Esente Skincare

Short answer: Some things, yes, and fewer than the marketing suggests. Face massage feels good, which is not nothing. It can make morning puffiness look less obvious for a while. It spreads product evenly over the skin. What it does not do is lift tissue, change the bone underneath, or produce the result of a procedure. The evidence for lasting change is thin, and the visible effect is temporary. Done gently, it is a pleasant part of a routine. Done heavily, especially around the eyes, it is a way to irritate very thin skin.

Here is what is reasonable to expect from it, and what is not.

What people mean by face massage

The phrase covers several different things: fingertips moving over skin while a cream or oil is applied, a roller, a flat stone, a small powered device, and professional treatments given in a clinic. They get discussed as one practice with one set of results. They are not.

Professional treatments performed in a clinic are a separate class from anything you do at home, selected and administered by qualified practitioners. Nothing in this article is about those.

What it plausibly does

It feels good. Your own hands on your face at the end of a day is pleasant, and a routine you enjoy is one you keep. That is a modest claim and a true one.

It can make morning puffiness look less obvious. Gentle massage may temporarily make morning puffiness look less noticeable. The important word is temporarily: morning puffiness usually eases on its own as the day goes on, and it can be back the next morning.

It gets product where you want it. This is the quietly useful one. A cream spread evenly sits in a thin film instead of three thick spots and a dry patch by your ear. If a serum seems to sit on the surface, several things can be involved: the formulation, the amount used, how products are layered, the condition of your skin and how it was applied. Why Your Serum Is Not Absorbing covers those in more detail.

What it does not do

It does not lift anything. How firm a face looks depends on structures beneath the skin. Moving skin around from the outside does not reposition them. The word sculpting describes a temporary look, not a change to your face.

It does not change bone. No amount of pressure alters the shape of a cheekbone or a jaw.

It does not stand in for a procedure. Clinic treatments and home routines are different categories with different results, and no roller is a smaller version of a treatment.

It does not flush toxins. Manual lymphatic drainage is a real technique used by trained practitioners in specific medical situations. As a bathroom-mirror routine, the claims run well ahead of the evidence. Any change you see after gentle massage is temporary. Crepey Skin on the Neck and Décolleté covers what does and does not change the look of loose skin.

Rollers and gua sha stones, fairly

They are pleasant, inexpensive and hard to get badly wrong. A cool stone on the face on a hot morning is a nice thing, and people who enjoy the ritual get something real from it.

The honest position is narrower than the claims. The evidence that either produces lasting change is thin, and the immediate cosmetic effect on puffiness is temporary. That does not make them a waste of money if you enjoy them. It makes them a pleasant habit rather than a treatment. The risk is not the tool, it is the pressure.

The part worth being careful about

Heavy dragging is the thing to avoid. Skin around the eye is particularly thin, and pulling at it repeatedly is the wrong kind of stress on skin that shows every bit of irritation. Keep contact light, use enough slip from a serum or cream that nothing tugs, and if your skin is red or sore afterward, you pressed too hard. Do Eye Creams Work? covers that area in more detail.

If your skin is reactive, if you have redness that flares, active blemishes, or a recent professional treatment, ask the practitioner who looks after your skin first. That is also why there is no schedule here. How often and how long depend on your skin and on the directions for what you are using.

Applying products at home

At home, leave-on products such as serums and crèmes are generally applied with clean fingertips, following the directions for the individual formulation. Wash your hands first, use the amount the directions give, and spread it with light contact rather than pressure. Some products are meant to be patted in, some smoothed, and some kept away from the eye area, so the directions for each one matter more than any general technique.

Professional treatments are different. In treatments at Younger You Clinique, Victoria follows strict hygiene protocols, including protective gloves while products are applied.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance.

Her advice on massage comes down to three things. Use gentle pressure, especially around the eyes. Keep your expectations realistic: massage can be a pleasant part of applying skincare, and any visible effect on puffiness is temporary. And follow the directions for each individual formulation, because how a product should be applied is part of how it was designed to be used. If you want to know how to apply something you already own, the Ask Victoria page is the place to ask.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: Hands get almost as much sun as the face and a fraction of the sunscreen. They are washed a dozen times a day, the skin on the back of the hand is thin, and they meet cleaning products, hot water and cold air all year. That combination shows. Daily broad-spectrum sunscreen on the backs of the hands, an appropriate moisturizer used consistently, and gloves for washing up and for cold weather do change how hands look over time. What a cream will not do is reposition tissue or stand in for a procedure.

People spend years on their face and almost nothing on the two things that appear in every photograph.

Why hands show it

They are in the sun constantly. Hands on the steering wheel, out of the car window, on the garden fork, on the dog lead. UVA passes through window glass, so driving counts. And the people who are most careful with sunscreen on their face usually stop at the jaw. In a four-and-a-half-year randomized trial in Queensland, Australia, adults under 55 assigned to daily broad-spectrum SPF 15 or higher sunscreen were 24% less likely to show increased skin aging, measured on the back of the hand, than adults who used sunscreen at their own discretion. Do You Need Sunscreen Every Day? explains the case.

They are washed all day. Every wash takes some surface oil with it, and hot water and strong soap take more. Add sanitizer, dish water and cleaning products and the surface rarely gets a chance to recover.

The skin is thin. The skin on the back of the hand is thin, and it sits over tendons and veins with little padding underneath. Everything that happens in it is visible immediately, which is not true of a cheek.

They live outdoors. Hands are bare when you are outside. Cold, dry air and wind take water off exposed skin faster, and the hands are usually the most exposed thing you own.

The washing problem, and the habit that fixes it

You are not going to wash your hands less, and you should not. The fix is what happens in the ten seconds afterward.

Keep a hand cream wherever you wash: the kitchen sink, the bathroom, the desk, the bag, the bedside. Apply while hands are still slightly damp, because that holds water already on the skin. This works as a habit, not as a protocol. Keeping moisturizer conveniently available makes consistent use easier.

Gloves are the other half. Rubber gloves for dishes and cleaning products, warm gloves in cold wind. Both keep the two harshest things off your hands for the price of remembering.

What actually changes how hands look

Hydration. Dry, rough hands look older than smooth, well-hydrated ones, and this is the fastest visible change available. Choose an appropriate moisturizer and use it consistently, after washing and again before bed.

Sun protection. Broad-spectrum sunscreen on the backs of the hands every morning, reapplied after washing when you can. This is prevention: it protects against further sun exposure rather than changing how hands look this week.

Gentle exfoliation when it suits your skin. A body polish used lightly, following its directions, smooths a rough surface so it catches light more evenly. How often depends on your skin and how it responds. Avoid exfoliating cracked, irritated or sore skin, and never press hard.

Patience with tone. Sun spots on the backs of the hands are slow to change. Any improvement in their appearance is gradual, and it depends on daily sun protection alongside whatever else you use. Dark Spots and Uneven Skin Tone covers what is realistic.

Treating them as part of the body. Whatever you use on arms and legs can go on hands. Do You Need a Body Skincare Routine? has the whole routine in one page.

Be honest about the limits

The appearance of crepey skin on the hands can improve. Well-hydrated skin looks smoother and reflects light more evenly, and that is a real cosmetic difference you can see. The appearance of dark spots can improve too, slowly, with consistent care and sun protection.

What no topical product does is reposition tissue, replace the padding that thins under the skin over the years, or reproduce the result of a procedure. Those are different categories of thing. In-clinic treatments are a separate class from retail skincare: they are selected and administered by qualified practitioners, and a cream is not a smaller version of one. Be wary of any promise that a hand cream will do what a clinic does. Crepey Skin on the Neck and Décolleté makes the same distinction for the neck.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance. Her perspective on hands starts with prevention and sun protection. Victoria applies daily broad-spectrum sunscreen to the backs of her hands, and when driving she wears lightweight white linen gloves to help reduce continued sun exposure. That is her own preventive practice rather than a requirement for everyone, and it reflects how much sun hands collect in ordinary life.

For hands and body, the Esenté range includes the Shea Butter Ultra Rich Hydra Crème and the Cellaris Body Crème, with the Shea Butter Exfoliating Body Polish where exfoliation suits your skin. Follow the directions printed on whichever you use, and use a clean cosmetic spatula for anything taken from an open jar. Esenté products are developed collaboratively by our management team and our professional formulation and manufacturing partners, and are manufactured exclusively in the USA.

If you want a second opinion on where to start, the Ask Victoria page is open.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: Cold air holds less moisture than warm air, and indoor heating dries it further, so in winter your skin spends the day in drier air than it is used to. Add wind and hot showers and the surface loses water faster than usual. The answer is not a new routine. It is a few adjustments guided by how your skin actually feels: cooler water, moisturizer applied while the skin retains some moisture, and a moisturizer your skin is comfortable with in dry air. Keep the sunscreen. Lips, hands and body usually need attention before your face does.

Here is what changes in winter, what to adjust, and what to leave alone.

Why cold weather changes your skin

Warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air. When the temperature outside drops, the moisture the air can carry drops with it, so winter air is drier than summer air even on a day that feels damp. Dry air pulls water from whatever is exposed to it, and your face is exposed to it all day.

Then you go indoors, and the heating warms that same dry air without putting any water back. The cold outside gets the blame, and the radiator does as much of the work. Wind adds to it: moving air carries water off the surface faster than still air, which is why a windy walk leaves your face tight and raw when a cold, still day does not.

Then there is the shower. A long hot shower on a cold morning is one of life’s small pleasures, and it is hard on dry skin. Hot water takes more oil off the surface than warm water does, and that oil is part of what slows water loss. What Is the Skin Barrier? explains why that surface layer matters.

What to change

Turn the water down. Warm rather than hot, shorter rather than longer, at the sink and in the shower. This costs nothing.

Moisturize while skin still has some moisture. After cleansing or bathing, gently pat the skin dry and apply moisturizer while the skin retains some moisture.

Look again at your moisturizer. Some people find a richer formulation suits the colder months and go back to something lighter later. Others use one product year round. Whether a product suits you depends on the complete formulation and on your own skin, not on how thick it looks, so treat it as something to try rather than a rule. How to Choose a Moisturizer for Mature Skin covers what a moisturizer is doing.

Notice how your cleanser leaves you. If your skin feels tight long after washing once the heating is on, the cleanser is worth reconsidering. That is a question about the whole formulation, not about whether it foams.

Consider the air indoors. In particularly dry indoor environments, a humidifier may also help increase ambient moisture.

Keep the steps that suit you. In the Esenté routine, a toner or an antioxidant mist can follow cleansing, then a hydrating serum if you use one, then moisturizer. Which of those steps your skin needs, and how often, depends on the individual.

What to leave alone

Sunscreen. Winter sun is still sun. UVA passes through cloud and through window glass, and snow reflects a good deal of the ultraviolet that lands on it straight back at your face. Daily broad-spectrum sunscreen belongs in the January routine exactly as it belongs in the July one. Day Cream vs Night Cream covers where it sits in the morning order.

Exfoliation, within reason. Dry weather is not a reason to exfoliate more. Whether you continue as before should depend on your skin’s condition and how it responds. If skin becomes unusually dry or irritated, adjust accordingly, which may mean exfoliating less often or pausing for a while, and follow the directions for whatever you use.

Everything that is already working. Changing five things at once in January means you will not know which one helped.

Lips, hands and body go first

Oil-gland distribution varies considerably from one part of the body to another, and several of the areas that take the most winter punishment, including the hands, have fewer glands than the face does. The lips are thinner again and have very little oil of their own, which is why they chap before anything else.

So the season shows up first at the edges: chapped lips, rough hands, itchy shins, flaky forearms. Moisturize the body after the shower while skin is still damp, keep a hand cream wherever you wash your hands, and wear gloves in cold wind for the same reason you wear a scarf. Do You Need a Body Skincare Routine? has the simple version.

When it is more than winter dryness

Most winter dryness answers to warmer water, moisturizer and patience. Some does not. Skin that stays cracked, sore or itchy despite a sensible routine, or that changes in a way you cannot account for, is worth showing to a dermatologist or another appropriate healthcare professional.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance. Victoria emphasizes responding to the environment your skin is actually experiencing. Cold winter climates can increase dryness, but very dry climates may create similar concerns at other times of year. Seasonal adjustments should therefore be guided by the condition of your skin rather than simply by the calendar.

The Esenté range covers face and body. For the face there are the Hyaluronic Hydration Crème, the Recovery Crème and the Hydra-Plus Night Crème for the overnight hours; for the body, the Cellaris Body Crème and the Shea Butter Ultra Rich Hydra Crème. Follow the directions printed on whichever you use. Ech is developed collaboratively by our management team and our professional formulation and manufacturing partners, and are manufactured exclusively in the USA.

If you are not sure what to change when the weather turns, the Ask Victoria page is the place to ask.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: In the United States, “natural” and “clean” are not FDA-defined or FDA-certified cosmetic categories. There is no regulatory test a product passes to earn either word. What they may describe is a brand’s formulation philosophy or its positioning, which is a fair use of them as long as you know that is what you are reading. They are not meaningless, and they are not a safety rating. The more useful question is how a brand selects its ingredients, whether it discloses them in full, and whether it explains what the important ones are there to do.

That last question is the one you can check for yourself before you buy.

What the words mean in law

Less than people assume.

In the United States, “natural” and “clean” are not FDA-defined or FDA-certified cosmetic categories. No regulator issues a certificate for either one. A brand decides to use the word, and it means whatever that brand’s own definition says it means.

This puts them in the same family as “medical grade” and “cosmeceutical”, which are also not regulatory categories. What Medical Grade Skincare Actually Means and “Cosmeceutical”: A Word With No Legal Meaning go through both. It is the same pattern each time: a phrase that sounds regulatory, used as shorthand for how a brand formulates, and sometimes read by shoppers as a guarantee nobody issued.

Origin is one question, not the whole answer

Natural and botanically derived ingredients can bring a great deal to a formulation, and for many brands, Esenté among them, they are a central part of how products are made. That is a legitimate way to formulate, and a real difference between brands.

What matters is why each ingredient is there. An ingredient earns its place through its suitability and its contribution to the complete formulation, whatever its origin. Whether a finished product suits your skin depends on the specific ingredients, the amounts and how the whole formula has been put together, and on your own skin.

Nature and science are not opposites here. A formulation can rest on a botanical foundation and still draw on modern formulation science, and the best-considered products often do both.

Why the words are still not meaningless

A brand that calls itself natural or clean is telling you it has drawn a line about how it formulates, and usually that it will say where that line is.

That is real information. It is information about a philosophy rather than a certification, and the follow-up question is always the same: what does the brand mean by it, and what does it tell you about its ingredients? A brand with a clear, published answer has told you something. A word on the front with nothing behind it has told you less.

Transparency and education are two different things

A complete ingredient list gives you transparency. You can see everything that is in the product, in the standard order. How to Read a Skincare Ingredient List covers how that order works and what the names mean.

An explanation of the key ingredients gives you education. A long list of names tells a shopper what is present. It does not tell them why the important ingredients were chosen or what they are intended to contribute. A brand that identifies its key ingredients and explains their intended benefits in plain language is doing something more useful than a word on the front can.

Both matter. Transparency without explanation leaves most people guessing, and explanation without full disclosure asks you to take the brand’s word for it.

What you can actually check

You cannot fully assess a formulation from a label, and nothing here is a scorecard. These are considerations, not a measure of quality.

Does the brand provide useful information about the formula, its key ingredients, intended benefits and appropriate use? This is the question that does the most work, and it applies at every price point. Is Expensive Skincare Worth It? takes the same approach to a different question.

Is the full ingredient list published? Disclosure in full is the starting point.

Does the brand say anything about how the finished product was tested? Dermatologist-Tested vs Clinically Proven decodes the phrases you will see.

Do the claims stay inside what a topical cosmetic can do? Appearance, comfort, hydration, texture. A product promising to undo the years is promising more than a cosmetic delivers, whatever the front says.

One thing not to look for: published percentages of each ingredient. Many brands, Esenté among them, treat the concentrations in their proprietary formulations as confidential, and the absence of a published percentage is not a sign that anything is missing or weak. Formulation design, ingredient sourcing, stability work, manufacturing standards and packaging all contribute to a finished product, and none of them appear as a number on the back.

Aroma and fragrance

Fragrance is where “natural” and “clean” get used hardest and explain least.

Esenté does not add perfume simply to give a product a cosmetic fragrance. Some formulations have a natural aroma from their botanical ingredients, and certain formulations use botanical essential oils for their intended skincare contribution, which can also give them an aroma.

Whatever the source, an aroma is not automatically gentle and not automatically irritating. If your skin reacts easily, informed product selection comes first: read the full ingredient list and understand what the key ingredients are there to do. For particularly reactive skin, a small test in an appropriate area can be an additional precaution. How to Patch Test a New Product explains when that helps.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance.

Victoria believes consumers should be able to understand not only what is in a skincare product, but why important ingredients have been included. Esenté provides complete ingredient lists while also identifying key ingredients and explaining their intended benefits in straightforward language. Natural and botanically derived ingredients are an important part of Esenté’s formulation philosophy, but ingredients are selected for their suitability and contribution to the complete formulation, not simply because they can be described as natural. Modern formulation science, including chirally corrected ingredients where appropriate, works alongside that botanical foundation. Esenté products are developed collaboratively by our management team and our professional formulation and manufacturing partners, and are manufactured exclusively in the USA.

If a label has left you none the wiser, the Ask Victoria page will answer a direct question.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: Yes, but the number of products is rarely the whole story. Adding several new products at once makes it hard to identify which one may be causing a problem, and layering several exfoliating or retinoid products can add up to more irritation than any one would cause alone. Just as often, the problem is using too much of a single product, or using it too often. More product, or more frequent use, does not produce faster or better results. A longer routine is not wrong when each product has a clear purpose and is used in the right amount.

There is no correct number of products. There is whether each one is doing a job you can name, and whether you are using the right amount of it.

What actually goes wrong

More surfaces to react to. Every product is a set of ingredients your skin has not met before. Add enough of them and the odds that one causes trouble go up. That is arithmetic, not a judgement about anyone’s taste in skincare.

It gets harder to tell what is causing a problem. If you start several new products at once and your cheeks start burning, you have several suspects and no way to identify which product may be causing it. Introducing one new product at a time keeps that question answerable, however long the routine is.

Exfoliating and retinoid products can add up. Exfoliating acids and retinoids both ask something of the skin. Used together, they can increase irritation for some people, and the same goes for layering several separate exfoliating products in the same routine. That is not a universal ban, and it is not the same as a formulation that contains more than one acid by design. Check the directions for the individual products, and if you are not sure, ask a licensed skincare professional or your dermatologist.

A routine you cannot keep up is the first thing to go. People rarely abandon a routine because it stopped working. More often they abandon it because it takes too long on a night when they are tired. Consistency is most of what makes skincare do anything, so a routine you actually complete beats one you perform twice a week.

Less is best means amount and frequency

Victoria’s “less is best” philosophy is often misread as “use fewer products.” It is mainly about the appropriate amount and frequency of each individual product.

Retinol is the clearest example. Using more than the directions call for, or applying it more often than directed, will not speed anything up. It can lead to excessive dryness, flaking, redness or sensitivity instead. The same logic applies to exfoliating products: more often, or more of it, is not better. Each product has an amount and a frequency that suit it, and those are set out in its directions.

The fair counter-argument

A longer routine is not inherently worse, and the scorn aimed at ten-step routines is mostly fashion.

If you have several concerns at once, several products is a reasonable answer. Dryness, uneven tone and breakouts are different problems, and one cream is not obliged to solve all three. Someone using a cleanser, a toner, a targeted serum, an eye product, a moisturizer and sunscreen is not doing anything excessive. They have six jobs and six products.

The real question is never the count. It is whether you can say what each product is for, and whether you would notice if it disappeared. A routine of four products where two are doing nothing is worse designed than a routine of eight where all eight have a purpose. Building a Daily Regimen Around Your Skin works through that properly.

How to cut back without losing what works

Do not strip everything out at once. If you remove six products on a Sunday and your skin improves, you have learned nothing about which five you could have kept.

Take one out at a time and give the change a fair run before you judge it, which takes longer than most people expect. How Long Should Skincare Take to Work? explains why the answer varies with the product and the person.

The first candidates are easy to spot once you look. Duplicates, where two products are doing the same job under different names. Anything bought for a concern you no longer have. Anything you keep out of guilt because it was expensive. Anything you cannot explain.

Keep whatever is carrying your barrier: your cleanser, whatever keeps your skin comfortable, and your sunscreen. Those are the load-bearing walls. What Is the Skin Barrier? covers why irritation is usually the thing that undoes a routine.

What a routine is built on

Cleansing, something that supports hydration and comfort, and daily broad-spectrum sunscreen in the morning. That is the frame most routines hang on, and almost everything else is an addition to it rather than a replacement for it.

Esenté’s professional approach adds one step there that often gets dropped: a toner or an appropriate antioxidant mist after cleansing, as a distinct step rather than part of the cleanse. Victoria considers that step an important one because it helps support the skin’s normal mildly acidic surface. It is her recommended routine rather than a universal rule.

Where you put things also matters more than how many you own. Skincare Order and Product Storage covers sequence, and it will tell you more than another purchase would.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance. Her “less is best” philosophy concerns the appropriate amount and frequency of each product, not how many products a well-designed regimen should contain. Esenté’s approach is organized around steps rather than a shelf: cleanse, tone, then hydrate, with targeted products added where there is a reason for them, and each used as directed.

For those steps, Esenté makes the Orchid Reviving Cleanser, a non-foaming cleanser, the Octet Herbal Toner, which contains no alcohol, and the Hyaluronic Hydration Crème. Each is developed collaboratively by Victoria Nash with Esenté’s professional formulation and manufacturing partners, with Victoria providing product direction, ingredient research, professional-use feedback and performance requirements. If you want a second opinion on what to keep and what to retire, the Ask Victoria page is the place to ask.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: Informed product selection comes first. Before a new product goes anywhere, understand what it is meant to do, whether it suits your skin, how it should be used and what it contains. A patch test is an additional precaution on top of that, most useful if your skin is particularly reactive, you have a history of sensitivity, or you have a concern about a particular formulation. Test a small amount in an area that makes sense for how the product will be used, follow the product’s own directions for application and removal, and introduce one new product at a time.

A small test can be useful. It does not replace choosing the right product in the first place.

Start with the product, not the patch

Most advice about patch testing skips the step that does the most work: choosing a product that is right for you to begin with.

That means knowing what the product is for and whether that matches what you want. It means reading how it should be used, including whether it stays on or rinses off, and whether it is meant for the face, the eye area or the body. And it means reading the full ingredient list, then paying attention to the key ingredients and what the brand says they are there to do. How to Read a Skincare Ingredient List is a useful place to start.

Aroma is worth a note here, because it causes confusion. Esenté does not add perfume simply to give a product a cosmetic fragrance. Some formulations have a natural aroma from their botanical ingredients, and certain formulations use botanical essential oils for their intended skincare contribution, which can also give them an aroma. A botanical aroma is not automatically irritating, and it is not automatically gentle either. If a particular ingredient has bothered you before, the ingredient list is where to look.

When a test makes sense

A patch test is not a ritual every product needs. It earns its place in particular situations.

Particularly reactive skin. If your skin flushes, stings or tightens readily, a small test first is a reasonable extra step. A Routine for Sensitive Skin covers the rest of that picture.

A history of sensitivity. If you have reacted to skincare before, or you know an ingredient that tends to bother you, a test gives you one more check.

A concern about a particular formulation. Retinoid formulations and exfoliating formulations are the common examples, because of what they are designed to do. A product from a brand you have not used before can fall here too.

For someone with comfortable, unreactive skin choosing a product carefully, a test is optional. It is a precaution, not a requirement.

Where to test

There is no single correct spot. The test area should make sense for the product’s intended use.

A product meant for the face tells you most when it is tested on a small, discreet area of facial skin. A body product belongs on the body. Where a product’s own directions describe how or where to test it, those directions take precedence over anything general, including this article.

Whatever the area, use clean, unbroken skin. Skin that is already irritated, sunburned or freshly exfoliated will not give you an answer you can trust.

How to go about it

Use a small amount. You are looking for a reaction, not results.

Then follow the individual product’s directions for application and removal. A rinse-off product, such as a cleanser or a mask, comes off at the point its directions say. A leave-on product stays on the way it would in normal use. Testing a rinse-off product by leaving it on all day tells you nothing useful about how you will actually use it.

Do not add other new products to the same spot while you are watching it, so only one thing is in play. Some products, particularly staged retinol systems and exfoliating formulations, carry their own instructions for gradual introduction, and those take precedence.

Introduce one new product at a time. This is the part people skip and the part that matters. Start three things in the same week, go red, and you have three suspects and no way to pick between them. Can You Use Too Many Skincare Products? covers the wider picture.

A reaction, and a tingle that is not one

Confusing the two leads people either to abandon a suitable product or to keep using one that is bothering them.

Some exfoliating and retinoid formulations are described in their own directions as producing a brief, mild tingling for some people when first applied. That is expected behavior for those products, and it settles.

A reaction is different. It builds instead of settling: persistent redness, itching, burning, swelling, small bumps, a rash, or skin that feels raw. It can show up soon after application or appear later. If any of that happens, wash the product off and do not continue using it.

If a reaction is severe, spreads, involves swelling or does not settle after you stop, speak to a dermatologist. The same goes if you react to several unrelated products, or if you have a history of allergy or skin conditions. Knowing what is in a product helps that conversation.

What a small test cannot promise

It cannot promise you will never react.

A clear test tells you that this product, in that amount, on that area of skin, did nothing bad. That is worth knowing. It is not a guarantee. Some reactions develop only after repeated use, and a product can behave differently across different areas of skin.

So treat a patch test as a way to catch obvious problems early, and keep paying attention once you start using the product as directed.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance. Victoria believes informed product selection comes first. Before introducing a new skincare product, understand what it is intended to do, whether it is appropriate for your skin, how it should be used and what ingredients it contains. For someone with particularly reactive skin, a history of sensitivity or concern about a particular formulation, a small test in an appropriate area may provide an additional precaution. Patch testing can be useful, but it does not replace choosing the right product in the first place.

Esenté’s exfoliating and retinoid products, including the Liposome Alpha-Beta Serum and the Retinol Progressive 60-Day Renewal System, carry their own printed directions, and the system is staged for gradual introduction. They are developed collaboratively by Victoria Nash with Esenté’s professional formulation and manufacturing partners, with Victoria providing product direction, ingredient research, professional-use feedback and performance requirements. If you are unsure whether a product is right for your skin, the Ask Victoria page will take the question.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: It depends on what you are asking the product to do. A moisturizer that makes skin feel comfortable and look smoother is working on something you can notice soon after you use it. A product bought for the appearance of fine lines, uneven tone or rough texture is working on things that change slowly, and those show with consistent use over time. There is no single number that covers skincare: the timeline varies with the cause, the product and the person. Anyone who hands you one figure for everything is guessing.

Skincare products do different jobs, and those jobs run on different clocks. Which job you bought the product for decides what counts as evidence.

What can show up quickly, in principle

Some of what a product does is immediate and physical. It sits on the surface, holds water there, softens.

Comfort. Tightness after cleansing, a stinging feeling, a rough patch that catches on a towel.

Hydration. Skin holding water at the surface looks plumper and feels softer. That is real, and it is also reversible: it returns with use and fades when you stop.

The look of smoothness. Fine lines look less obvious when the skin around them is not dehydrated. A change in appearance rather than in structure.

Makeup sitting better. The practical sign people notice first.

None of that is trivial. Comfortable, hydrated skin is most of what anyone means by skin looking good. It is also the part that arrives soonest and leaves soonest.

What needs consistent use over a longer stretch

The appearance of fine lines. The look of uneven tone. Rough texture. The look of firmness. Anything that depends on the skin renewing itself rather than simply holding water.

These move slowly. The concern usually built up over years and will not answer to one wash. How long a difference takes to show depends on what is driving it, on the product and its complete formulation, and on the individual. Two people using the same product will not arrive at the same place on the same schedule.

Peptide products and retinol products are both commonly bought for this slower category, and both ask for consistency rather than a stopwatch. How to Choose a Peptide Serum covers what to look for in one.

The habit that makes the question unanswerable

Changing products constantly.

Drop a serum after a short trial, add two new things the same week, switch your cleanser because a video told you to, and you have no way of knowing what did what. Every variable moved at once. A good product and a useless one look identical under those conditions.

This is the most common reason people decide nothing works. Often something was working and never got a fair run, or something else in the routine caused the trouble and the newest purchase took the blame. Can You Use Too Many Skincare Products? covers what a crowded routine costs you.

What “it stopped working” usually means

Rarely what it sounds like.

The first thing people notice is often the quick, reversible kind of change, and once skin is comfortable it becomes the new normal. You stop seeing the improvement because you are comparing against yesterday rather than against where you started.

The baseline moves too. Skin changes with the season, with sleep, with stress, with hormones and with age, and a routine that suited it at one point may not suit it later. Consistency slips, and routines quietly shorten over time. And products themselves can change, particularly after opening or if they have been stored somewhere warm or bright. If a product has significantly changed, separated or developed an unusual odor, stop using it or check with the manufacturer. Any of these can be the explanation, and often more than one is involved.

When to conclude a product is not for you

If it is causing a problem. Stinging that does not settle, redness, itching, burning or a rash are reasons to stop. If a reaction persists or is severe, speak to a dermatologist or licensed skincare professional. Do not push through discomfort on the theory that skin must get used to it. Some retinoid products do come with guidance on being introduced gradually, printed in the directions for the individual product, and Starting Retinol Without Wrecking Your Barrier covers the version of that question people ask most.

If it is simply doing nothing. You have used it consistently and as directed, long enough to be fair to the kind of change you expected. Nothing else in the routine changed underneath it. You still see no difference in the thing you bought it for. That is a reasonable point to stop. What counts as long enough is a judgement about the job, not a number anyone can hand you.

A fair test means holding everything else still, and judging in the same light at the same time of day.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance.

Victoria views good skincare as a lifelong commitment to improving and maintaining healthy-looking, well-conditioned skin. Individual products may produce noticeable changes over different periods of time, but there is no point at which good skincare is simply “finished.” As skin changes throughout life, the products and treatments used to support it may change as well. The objective is to improve skin condition where appropriate and then maintain the best condition possible through consistent, appropriate care.

Esenté’s range includes the Penta-Peptide Serum, the Hyaluronic Hydration Crème, and the Retinol Progressive 60-Day Renewal System, a staged system that carries its own directions for gradual introduction. Each is developed collaboratively by Victoria Nash with Esenté’s professional formulation and manufacturing partners, with Victoria providing product direction, ingredient research, professional-use feedback and performance requirements. If you are weighing whether to stay with something or move on, the Ask Victoria page is there for that.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: A mask is a concentrated treatment you leave on the skin for a short, defined time and then remove. It is not a step your routine needs. Cleanser, toner or mist, moisturizer and daily sun protection cover the basics, and a mask is an addition on top of that. Which kind you want depends on what you want the treatment to do: add hydration, absorb surface oil, exfoliate, or simply sit against the skin for ten quiet minutes. No frequency is right for everyone, and the directions on the product you own outrank any general rule.

Masks are the most over-explained category in skincare, so here is the short version.

What a mask actually is

Every other step in a routine is designed either to be left on or to be rinsed straight off. A mask sits in between. You apply a thicker layer than you would with a serum, leave it for a set number of minutes, then remove it, usually by rinsing.

That short window of high contact is the whole point of the format. It is also why the timing on the label matters. A mask left on well past its directions is not working harder. Depending on what it is built from, it may just be drying on your face.

Calling a mask optional is not an argument against masks. It is what makes them worth choosing deliberately, for a reason, rather than out of habit.

The four kinds worth knowing

Sorted by what they are for, which is more useful than sorting by skin type. What suits you depends on the complete formulation and on how your own skin responds, not on the category the product sits in.

Hydrating masks. Built around humectants and soothing ingredients, applied as a layer and usually rinsed after a set time. The aim is a short, concentrated dose of water-binding ingredients and a comfortable surface afterwards.

Clay and purifying masks. Built around clays such as kaolin or bentonite, or around charcoal. Clay absorbs oil and surface debris as it sets, and that setting is exactly why timing matters. The directions tell you when to rinse.

Exfoliating masks. These carry acids or enzymes, in a leave-on-then-rinse format. Count one as an exfoliating step in your routine rather than an extra on top of one.

Sheet masks. A soaked fabric or gel sheet that holds a serum against the skin for a set time. The sheet is a delivery format, not an ingredient. What you get out of it depends entirely on what it has been soaked in.

How often

There is no universal answer, and anyone who offers you one is guessing. It depends on the mask, on the rest of your routine and on your own skin.

Three things hold regardless. A mask is an addition, so count it against what you already do: an exfoliating mask on top of an exfoliating serum and an exfoliating cleanser is three exfoliating steps, whatever the packaging calls them. Follow the timing printed on the product. And if your skin feels tight, stings or looks unusually red afterwards, that is the signal to space them out or stop, not to push through.

Getting it on and off

Application is the part most people skip past, and it is where the hygiene lives.

Use a mask brush rather than your fingers. A brush spreads a mask more evenly than fingertips do, and it keeps your fingers out of the product. That is part of Victoria’s hygiene guidance for masks, and How to Use a Mask Brush covers the technique.

Take product from an open jar with a clean cosmetic spatula. Use a clean spatula each time product is removed from an open jar. Esenté recommends this as good hygiene practice. The Spatula Rule explains why it is worth the extra two seconds.

Apply to clean skin, in an even layer, for the time the directions give. Thicker is not stronger. Longer is not stronger either.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance. Her guidance on masks centers on hygiene: a mask brush rather than fingers, and a clean cosmetic spatula each time product is taken from an open jar.

In professional treatments at Younger You Clinique, Victoria may also use other professional topical masks, and collagen sheet masks infused with serums selected according to the individual’s skin condition. Those are part of a professional treatment, chosen by a trained practitioner, and are separate from anything sold for home use.

For home use, Esenté’s retail facial masks are the Hydrating Cucumber Mask, part of the Legacy Collection, and the Rosemary Mint Masque, part of Elite Skincare. The Hydrating Cucumber Mask is a rinse-off mask with cucumber and melon extracts. Its directions call for a thin film on clean skin left for seven to ten minutes, and describe it as suitable for all skin types and ages, including sensitive. Cucumber Face Mask Benefits looks at that ingredient more closely. The masks are developed collaboratively by Victoria Nash with Esenté’s professional formulation and manufacturing partners, with Victoria providing product direction, ingredient research, professional-use feedback and performance requirements. The Legacy Collection also carries a Face Mask Brush, an accessory from an outside supplier. If you are not sure whether a mask fits your routine, the Ask Victoria page is for that.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: Antioxidants are ingredients meant to help defend the skin against everyday environmental stress. Normal life, sunlight, pollution and ordinary metabolism all produce unstable molecules called free radicals, and antioxidants are compounds that neutralize them before they react with something else. In skincare the idea is to add some of that defense at the surface. They are a complement to sun protection, never a substitute for it. What any finished product does depends on the ingredient, the formulation and the evidence behind both, and much of that evidence is laboratory work rather than trials of finished products.

The word is on almost every label now, which is why it is worth being precise.

Why antioxidants are in skincare at all

The chemistry, kept short. Free radicals are molecules missing an electron. That makes them unstable, so they take an electron from whatever is nearest, which leaves that molecule unstable in turn. The process is oxidation. It is the same process that browns a cut apple.

Your body produces free radicals simply by running. Sunlight, pollution, smoke and ordinary metabolism all add to the total, and the body has its own systems for handling them.

An antioxidant donates an electron without becoming reactive itself, which stops the chain. That is the whole idea, and it is why the ingredient class exists in skincare: to support the skin’s own defenses at the surface against the stress it meets all day. Vitamin C, vitamin E, ferulic acid, niacinamide, green tea polyphenols and resveratrol are the names you will meet most often.

They work with sun protection, not instead of it

This is the point most worth making plainly. An antioxidant is not a sunscreen and is not regulated as one. No amount of antioxidant in your routine replaces daily broad-spectrum sun protection. Do You Need Sunscreen Every Day? takes that question on its own terms.

What antioxidants are proposed to do is something different: to address some of the oxidative stress that gets through anyway. The two sit in the same routine doing different jobs. One filters ultraviolet light. The other is a complement to it.

What the evidence does and does not show

Antioxidant chemistry itself is well established. What is far less settled is how much a given compound, at a given concentration, in a given cosmetic base, does on human skin in ordinary use.

A great deal of the published support for individual antioxidant ingredients comes from laboratory studies: cell cultures, test tubes, model systems. That work is real, and it is where the interest comes from. It is not the same as a trial of a finished product on people. Some compounds have more human evidence behind them than others, and vitamin C in its various forms is among the more studied. Buying a Vitamin C Serum That Works goes through what to look at.

So the honest position is this. What a product does depends on the ingredient, on the formulation built around it, and on the evidence behind both. The word “antioxidant” on a label describes a chemical property, not a result.

Why antioxidants are the fussiest ingredients on the shelf

Here is the practical consequence of that chemistry. An antioxidant works by giving up an electron. That is what makes it useful, and it is also what makes it unstable. The same reactivity that lets it neutralize a free radical on your skin lets it react with oxygen and with light energy inside the product.

So antioxidant formulas are the ones most likely to change over time. Some can darken or shift in color. Some lose potency quietly with no visible sign at all. That is why these products tend to carry more specific storage directions than a plain moisturizer. Keep them in a cool, dry place away from direct light and excessive heat or humidity, following the manufacturer’s directions. On which subject: The Bathroom Is the Worst Place to Store Skincare.

Packaging: light and air are two different problems

These get muddled constantly, and the packaging answers are not interchangeable.

Air. An airless pump principally addresses air. It dispenses product without drawing air back into the container. It does nothing about light.

Light. Violet glass principally addresses light. On its own, the glass is not the answer to air.

The point that gets lost most often: no packaging keeps air out completely once a container has been opened. The moment you start using a product, it meets some air. What good packaging does is help protect the formulation during storage and use. It does not make a product permanent.

Esenté’s Elite line uses Miron violet glass packaging designed to help protect formulations from excessive light exposure. The complete packaging system, including the container and its closure or dispenser, also plays a role in protecting the formulation during storage and use. In the manufacturer’s own terms, Miron works as a filter rather than a shield: it reduces the wavelengths that drive degradation while passing a balanced range of light, and how any violet glass performs depends on its composition, thickness and structure. The Miron violet glass page sets out the detail.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance. In the Esenté routine, antioxidants complement daily broad-spectrum sun protection rather than replace it. An antioxidant mist can be one option for the step after cleansing, and whether it suits your routine, and how often, depends on your skin.

Esenté puts antioxidant ingredients into more than one format. Hydro Mist is a spray that can be used after cleansing. The Vital Rx – Vitamin C+E Serum sits in the serum step. The Red Volcanic Seaweed Complex sits with Esenté’s moisturizers and complexes. The Elite line uses Miron violet glass packaging designed to help protect formulations from excessive light exposure. Each is developed collaboratively by Victoria Nash with Esenté’s professional formulation and manufacturing partners, with Victoria providing product direction, ingredient research, professional-use feedback and performance requirements. If you want help working out where an antioxidant step belongs in your routine, the Ask Victoria page is for that.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.

Short answer: Serums are often formulated to deliver selected ingredients for a particular skincare objective, usually in a lighter-textured formulation designed to sit under a moisturizer rather than replace it. That is the practical difference. A moisturizer softens the surface and helps hold water in. A serum is the step where you add something specific. “Serum” is a format rather than a regulated category, so the word on the label tells you the texture and where the product goes in your routine, not how good it is. Whether you need one depends on what you want it to do, and plenty of sound routines have none.

The category has grown enormously, and the word has stretched with it.

What makes a serum a serum

Three things, in practice.

It is thinner. Most serums are water-based or light fluids that spread easily and absorb quickly, without the richer emollients that give a cream its body.

It has a particular purpose. Serums are often formulated to deliver selected ingredients for a particular skincare objective, where a moisturizer is usually doing several jobs at once.

It goes underneath. A serum is designed to be applied first and covered by a moisturizer. It is not built to do the moisturizer’s work.

None of that is a rule. Textures overlap: a rich serum and a light lotion can feel almost identical. But those three things describe what most products using the word have in common.

“Serum” is a marketing word, not a legal one

There is no regulatory definition of a serum. No agency sets a minimum concentration, a maximum thickness or a required ingredient before a product can use the term. A brand can call a thin lotion a serum and break no rule.

That matters for one reason. The word tells you the format, not the quality. Two products both labeled serum can be completely different things. The judgement has to be made on the formula, on the ingredients it is built around and on the company that made it, never on the noun on the front of the label.

Where a serum goes in the order

After cleansing, and after your toner or mist, before moisturizer. The general order runs thinnest to thickest, so the light fluid goes on first and the heavier product goes over it. Skincare Order and Product Storage sets out the full sequence.

Many serums are applied to slightly damp skin, though how any product should be applied is a question for its own directions. If yours seems to sit on the surface and never absorb, Why Your Serum Is Not Absorbing covers the common reasons.

Do you actually need one?

The honest answer is that not everyone does.

A serum is the step where you add something specific. If there is nothing specific you are trying to address, then a cleanser, a toner or mist, a moisturizer and a daily broad-spectrum sunscreen make a complete routine. Every product in a routine should have a reason for being there, and each should be used in the right amount and at the right frequency. Using more of a serum, or using it more often than directed, does not make it work faster.

If there is something specific, the serum is the most direct place to put it. That is what the format exists for: peptides, vitamin C, exfoliating acids, hydrating ingredients, something for the eye area. How to Choose a Peptide Serum works through one of those decisions in detail.

So the useful question is not “do I need a serum.” It is “what do I want this step to do.” If you cannot answer that yet, you do not need one yet.

How many is too many

There is no number, and a routine with several products is not a problem when each has a clear purpose. What goes wrong is rarely the count. It is the combination and the amount: several products doing similar work, several separate exfoliating products layered together, or a product used more heavily or more often than its directions say.

The signs are easy to spot. Your routine takes so long you skip it. Your skin has turned reactive and you cannot tell which product is responsible. You own three things that do the same job. Too Many Skincare Products goes further into all of that.

How to judge one

Start with what the product says it is for, then ask whether that matches what you want from the step. Read the whole formulation rather than hunting for a single ingredient, and read the directions, because a serum meant for nightly use and one meant for occasional use are different commitments.

A word on percentages. Many brands, Esenté among them, generally do not publish the concentrations of their proprietary formulations, and that absence is not a negative signal. A number on a label tells you little on its own, because how an ingredient behaves depends on the pH, the base, what it is paired with and how stable it stays. Formulation design, sourcing, stability work, manufacturing standards, packaging and compatibility with the rest of the formula all contribute to what you end up putting on your face.

Victoria’s approach

Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2004 and is an experienced skincare educator. She draws on her professional experience at Younger You Clinique when evaluating skincare products and their performance. Her “less is best” philosophy is about using the appropriate amount of each product at the appropriate frequency, not about keeping a routine artificially small. A serum earns its place when it has a clear purpose, and then it should be used as directed rather than more generously or more often.

Esenté’s serums cover several parts of the routine. The Penta-Peptide Serum and the Bio-Lift Peptide Serum are peptide serums. The Matrix-Cell 3000 Concentrate and the Vital Rx – Vitamin C+E Serum sit in the same step. The Liposome Alpha-Beta Serum is an 8% AHA/BHA serum, which puts it on the exfoliation side of the shelf with its own directions. For the eye area there is the Defining Eye Serum. Each is developed collaboratively by Victoria Nash with Esenté’s professional formulation and manufacturing partners, with Victoria providing product direction, ingredient research, professional-use feedback and performance requirements. If you are not sure which step your routine is missing, the Ask Victoria page is for that.

Frequently asked questions

About the author. Victoria Nash, founder of Esenté Skincare and Younger You Clinique, has been a licensed aesthetician since 2003 and is an experienced skincare educator.

Reviewed by Victoria Nash, licensed aesthetician and founder of Esenté Skincare & Younger You Clinique. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Ask your dermatologist or licensed skincare professional about products appropriate for your own skin and medical history.