I cycled through about 9 different moisturizers in year alone: CeraVe, Cetaphil, La Mer, Estée Lauder, dermatologist approved, clean ingredients, vegan — you name it, I've tried it.
Spent more money than I want to admit on serums with fancy ingredients I couldn't even pronounce.
Tried a Vitamin C routine all the Dermatologists on YouTube swore by. Tried slugging. Tried multivitamins and collagen powders.
Did all of those religiously for about months at a time. Didn't notice any real change in my face.
I even went to my own dermatologist. She examined me for about four minutes, asked a few questions, then concluded all my complaints were just part of aging.
She recommended I use a heavier moisturizer, drink more water, and do yoga. I wanted to cry. I was already using the heaviest moisturizer I could find, I'd drink so much water that I'd have to pee every 30 minutes, and I'd been doing Zumba for about 3 years at that point. None of it helped.
So I continued trying other options my friends recommended (red light therapy, monthly facials, clean diet). I didn't notice anything with red light therapy or cleaning up my diet, it felt like a placebo.
The facials did make me look good, but only for about 1-2 days, not to mention each one costed me $200.
Then one night, at about 1 AM, I was lying in bed unable to sleep. My face was so dry and itchy, that out of pure frustration and anger, I went down this rabbit hole of research.
I started googling things like "How do Korean skin age so well" because I'd seen so many videos of all these Korean women who looked 35, but were actually in their 50s.
I had to know what they were doing differently.
But that rabbit hole took me somewhere I wasn't expecting at all...