Girl Talk | 8 Girls Share Their Skin Essentials And Routines (Part 1)

I am quite a vain person, but my laziness far outweighs my vanity most of the time. I love looking good, but I loathe the effort I have to put into looking so. I have a 2 step mini skin routine (if you can even call it that) for everyday, but today is not about me. Today is about these ladies that actually put some effort into taking care of their skin day in and day out. These ladies are all very different from each other in skin type, lifestyle, even countries they live in. Some of them are bloggers you may know, others are housewives and students you may not. But they are all that kind of ladies that we wonder about; how can they be so pretty?? So, I have made some of the  prettiest women I know, spill their secrets.  Since there are so much things to cover, I have split the post in to two. The next post will be up in 2 days.

Here are skin care, routine, must haves of the first 4 ladies! :) 

Aparna Devik

Aparna Devik, is my best friend's sister and of course, that means she is a sister to me too. She is perhaps one of the prettiest woman I know. She is 25, happily married and lives in Canada with her husband. A true shopaholic, she loves her shoes and lipsticks. 

Now, onto her skin care routine, must haves and secrets!

• Aparna believes in having beautiful skin inside out! She fills up on water, cucumber and tomato everyday. 
• Her morning routine includes using Clean and Clear Morning Burst Face wash and applies L'Oreal Future E Moisturizer. 
• She does not wear any base makeup on a daily basis and just wears only color cosmetics on her eyes or lips. Believe it or not, she is only wearing the eyeliner and lipstick in the above photo. 
• For night, she washes her face daily and applies Vitamin E Night Cream from The Body Shop. 
• Twice a week, she uses the St.Ives Apricot Scrub and massages with almond oil or vitamin E oil before bathing. 
• She also uses semolina and milk for cleansing on occasion. 

These are some of Aparna's favorite skin care items: 

Aparna's Skin Care Must haves

Renji Anooj of Makeupholic World 

Renji is 27, a keralite living in Hyderabad and works in Amazon India. I know that she is probably familiar to those that are frequent blog readers, but if you haven’t checked her blog out, you should do so (Makeupholic World).  Renji makes the point clear that her is skin is not perfect, and she battles things like dark circles, redness around nose area and that her skin is of combination type and is sensitive and acne prone.  But her diligent use of few key products keeps her skin healthy and glowing. 

Now, what are the tips, tricks and products that Renji swears by?

Being a beauty blogger, Renji does not use a particular product for more than 6 months; she also does so depending upon the season.  During this winter, Renji has around 15 products she uses according to her whims and needs.

1. Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Capsules Daily Youth Restoring Serum

2. Mirenesse Pebble Sonic Skin Cleansing Device + Mirenesse day & night foaming cleansers

3. Philosophy Eye Hope Moisturizing Eye Cream (night eye cream)

4. Herbalife Skin Eye gel + Herbalife Skin Eye cream (day eye cream)

5. Yves Rocher Sebo Specific Zero Defect Moisturiser – For Night (only for winters)

6. Yves Rocher Perfecting Toning Lotion – Favorite Toner for day & Yves Rocher Cleansing water (acts like a toner) for night

7. Yves Rocher Exfoliating Foaming Cleanser – Mild scrub

8. Magnitone Lucid Daily Cleansing brush

9. Egyptian Magic Cream – for preventing breakouts and removal of scars

10. Tony Moly Red Appletox Honey Cream

11. Rose Bud Salve Lipbalm

12. WondeRuci Cacao Brightening Mask

13. Gia Bath & Body Works Angel Face Cleanser – Every day after removing makeup

14. Gia Bath & Body Works Cleopatra Mask – Everyday

15. Josie Maran Argan Oil

Morning Routine:

Renji’s morning routine starts off by using the magnitone lucid and taking Mirenesse Day cleanser (which is switched up with Yves Rocher Exfoliating Foaming Cleanser twice a week)and  massages with low speed setting for less than 2 minutes.

The cleanser is then washed off and face is wiped using a cotton pad with Yves Rocher Perfecting Toning Lotion. She use Herbalife Skin Eye gel + Herbalife Skin Eye cream next and gently massage the area around the eyes for about a minute. She also applies the Strawberry variant of the Rose Bud Salve Lipbalm (the best lipbalm she has ever used, in Renji’s opinion). She then applies one Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Capsule on the entire face and neck and does her morning household chores. While putting on makeup, she again moisturizes her face using Herbalife Daily glow moisturizer. This goes under the makeup.

Night Routine:

Renji makes sure to remove all her makeup every night, first using MAC cleanse off oil and then using wet wipes from Himalaya or Pampers to remove anything the cleanser could not catch. She then continues to wash her face with Gia Bath and Body Works Angels Cleanser. After this, she dips a Q-tip in the Mac Cleanse off and make sure no makeup is remaining. She then applies Cleopatra Mask and go on with blogging, or cooking. Right before bed, the Mirenesse pebblesonic and night cleanser is used for up to 2 minutes. After that, a cotton pad dipped in YR Cleansing water is applied all over, concentrating on nose, chin and forehead areas. For the under eyes, the Philosophy Eye Hope moisturizer is massaged in and is topped with a drop of Josie Maran Argan Oil. Finally the YR Sebo perfect Zero Defect moisturizer is applied (Only in winters though). In case of acne, she spot treats with Egyptian Magic Cream.

Weekly Routine

On the Weekends, Renji does a home facial using WondeRuci Cacao Brightening Mask,which helps detan. She also occasionally does homemade treatments such with Oats, manuka honey and banana or Tomato and Lemon Juice or a Coffee and refined demarara Sugar scrub for exfoliating lips or freshly ground Almond Powder and milk for under eyes etc.  But these are all done on good skin days. When having a bad skin day, she uses Nutmeg + honey or Cinnamon and honey face mask for removing acne.

Favorite Salon Service:

Once every month, Renji makes sure to do a pedicure, hair spa, a haircut every 3 months, and when sh gets facial it is mostly Shahnaz pearl/diamond. Her favorite salon is Mirrors, Hyderabad. 

Namita Fawaz Of Namis Page

Namitha (or nimi, to her loved ones) is my cousin sister and perhaps the only other blogger in the family. She was brought up in Paris, France and she loves cooking, and believes firmly in a holistic approach to health and skin care. She often surprises me with her interest in Ayurveda and natural fixes handed down from ancestors. She is currently settled in Germany with her husband.

Now, what is her skin care regimen like?

•         Namitha does not believe in being obsessed about any skin care routine. She believes that if you are too careful about it, then even the smallest imperfections like a miniscule zit can ruin your day.
•         She does not use any soap or chemicals on her face at all. She uses chick pea flour (Besan) and water as a cleanser.
•       Since it is quite cold where she lives, she has to use some kind of cream and she uses the most basic of Oil of Olay. As she does not like the oily feeling of the cream, a little bit of talc is applied on top.
•         When Namitha was faced with acne due to Vitamin D deficiency, the dermatologist recommended heavy medicines for it. She decided to take the matter into her own hands and approached a homeo doctor and started homeopathic treatment. However, the secret weapon that she swears by is Organic Tea Tree Oil. She applied it diligently every night and the acne cleared up with no scarring at all.
•         As for any night routine, Nami does not use anything else other than the Tea Tree Oil. Sometimes, she uses Nalpamaradi oil (Ayurvedic) as recommended by an Ayurvedic doctor.
•         She does not like spending hours doing things for her skin, when she feels like her skin needs refreshment she uses a honey and lemon face mask, and also green gram powder mixed with water as an exfoliator.

Ridhvana Karim of I'Makeup

Ridhvana is actually somebody I met quite recently. She is a fellow makeup lover who lives quite near to me. She is a Medicine student and has a Facebook page dedicated to sharing makeup and beauty tidbits. She is a MAC and Bobbi Brown lover, who stocks upon her favorite products every summer when she visits her family in UAE.

Now, what are Ridhvana’s skin essentials?

•        Being a full time medicine student, she has no time to take care of her skin too much, but she absolutely loves her Body Shop and Bath and Body Works products.
•        Every morning, she washes her face with Dove deep moisturizing face wash and applies the Sweet Pea Body Butter and just basic talcum powder.
•         When she feels like her skin needs a pick me up, she uses a facial scrub from Deromviva.
•         Every night, she makes sure to use either Ayurvedic beauty oil like Kumkumadi oil, or uses Fair & Lovely Night Repair Cream.
•         On the weekends, if she feels like her skin requires some pampering, she uses the Indulekha Face Pack.
•         Her go to Beauty Parlour is Mia Beautycare, North Paravur (my favorite as well). She likes to do a basic clean and maybe diamond bleach once in a while, she is a firm believer in removing peach fuzz to get that clean look.

I am honestly so glad I decided to do this series. I am learning so much more about the efforts that the women around me put into looking good, and taking care of themselves. In this single series, I believe I have gotten enough information for all the different types of ladies out there to get an idea about how they should be taking care of their skin!

Please stay tuned for Part 2 of this series featuring 4 other pretty ladies (including two favorite bloggers).