Christa, What’s in your beauty bag?

At Dermatology Affiliates we are lucky to have a large staff made up of more than 50 thoughtful, fun, and interesting people. Our new blog feature, “What’s in your beauty bag?” will highlight one staff member and her beauty bag. These blogs reflect the individual experience and/or opinion of the staffer and are not intended to speak for the company as a whole or our individual doctors. Everyone’s skin is different and this series hopes to highlight that filling your beauty bag is a personal and unique experience. Enjoy!
Christa
Age: 38
Position at Dermatology Affiliates: Medical Assistant
Number of years working in Dermatology: 14
I have oily skin, which I inherited from my mother and grandmother. It has been a blessing and a curse. Although my oily skin gave me some acne as a teenager, it has meant fewer wrinkles as an adult. Currently, melasma is my worst skin issue. I have battled it for years with sunscreen, hydroquinone, and peels. I was recently introduced to a new product called Lytera. I have been using it for three months and it has made a huge difference.
I am a very low-maintenance-type person, so I like as few steps as possible with my skin care routine. In the mornings I use Physicians Formula make up because of its great coverage and high concentration of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, which is very important for my melasma. In the evenings, I use a retinol all over my face and I use Lytera for the dark patches. Our physicians always say the two most important things in a facial regimen are sunscreen and Retin-A.

In addition to this skin care routine, I can’t live without my Botox. Our physicians have a way of administering it that avoids the “frozen” look and achieves instead a “well rested” appearance. I also had an awesome response to CoolSculpting. No matter how much you work out, everyone has stubborn areas. My stubborn area was my abdomen. I can now see definition in my abdominal muscles, which is SOO gratifying after years of working out. Interestingly, the CoolSculpting left a little spot that I was able to totally clear out with our new Vanquish laser.
My advice to getting started on a beauty routine would be to start slowly. Pick which areas/issues bother you most and start there. For me, the lines on my forehead started bothering me first so I started with one area of Botox to make sure I liked how it worked.
Right now I am most excited about our PicoSure tattoo removal laser. It is REALLY uncomfortable, but so worth it to remove a 20-year-old bad decision. What was cute at 19 isn’t so cute at 39. ☺