Don't Be Afraid of Knock-Off or Low Cost Skincare Products

After years of being in denial that I wouldn’t have to use anti-aging products until I was in my late 30s or early 40s I realized I was crazy. Time keeps moving forward and taking it’s toll on your skin and your body. So for all you 20 somethings out there that don’t have a line on your face you better start doing something NOW. The day those little wrinkles are deep enough for you to see them it will be too late to go back. Since I don’t look like and old wrinkled leather jacket yet I decided that I needed to find products that were more geared to preventing and repairing the weaknesses in my skin.

Here I am in my early 30s and already I see expression lines forming around my eyes and across my forehead. More and more there is build up of dead dry skin in places I did not have it before. My pores look larger and the texture of my skin is not what I would like it to be. And I have breakouts of acne on my chin and forehead to boot! For years I’ve been treating the acne and ignoring the little crinkles around my eyes. I can’t ignore them anymore. The skin looks and feels much more dry than it did five years ago and it’s only going to get worse (sigh).

My DH, sweet man, is 10 years older than me and has always looked young for his age. I on the other hand have always looked older than my age. So much so that when we were first married some idiot actually asked which one of us was older :(. A few years later, a year after I had graduated college, a ding-bat waitress asked if we had a son who went to the college I had just graduated from. The guy would have just been 5 years younger than me! Guess I should have taken a clue then that I needed to do something with my look to project my true age.

For many months I’ve been thinking about getting something – a night cream, an eye firming product or something to help stave off the signs of aging. Being a mom on a tight budget, like many out there, even paying $30 for a face cream or face wash seems exorbitant. Risk aversion is one of my issues – what if it doesn’t work, or it makes me break out or irritates my skin terribly and my money goes down the drain. That’s when I thought, “HMM, maybe I should check Dollar General or Big Lots for skin care products.” Sure enough I came upon a anti-aging face wash which is a knock off of Olay Total Effects Revitalizing Foaming Face Wash at Dollar General. For just a few dollars I was willing to try it out. It is light, pleasantly scented and without any soap it does a good job cleansing any makeup or just crud from the day off my face. Still I was missing a face cream. All through the summer I had used a Neutrogena 70 SPF face lotion because I work outside a lot, but nothing at night other than my anti acne lotion. I realize now that though it was helping prevent and treat breakouts that it was drying the more delicate parts of my face.

The other day at Aldi – we just started shopping there (again) – I came upon something I did not expect. Lacura skin care products by Aldi. Right away I scanned the shelf and found a CO-Q10 anti-aging day cream and night cream and I got both. As soon as I got home and finished putting the groceries away, I washed my face with the Dollar General anti-aging face wash, used an astringent to close up my pores and then gently massaged the night cream into my freshly cleaned face.

I was hoping that the Lacura Night Cream would be light but moisturizing and not irritate my face. The fragrance was a little perfumy for my taste, but it wasn’t overwhelming. When I awoke the next morning, my face still felt soft, not greasy and there were no signs of irritation. So, I washed my face again, used the astringent, and applied the day cream. Honestly, I was not a fan of the day cream right off the bat. It was heavier and felt a little more greasy. I was expecting, or hoping, for a more satiny soft feel after it absorbed, but my skin felt more dewy and definitely moisturized. The real test of whether I like it or not will be how it affects the way my makeup sits on my face – will it pool and slide off from the “greasy” feel or will it stay in place? We’ll see; my hopes are not very high for this because within an hour I can see a glaze of what looks like oil over my T-zone and most of my face. The cream only has an SPF of 4 which is almost laughable so if you’ll be spending much time in the sun, summer or winter, I would suggest getting an additional protectant or another cream with better built in protection altogether. One thing I did like is that I could put the cream around my eye area, lower and upper lid, and did not experience any irritation. At least for my days at home I’ll be wearing this cream on my face.

Throughout the day I noticed an interesting side effect of the day cream. It was softening the skin on my face so much that it was actually helping to push impurities out of my pores. When I ran my nail across the pores next to my nose I was amazed to see what came out. I feel that this did play a role in helping my pores to start to tighten.

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