypeptide Cream. It gives me amazing hydration, and I love the fact that the pump means that I don’t have to put my fingers in the jar (which low-key grosses me out.)

Eye Care

I love a good eye cream, but there are mornings when my eyes just need a little bit more (i.e. the dark circles and puffiness is more than my concealer is going to be able to cover). So depending on how much time I have in the mornings, I do try to put eye patches on after I cleanse to let them sit while I apply serums and let them skin in. Skyn Iceland’s have been a long time favorite of mine, however I have been also enjoying Tinted’s new Copper Rays which have copper peptides in them. I also love a good eye balm (i.e. please refer to my previous reference of hating putting my fingers in jars), and Tula’s new 24/7 swipe is basically eye cream in a stick and is so quick in the mornings to use.

Protection

The final step to any morning skin routine is SPF. There are so many people under the impression that sunscreen is something that you only use in summer and they are dead wrong. The fact of the matter is that you’re exposed to UV radiation every single day n o matter the season so you need to protect yourself every single day. I personally use Tula’s glow sunscreen; I love that it’s a gel so it’s super lightweight and wears really well under my makeup, and as well as offering UV protection, it also offers blue light protection (aka protection against the light from screens like your phone, laptop, and tv).

So those are all of the products in my current morning skincare routine. Again, keep in mind, that these are the products that work for me and my skin type. They may or may not work for you depending on your skin type and the concerns or issues that you are wanting to address. I hope you enjoyed this post, all of my socials are linked if you want to give me a follow. See you next week!

One of the exciting things that happened during my hiatus was Fresh Skincare coming to Ulta. Once a Sephora exclusive, you can now find this clean skin love at your local Ulta (and it’s not the only once Sephora exclusive that’s found it’s way into Ulta recently). Founded in 1991 by Russian immigrants living in Boston, Fresh is all about natural, sustainable ingredients inspired by the food bazaars found across Europe. An amazing aspect that Fresh has brought to the game is that they’ve partnered with the UEBT (Union for Ethical BioTrade) to ensure that all of their ingredients can be traced back to their source. They are also working towards having net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 and 100% of packaging either made of recycled material or being recyclable by 2025. All of these things are absolutely amazing, but of course comes the question: are the products worth the price tag?

From experience so far, I say, absolutely! There is not a single item that I have tried that I haven’t loved, and as someone with extremely sensitive skin that is a miracle. There are very few brands out there that I can say that about (even my introduction to natural skin, Origins has given me a few reactions). While some of the ingredients are very typical for skincare, they’ve added some unique ones that certainly work (like kombucha, great for the gut and your face lol).

Soy Face Cleanser

As a combo-dry skin person, I am constantly on the lookout for a cleanser that is going to get me clean, but not leave my skin dry and tight feeling. This cleanser is it. Like hands down, one of the best that I’ve ever tried. One of my friends shared with me that she’s not the biggest fan of the scent (think soy and cucumbers), but honestly I don’t mind it. I just love how clean my skin feels after using this.

2. Rose Deep Hydration Oil-Infused Serum

On principal, I’m not the biggest fan of rose scented things. Don’t get me wrong, I love what rose does to my skin, I love receiving roses, however anything that’s artificially scented rose or most things with rose essence just immediately bring to mind elderly ladies (I think it’s a direct correlation to my paternal grandmother and her love of rose lotion). Fresh’s rose line is something else however. It might be the fact that in several of the items I can actually SEE the rose petals (like the toner and mask), but I really just enjoy it. This serum has become one of my nighttime routine, going directly after my retinol serum, and I just love how it makes my skin feel.

3. Sugar Lemon Body Wash and Lotion

So lemon has always been one of my favorite scents/flavors (like lemon Luna bars and Lemonades from the Girl Scouts are my weakness), so the first time I smelt this scent, I was done for. My skin is SO soft after using this shower gel, and the lotion *chef’s kiss*. Together, I just look and smell amazing. With ingredients like mango seed extract and actual sugar, Vitamins C&E, and nourishing shea butter, it’s doing good for your skin while leaving you feeling nice and refreshed.

4. Lip Treatments

So with the return of the masks, unfortunately means that my lips are back to being as dry as the Sahara. Never in a million years would I have imagined myself paying almost $20 for a lip balm, but these have become an actual favorite of mine. To be totally honest, I have two just because I hate going between bags and forgetting it in the other when I need it. So the mint flavored one lives in my work purse, meanwhile the tinted Rose one lives in my just regular purse (so that way there’s a bit of color on my lips when I’m going out to eat). I’m honestly probably way too obsessed, but with winter coming at least I know crusty lips aren’t in my forecast.

Thank you so much for joining me this week, and if you want to check out Fresh for yourself, I’ll have their website linked here. As always, if you want to keep up with me, all of my socials are linked in the bar. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and see you next Friday!