Dr. Forney, 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!
My routine has been the same for almost 14 years with one exception. The one exception is my morning one-step moisturizer/sunscreen/antioxidant. A product I loved was discontinued☹, forcing me to look for an alternative. Ultimately, my substitute has been a wonder for me and my patients because there is more in the tube and the tube costs less! My Scottish soul sings for thrifty quality. So, in the morning, I use our Smart Day Protection after the shower. One product in the morning does it all for me!
Since residency, I have used tretinoin (the generic name for Retin-A and Renova) at night. It took some time for my skin to get used to it, but now I am on an every night routine. I know my skin has benefitted from 17 years of (almost) nightly tretinoin. In 2002, I found TNS Recovery Complex by Skin Medica. Several studies heralded its arrival. Starting as a solution for healing wounds, it was found to be effective on intact skin to accelerate recovery from sundamage and civilized life. It goes on under my tretinoin at night. It has a serum/gel consistency. A similar product came out several years later by Neocutis. It is more of a cream, which for some goes well over their tretinoin. Both work well for folks who just cannot tolerate the retinoid family of products.

At the same time that I began to use TNS, the company developed a night moisturizer called Dermal Repair. They were giving away these cute little cobalt blue spaceship-shaped jars with gold and blue caps. I was at the meeting, with no night cream since mine was larger than three ounces and couldn’t get on the plane with me, so I took a couple to use. An addict was born. For feel-good skin, I have never found anything better. What I like best is that in the morning, none of it rinses off in the shower. I interpret that as meaning my skin absorbed it, taking the TNS and tretinoin with it.
You notice no mention of cleansers……I just use water morning and night. H2O is a great solvent and it takes off oil and dust just fine. If I wore makeup, I would use a gentle cleanser to get it off. But I don’t, so there you have it.
AM: Smart Day Protection
PM: TNS, tretinoin (prescription only), Dermal Repair
PS: I try every product that comes our way with a split face trial, new product on one side, old one on the other side. Therefore, whether we sell a product or it is sold over-the-counter, I can speak to it.
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