Anti-Aging EVENING SKINCARE ROU

Hey everybody, it's Angie and welcome to Hot and Flashy. Today's video is going to be my evening winter anti-aging skincare routine for 2025. This skincare routine is a science-backed anti-aging routine that I've been using for about 10 years pretty consistently. It does change a little bit from year to year which is why I like to do these skincare routine updates for you so that you can see what I'm using now. I do have an exciting new product in this skincare routine that I did a review on about a month and a half ago and it really made a huge difference in my skin. If you're new here, welcome. A little bit about me. I'm 62. I started my YouTube channel at 50 when I was seeing all the signs of all the sun damage that I had done when I was younger appear on my skin. My skin was much more wrinkled, much more spotted, much more saggy than it is now and that's because of all the sun damage I did. I was a 40-year sun worshipper and believe me when I say you do not want to roast your skin in the sun. Sun damage does 90% of the visible aging on your skin so if you can avoid some of that it's really important to do that. I didn't do that so then I needed to look for ingredients that would actually help to repair the sun damage, help to fade the dark spots, help to reduce the wrinkles, and help to firm up my skin. And over the last 10 years using the ingredients that I loaded into my skincare routine because they were backed by science and research that said that they could actually do something for your skin, I've seen the amazing changes in my skin. Now it's not just skincare of course. I do use a number of devices as well at home devices and I have done a few in-office procedures. I get Botox fairly frequently but I was getting Botox when I was 50 and looked like this. It was there then, it's still here now so that's one thing. I've gotten one laser treatment on my face. I've gotten filler once in my cheeks but that was it. Once in my nasolabial fold. So I'm not hugely relying on in-office procedures for the results that I've had on my skin. I would say that it's at least 50% and maybe more due to my skincare routine. And so if you're looking for a skincare routine to help your aging and perhaps sun damaged skin, then you're in the right place. This is a really effective skincare routine and I hope if you try it that you see the results with it. Every time I do a skincare routine video, I also do a printable guide so that you can tape this up in your medicine chest or keep it wherever it's convenient so that you can follow along step by step. You can purchase all the same products. There are links on the page with this. So this is over on my blog and I'll put the link to that in the info box below the video. So I put up my winter morning 2025 skincare routine video last week so I'll link that one for you right up here and I'll also link it on the end screen so if you bounce over to that one after you watch this one or maybe you've watched it already then you get my full skincare routine that I do every day. So let's start in with step one which is of course washing the face at the end of the day. You've got to get off your makeup, your sunscreen, any sweat or dirt or pollution and for that I always do a double cleanse in the evening. For my double cleanse, I start with an oil-based balm cleanser. These are my two favorites. The Clinique Take the Day Off Cleansing Balm has been my ultimate favorite for a lot of years now. I really love this. I looked in my cabinet. I have two backups of this. That's how much I love it. But I did just discover this Naturium Purple Gensing Cleansing Balm and I like this one a lot too. It works almost as well as the Clinique but for me the Clinique is hands down the best. So I just take a scoop of whichever one I'm using that night and I rub it onto my dry skin. I rub it into the base of my lashes to get my mascara off, my waterproof eyeliner. It never stings or burns my eyes. Then I splash that with water. The water emulsifies with the oil balm and then all my makeup, all my sunscreen runs right down the drain. I don't use a micellar water. I don't use makeup removing wipes. I find that those are just too harsh on the skin. There's too much pulling, too much tugging on the eye area. I have an exfoliating washcloth that I use. This is called the Wonder Cloth. They're gentle on your skin but still exfoliating and you know exfoliating is a big part of our anti-aging skincare routine. So this is a little bit of a manual exfoliation. So if during the winter you have like little dry skin patches, this is really great for just rubbing those gently to get those dry skin flakes off so that they're not you know hanging off making you look bad during the day. Then I go in with my second cleanse which currently I'm using the CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser to make sure that my face is super clean and I've gotten all the sunscreen makeup off. I use the Tau Ona Orbital Cleansing Brush. This is like the cutest little thing. It sits on your counter. This is the scrubbing brush. You just turn it on. It spins. It's super gentle but it almost gives your face like a little massage. It increases blood flow to the skin. There are different brush heads for it depending on what kind of brush head you like. Some people like to do dry brushing so you could get a stiffer brush head for it for that. This one is the silicone brush head. I really like the silicone head. I find it's much gentler on my skin. This is a sanitizing base. So it's got blue light and so it keeps the head from growing any bacteria. It keeps it really sanitized and away from any other germs that are floating around your bathroom. Step two, no change there. That is do my Neera routine. So I use the Neera at home laser. I did a three month and a five month trial on the two Neera devices. I love them. They really reduce my wrinkles by quite a lot. I'm going to talk more in depth about my routine with it at the end of the video. When I was doing the testing, I used the Neera every night. Now that I'm kind of on maintenance mode with the Neera, I tend to use it every other night. Every night did get to be like kind of a lot for me, you know, because you're tired at night. So I'm using it every other night. So when I am going to use it, I pat my face dry and I want it to be really dry because the Neera is supposed to be used on clean dry skin. So if I've done my Neera routine, my skin is super dry because it does take about 10 minutes to do that, which gives my skin a lot of time to lose a lot of moisture. And your skin is so much more absorbent when it's slightly damp. And I showed this example in my morning skincare routine, but I wanted to share it again in this one. So your skin is kind of like a sponge, you know, like when you take a dry sponge and you try to absorb some water on the counter and all it does is smear it around. It's the same thing with your skin. Once those top skin cells have a chance to dry, they're really crusty and that's when they're really good at keeping things out. When your skin is damp, all those dead skin cells are more puffed up, there's more spaces between them, and your skincare can get into your skin where it needs to be to actually work. And that's really what we want out of our skincare is for it to absorb more fully so we get maximum effectiveness out of it. So since my skin is so dry after using the Neera, then I use a toner to re-wet my skin so that it will accept my anti-aging skincare. Previously I was using either a green tea toner or a urea toner. I do still have those. I'm not using them as much right now because I'm using this COSRX The Six Peptide Skin Booster. And this contains six different peptides. It's got a copper peptide, it's got argiroline, it's got matrixyl. It's a really nice serum, but the consistency of it is more like a toner. So I just put it on like a toner to re-wet my skin. I put it all over my face, my eyelids, my neck, my chest, and the backs of my hands. Of course that's where I put all my anti-aging skincare is on all those places providing they're not too sensitive to put the ingredient there. Because some of these ingredients can be irritating to the skin and so you should really ease in with them slowly. You shouldn't start slapping them on in large quantities every day. And what the research shows is that skin will generally acclimate as long as you introduce things slowly enough so that it has time to adjust. It's more of a marathon than a sprint with anti-aging skincare. And if you are going to start with my skincare routine, I highly recommend watching my video on how to get started with it which I can link right up here. And there's another video that I'd also recommend that I can also link ways to acclimate to Retin-A, prescription tretinoin, and I give five different ways to do that in that video. So those can really help you out with those as well. Okay step four on here was my prescription retinoid. I actually am moving the prescription retinoid down a step now. So step four is going to be my new estrogen cream which is the M4 cream from Alloy. This is 0.3% estriol and it's specifically for hairy and post-menopausal women whose skin is estrogen deprived. I did a video on estrogen cream about a month ago and that was after doing a six-month trial on a 0.3% estriol cream. And I was trying not to get overly excited in the video but I was so excited about the changes I saw in my skin using the estrogen cream. For my trial I used it on half my face and my neck and I could see which side of my face I used it on in the video. The main differences that I saw in my skin using this was like the plumpness and firmness of my skin on this side of my face versus this side of my face. Like this eyelid is so much plumper and firmer than this eyelid which tends to sag and wrinkle up a little bit more. But now that I've been using it on this side of my face I feel like it's evening out more. My enlarged pores from all the sun damage have been kind of the bane of my existence for the last 10 years and that was one of the main things that estrogen cream did for me is reduce the look of my pores to now. It's not the first thing that I see. It's not like they're gone. It's not like you can ever get rid of your pores. You need them structurally. Your skin needs the pores but to have them be minimized is awesome. And of course my neck, you know, when I'm doing things like I open up the camera on my phone and I look down and first thing I see is my neck and I'm like oh gosh it is so crepey and wrinkly but after using this for six months it is definitely less crepey, less wrinkly, and I'm much much less self-conscious about my neck because it looks so much better using this. Plus I started using this and went straight in with it first night. I've used it every night since I got it with zero irritation. To use the M4 cream I just use about a pump and a half for my neck and my whole face. I just dot it around first so that I make sure that it's going to spread everywhere I want it to go. And this is so gentle I even use it on my eyelids and on my neck. The main question I get asked about how I use this is why don't you use it right after you wash your face? Aren't you supposed to go from thinnest to thickest as far as consistency in what you're putting on? And I put this on before my serums. But the thing with skincare is there isn't any 100% right or wrong way to do anything. If you want to put this on in order from thinnest to thickest you can go ahead and do that but you don't have to. What I like to do is I like to use my most important, my most effective anti-aging ingredients first because I'm looking for maximum absorption and maximum penetration into my skin. If you want to know more about estrogen cream definitely check out my video on it with the before and after pictures. I'll link it right up here. I go over all the research into it. So if you want to try Alloy M4 cream I have a $10 off code with them and I'll put that in the info box next to the link. So the next step which was to apply my prescription tretinoin is now step number five. And I used to get my tretinoin from Agency and I know a lot of you are using Agency because of me and I love Agency. And if you're on Agency and you absolutely love it then absolutely continue with it. But since I had gotten the estrogen cream from Alloy I was like well let me try their tretinoin so I can let you know how it is. So I also did get their tretinoin cream. This is their highest strength. It's 0.089 percent. I was on 0.1 percent with Agency so it's slightly lower. And the reason the 0.089 percent is their highest is because in the research on tretinoin that was kind of the dividing line between people having a lot of irritation and people having very little irritation. It does contain 4% niacinamide and it also contains aloe. If you get both the and the tretinoin I believe it saves you $10 a month on the tretinoin. I use one pump of this and I dot it around my face. I rub it in all over my face except I avoid my eyelids. I do put it up under my eyes. I do put it on my upper lip but it did take me about a year to acclimate to putting tretinoin on in those places. I skip my neck and I apply that to the backs of my hands and my chest. Next step is an optional over-the-counter retinoid for those of you who also have sensitive neck. So since I can't use my prescription retinoid on my neck I use a retinaldehyde serum. The Geek and Gorgeous 101 A-Game Retinaldehyde Serum. This contains 0.2% retinaldehyde. This is the highest level of retinaldehyde that I've seen anywhere. Most will have 0.1%, 0.05% and if you have super sensitive skin it's great to start with a lower percentage. For over-the-counter retinoids I much prefer retinaldehyde over retinol because retinol needs to do a two-step conversion inside your skin before it can be turned into all trans retinoic acid which is what tretinoin already is. It only has to go through one step to get retinaldehyde into its usable form. So this is one that I've been using on my neck for about two months now. I've had no irritation with it. I just take one pump of this and I apply it all over my neck. That's pretty much the only place I use it because I do use my prescription retinoid on my face, the backs of my hands, and on my chest. Next step is my peptide serum. No change there. The dedicated peptide serum that I use at night is Matrixyl Synth 6. The thing about peptides is that they're, you know, very unproven but they are shown to be super moisturizing so it's really great to use them especially in a winter skincare routine. But the Matrixyls are the ones that have the most independent research behind them showing that they work and it shows that they do help with collagen production, helps to reduce wrinkles. So I love this one. I just take about a third of a dropper full of this and I rub it all over my face. It's so nice and hydrating. I put it on my eyelids, I put it on my lips, I put it on my neck, my chest, and the backs of my hands. Next step is my resveratrol serum. No change there. The resveratrol serum that I use is Melove the Hydrator. Resveratrol is a powerful antioxidant so it scavenges free radicals that are in your skin. They destroy the collagen, the elastin, and your skin's DNA. Antioxidants neutralize those free radicals so they can't damage your skin. The other thing that resveratrol does is it boosts other antioxidants. So the other antioxidants that I use are niacinamide, vitamin c, vitamin e, berulic acid, and CoQ10. So it really helps all your other antioxidants work better. It's also been shown to be really moisturizing to the skin. It helps with skin surface roughness. It's also anti-inflammatory and so it reduces redness in the skin. Resveratrol is just such a powerhouse. I love having it in my skincare routine. I love this serum from Melove because it also has panthenol which is vitamin b5 in it that really helps to moisturize the skin. To use this I use about a third of a dropper full and I just rub it into my face including my eyelids, my upper lip, my lips, my neck, my chest, and the backs of my hands. Next step over the summer was my argiroline serum that's like Botox in a bottle. I have stopped using that. I tried it for six months. I used it twice a day all over my face, all over my neck. It didn't really seem to have make any difference. It was supposed to make my Botox last longer. Didn't make my Botox really last any longer. So jettisoning that. I just don't need an extra step in my routine. So crossing off one step. And then the last step is my night moisturizer. The moisturizer that I'm using this winter is Melove's Hydro Relief Peptide and Amino Acid Cream. This is such a great cream for the winter. It keeps my skin so hydrated. When I wake up in the morning my skin feels so soft and so dewy. I love this cream. It's packed with such good ingredients. It's got niacinamide. It's got shea butter. It's got a couple of peptides. It's got amino acids in there. It's got squalane. It's got glycerin, hyaluronic acid. Niacinamide is the main ingredient that I look for in a nighttime moisturizer. I'm not going to just use any moisturizer with no anti-aging ingredients in it because I like to have an anti-aging, proven anti-aging ingredient in every step in my skincare routine. It's one of the most proven anti-aging ingredients. It can help to smooth and brighten and calm your skin. It can also help to reduce your pores, can help to reduce wrinkles. It's hydrating. If my skin is feeling at all irritated I'll give it a spritz with a hypochlorous acid spray. Hypochlorous acid is anti-inflammatory and it helps with irritation in the skin and it works really quickly. So I use this in both my morning and my night routine, not every day, just when my neck or my face is feeling a little irritated. So that's it for my topical routine. Then as I mentioned before, I use the Neera devices. So I have both of them. This is the Neera Pro model. This is the Neera Precision model. I had gotten this one first because it was the only one they had at the time. I've done videos on both of these where I have before and after pictures and I use them each in trials for three to five months. So if you want to check out those videos I can link them both right up here as well. You can see the before and after pictures on those. But these I felt were really really effective. The Precision model I feel is most effective for the wrinkles around the eyes. It is such a tiny little opening that it does take a lot longer to use. It's a lot hotter. With this one you have to do like 40 pulses around each eye. But then when I got the Pro, this one is so much faster, so much easier, so much more convenient to use that I don't really use this one that often anymore. I gotta say I'm all for the convenience and this one doesn't hurt. So I can use this one on level five all over my face, around my eyes, all over my neck. The Pro model actually delivers more energy per pulse than the Precision model. But because it delivers it over a longer pulse time, you don't feel the heat as much and so it's much more comfortable treatment. When I use this one around my eyes it's 10 pulses so I'm done really quickly. But then because this is so much bigger I can use it everywhere on my face. I can use it over here. I can use it on my upper lip. I can do my entire neck. I use this one probably every other night now and then one night a week I use this one and just go in with it and do a treatment around my eyes. I do have a 15% off discount code with Neera and that will be in the info box next to the link as well if you're interested in purchasing a Neera laser. So that's everything for my evening skincare routine. As I said the printable guide is up on my blog. The link to it will be in the info box below the video so you can hop on over to that. You can download it. You can print it off and you can put it somewhere convenient so that you can remember the steps. I know it looks like a lot of steps and it seems like it takes a long time when I'm talking about it in a video telling you what the ingredients are for and what they do but I think that's important because I think so much of skincare we don't really understand why we're using a product. And I think that understanding why you're using it and what it brings to the party is really really important. So that's why I like to always explain to you what each product does and I hope that if you try it along with me that you see great results as well. So that's it for today's video everybody. If you enjoyed it and found it helpful and informative go ahead and give it a like. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. As always I thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your watching. I hope you have a great day and I will see you in the next video. So take care everybody. Bye-bye.