Reviewing My Teenage Skincare Routine 

All those clean and clear products are still sold here in the UK tooooo 😭😭😭 and we also had them on TV HITS magazine! And top of the pops magazine 🥲

There was this Clean and Clear scrub that I used to use every day. In the commercial it said, "Smooth, round, micros scrubbers!" It also had salicylic acid. 2000s skincare is responsible for a lot of the micro plastics in the ocean.

You’re so right we didn’t have good products unless you went to the dermatologist

I’m cracking up at “we’re no longer friends… for unrelated reasons” 🤣🤣🤣 And the one staple I can think of was the bioré pore strips!! High key I still use a pore strip from time to time before a special event, but back in the day I used to rip through boxes of those on the regular

I used to use Himalaya Herbals products (an Indian brand very popular in the Polish „natural is better” crowd). It probably wasn’t the worst thing I could’ve used, but in hindsight, it wasn’t doing my skin any favours. The standard stripping cleanser, the awfully irritating apricot scrub, an extremely drying spot treatment acne cream that I would just put all over my face. Plus, no sunscreen. Just like you, it only clicked at about 25 years old.

I still use and live the clean and clear moisturiser in summer for my skin. I notice a huge reduction in cysts.

Ahh I’m getting horrible flashbacks of my Proactiv days 😱

Surprised she didn't mention Proactiv. Those celebrity endorsed ads were EVERYWHERE in the 2000s. Just seeing a photo of the products makes my skin feel tight.

I remember mixing up a honey and cinnamon mask right before a dance in middle school because I saw someone online say it would help with acne. it did not but it did cause me to have a huge dry patch on my forehead. I also thought that leaving my clean and clear face wash across my nose and cheeks would clear up my blackheads.

Oh man, this makes me feel a lot better about my terrible teenage skincare routine. I thought it was just me at the time, but it looks like it was fairly universal. I'd love to hear you review Proactiv if you haven't haha, I remember my mom giving me a bottle to use and that stuff was STRONG. Amazingly enough I had super clear skin throughout high school because I was lucky with genetics and hormones or whatever, but my bad skincare caught up with me and I started getting such bad acne by college that my parents thought I was having an allergic reaction. TToTT I'm glad that skincare has come such a long way!

I remember looking at those Clean & Clear products recently and being so surprised that they still used soap... Australia really gets the short end of the stick from international skincare brands. Still kinda tempted to try the lotion on my body though because it's soooo cheap!

Noxzema for the win!! That product had such a distinct scent. I also used Pond’s Cold Cream.

Oh my god the freebies attached to the front of Dolly and TV Hits. The dry as hell tightness after cleansing. The sting after using that moonshine aka 'toner'. Ahh, memories.

QUEEN HELENE Masque Mint Julep!!! Omg. My sisters & I loved it. Anyone else?

LOL Alta Vista is SUCH a throwback! 😂😂

I was also personally victimized by 2000s skin care. I used the Clean and Clear acne wash religiously and developed an allergy to the MI. So on top of tons of acne, my face was red, flaky, burning, burning, and itching. I used benzoyl peroxide and had the bleached pillow cases and pj t-shirts to prove it, not to mention the dry, crusty, irritated bits around my stubborn pimples. I saw the movie Ever After and there's a quote about Cinderella being forced to wash her face 20 times a day. I tried it. I was so desperate. I went on antibiotics for my acne for several YEARS. Didn't really help, but did probably destroy my microbiome. I eventually went on the pill for my acne, which helped a little, but not really to my satisfaction. It wasn't until my late 20s that a derm prescribed me spironolactone that I actually started having days without acne.

thats so sweet that your Dad got you skin care to try and help no matter how clueless its sweet

I used to put high strength tea tree oil directly onto my skin. As well as the apricot scrub (without water, for better scrubbing). For a while I would also smear my face in the tinted clearasil spot treatment cream every day 😑

My mother used to use Olay facial lotion and that’s what I ended up using through most of my grade school days lol. I think through high school Olay did have a version that had 15spf in it that I was using daily (not reapplying though) so maybe that did me some good. Why I started moisturizing so early in my life though is because I have course thick beard hair that needed daily shaving so I got really dry.

I have a VERY vivid memory of using some orange Clean and Clear cleanser with microbeads, the day before a big History test at 7th grade

Used to use the Clinique 3 step. I can’t believe they still sell their clarifying lotions- so stripping and astringent.

Apricot scrubs😢 Avon. Nevea😂 I think i used some kind of moistorising garnier gel. I had no pimples !

Mhm Clearasil face wash and concealer and pink Oil of Olay moisturizer are my first memories of what skincare I used. Glad I survived! 😂 But I did advance to Decleor and then Dermalogica because I went to an estetichian for a while for my acne (in addition to using prescription medication). Wasn't super consistent with actual sunscreen except in the summer, but I've always had a pretty vampiric lifestyle 😂 Basically grew up in the Bronze ages.

i feel like my biggest teenage skin mistake was proactiv never been so dry and irritated in my life, can't believe it was a 3 piece set of a BPO scrub (what), alcohol-filled toner with glycolic acid in it, and a moisturizer with more BPO, also the founders were supposedly derms so looking back at the lineup of products and the fact that there was no SPF in the line blows my mind

Omg I'm 38 and wow, I forgot about that Clean & Clear! Remember the Impulse deodorants too?! Oh feeling my age.

God, benzoyl peroxide was the worst! I used it for over a decade and with no moisturizer. (The Proactiv skincare regimen was awful.) My skin became so messed up from that. It didn’t help that I also used salicylic acid since it turns out my face is very sensitive to that ingredient. I definitely remember the whole “it’s good if you face is tight” thing, and I cringe thinking about what I put my skin through during those years.

I put on like 75 layers a day of their orange salicylic astringent. the damage I did to my skin barrier was probably unreal.

You haven't done your vitamin c derivatives video yet. Just reminding ya.☻ Will we ever get it?😔

As soon as the thumbnail for this video popped up on my feed I got a VIVID sense memory of that Clean &Clear bright blue toner 😅 I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to chuck that out 🤣

Oh man, this brings back so many bad memories. For example, when I couldn't get any product out of the tube of Oxy 5, and I squeezed so hard it popped out all over the carpet and left bleach stains. Mom was thrilled and my face was still dry and covered in pimples!

Well at least you figured it out in your 20s…took me a whole n’other decade 🙈

What you are describing as 2000's skincare is still the current skincare in my country, I'm from India 😭😭

when i was a teeanger i used the max strength clean & clear which was basically pure alcohol LOL burned my eyes. and the st ives apricot scrub!

I used to use the nivea wash scrub, then the st Ives apricot scrub, tn Dickinsons witch hazel, put hydrogen peroxide on my pimples and then moisturise with olay complete spf 15. my skin was really suffering

My skin went through the absolute most poor thing still has not recovered

Shout out to Noxema 🗣

小时候长得潘玮柏

Please, please, please review K18 hair mask? Claims to reverse damage. Is that possible?? Costs a small fortune. I'll pay if it works but are we wasting our hard earned money? 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Uuuhhhh I feel you

Who remembers those witch hazel sticks 😅😅

god that grapefruit neutrogena acne moisturizer had such a hold on me. I blame selena gomez

Good old ruse uniform you expect to grow into

I'm so jealous of kids today with all the evidence based skincare brands to choose from there's me as a teenager using scrubs and and toothpaste and going on the sunbed coz "sun is good for acne". I wanna go back in time and slap my dumbass self

Clean&clear over here in Croatia, too 😅 also, you haven't mentioned "helpful" tricks from magazines, like the one where you put toothpaste on a zit in order to dry it out. Well, I decided to smear it all over my face. Younger generations really don't know the struggle of no beauty blogs and barely any proper info available online 😂😂

Bruh, 2000s skincare was the reason I went through the last bit of my adolescence doing nothing but washing with water. Coming to accept my teen and adult acne was not a 'love yourself' choice, it was a literal survival strategy 💀

I used to use the St. Ives apricot scrub followed with the Clean and Clear toner. It stung sooo. I literally tortured myself every day for no reason.

I could smell the moisturizer through the screen. I can’t believe I used to use it religiously like it actually did something for me besides dry my skin out 😅. So glad skincare has come a long way and we have more options for clearing acne that aren’t as harsh.

Yessss, clean and clear was cult-like. The advertising was evvvvverywhere, TV, school, books, magazines. If you weren't stripping your face nightly, you weren't doing skin care right. lolololol.

Love this, been thinking of doing something similar. Clean and Clear traumatized every teen in the 2000s. Would also like to note that 5ive did not ever beat BSB!

Clean and Clear, Noxzema, Clearasil, Stridex the orange Neutrogena, St Ives, Proactiv and Sea Breeze and no sunscreen. What a time to have been alive! 😭

One thing I have to thank my adhd for is hardly using all those terrible products that I'd bought! Now that I know how to work my skin and my brain I do lovely, gentle skin care while listening to a podcast. I'd also like this moment to recognize the silver lining of my grandma having skin cancer since before I was born (very non aggressive and more of a pain in the ass than anything thank goodness), my mom was always ON TOP of the sunscreen routine and I now have great sunscreen/cover up habits that I did not have to work to build at all. Thanks mom!

"middle aged accountant vibe" I laughed out loud.. girl my cousin did the same

I was a teenager when Retin A was available as a liquid in an amber bottle (ouch) and Noxema skin cream wash was supposed to be good for acne. Coppertone wa# the “sun lotion” with no spf. I remember Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil had an spf 4. No wonder so many of us are in repair mode for years of poor skincare.

I dunno. . .My derm had me purchase toner: 1/2 alcohol, 1/2 acetone from his office. @ least I got Rx for Differen. That was 20 + yrs ago, because my skin was dripping oil. It REALLY helped. I was in my mid-thirties @ time & much more oily than in teen yrs. I subsequently found out I had PCOS. Makes sense.

I used to use the body shop's tea tree toner many years ago, at least 5 times a day... I thought my skin was sooooo oily and it was causing my cystic acne, so I needed to tone all the time. I didn't moisturise because I thought it'd be putting oil back in when I didn't need it, not realising I was in a feedback loop of stripping the skin to create even more oil. I thought the super tight feeling was just my skin being clean, turns out it was my skin being tortured :( So embarrassed looking back on that, what the fuck was I thinking 😳

I'm in my 30s now, but growing up in California, I used Cetaphil face wash, Clinque number 2 toner, this pink Mary Kay face scrub, Eucerin Daily Protection SPF 30, and Clinique moisturizer! on hormonal breakouts, i'd use clean and clear spot treatment!! i don't think my routine was too bad for it's time, why did we think Clinque was the pinnacle of skincare in the early 2000s?! i think what WRECKED my skin was using hydrocortisone and other steroid creams too liberally on my face throughout my childhood and into adulthood for my eczema. better skincare and education for eczema prone skin is still needed to this day!

I really enjoyed this video, thank you Michelle ! Me too my skincare routine in France as a teenage boy was horrible (something called Biactol , a blue gel full of alcolol, wich dried my skin and worsened my acne in the same time). I finally got some roaccutane from my derm and since then started to treat my skin well with the brand Avene, with a good moisturizer (no perfume), a cleansing gel (clean-ac if I rembember)... since then I have been a skincareholic ;) So thank you acne for that ;p Anayway, could you do the same video but for haircare? It would be very very fun to know your passed routine and how things were formulated back then.

Blue toner 🤣🤣 might as well put meths on my face!!!

When I was younger I didn't have access to a dermatologist for my acne so I just used clean&clear my siblings used. Every day I dreaded having to wash & moisturize my face with those bottles of lava.

Oh yes, C&C. I remember being a greasy-faced teen drying out my poor face, buying MLM products because I didn't know any better and not putting proper moisturizer on. My cheeks were always pink.

If your toner doesn’t burn your skin and smell like powdery alcohol why even use it am I right? The early 2000’s were so rough on my skin oof

this video is so nostalgic! im 26yo now and my skin is the best it’s ever been. i sometimes think of my skincare routine back when i forst started breaking out when i was 15yo and it makes me cringe now thinking of the products i used. the products were highly drying, had alcohol, irritating fragrances and on top of that i didnt use a moisturiser as well because i was already so oily. imagine how much faster i would have relieved my sadness, tears and constant low self esteem and negative thoughts if i had the routine and understanding of my skin that i have today. we live and we learn eh

the toner ingredient list looks like the Clinique 3-step toners! lol

I still really like that moisturizer from Clean&Clear 😅 I was worried what you would have to say about it when I saw it in the thumbnail! I have a bottle of this and use it when my skin feels overheated or inflammed. It's cooling and soothing.

I was a teenager in the 90's and was a part of market research for Clean and Clear before it was released.i had cystic acne that only healed when I took Roaccutane for the second time at 28. These products were not helpful for me.

This brings me back! I used clean and clear and benzac at one stage, before moving onto Proactiv, which was possibly worse in the long run. I also put off wearing moisturiser and sunscreen and regret it so much. I wish we had access to the knowledge and information available today as a teenager.

I used this mess until Proactiv became a thing. Thank goodness for today’s skincare; Azelaic acid wasn’t even available then and it’s the product that finally helped with my acne!

Thank you for sharing your experience! I have to say, I definitely got the scrub fever in the mid 2000s 😂 BUT since my mom has sensitive skin I always got "the gentler" versions of creams and toners and she hooked on those me pretty young! Hahaha I remember using the benzoyl peroxide wash and being bright red too, oh the good memories! I have also to thank my pale ass for never standing the sun, I started splurging sunscreen on as a teen even if back in the days the only option we had were the greasy and thick ones! I looked like an oily chubby moon 😂😎🌝

If you think the 90s were bad, the 70s were worse. All we had was Clearasil and Ten-O-Six and everything was based on harsh stripping cleansers and drying toners, which no doubt aggravated inflammation.

Wow! It's crazy how similar our journeys were...down to the benzoyl peroxide flaking off my skin and someone commenting. The internet has been so terrible for so many things but so great for others. 💜

I used to snip off my whiteheads with scissors, apply lemon juice and steam my face with potato skins in the early 00s', all ill-advised homemade so-called remedies. I had absolutely no education around acne and no access to internet. I grew up pretty poor so couldn't afford skincare and my mum never took me to the doctor's. As an adult I have spent thousands on scar treatments and still my skin is not that great😭. Much better than it was though *Oh I forgot to mention I used toothpaste and my big sister's St Ives Scrub as well

Those Clean & Clear products are still being sold in Canada. I'm pretty sure they're still being sold in the U.S. as well.

I grew up in France so most of those are not sold here, but the packaging and the myths are very familiar.

Can I just say that I LOVE your interpretation of this video concept. So many people post videos with themselves just cringing about their old routines, but yours was so much more thorough and insightful.

This confirmed my recent suspicions that I’ve actually had dry/dehydration prone skin for longer than just my 30s… I thought I had super oily skin as a teen in the 00s and those C&C products (which I’ve still seen in the US!) were just stripping my skin and making everything worse! Skincare marketing and teen magazines never told me that hormonal acne that needed birth control and spironolactone was even a thing 😭😭

My teenage years were Neutrogena and my mom's stonen Olay royal jelly moisturizer.

all those clean and clear products are still readily available in the US lol

My low point was using a foot scrub on my face… yea

I bought my first bottle of Clean nad clear toner when I was about thirteen years old. I still remember hoping it would be a miracle for my acne prone skin. Yes, I was young and stupid. 😂

Omg, the tweezers!!! Did that too when using Proactiv 😂😂😂😂

Man I partook in this ungodliness. Damn! I was always expecting a miracle with those clean and clear products was them nothing 😪

Went on vacation in the US in 2019 and remember seeing clean and clear on the shelves. Not those exact bottles, but I think it was the lemon kind. I was tempted to buy it but was like nah, not anymore, bruh.

My holy grail skin care product back then was spongilla powder peeling (mixed with hydrogen peroxide). It hurt my face so bad! And I literally left shedding skin flakes after me the week after this peeling. Also I used tar soap as an acne treatment which was obviously very drying, but I had a strong belief that it helps.

honestly the clean and clear moisturizer and their UK exfoliating wash are the only products that helped my acne. they're also much cheaper than most ""modern"" formulas

I remember wearing an Avon moisturizer with sunscreen in it, to school. But my friends made fun of me and called me shiny face, so I stopped 😢. I’m also surprised you didn’t end up using Proactive!

hmm yes todays generation are really information overloaded and it makes it a lot more complicated for them, not only skincare but also dietary choices, lifestyle choices, education, relationship ... not easy at all. they are in need of good educators. thanks for your video :)

This 2000s skin care routine was no doubt international! In Russia back then I had very similar skin care with stripping Clean&Clear toners and Clearasil washes, and even an apricot kernel scrub!

The Clean & Clear stuff is still available in the US! I don’t think I know anyone who uses it though…

Anyone who can sail through middle school, adolescence into high school and college with PERFECTLY CLEAR, PORCELAIN, TODDLER SKIN is LUCKY! I knew several classmates who had that back from 5th grade until 12th! This was over 50 years ago, so I don't know what they look like now!

I'm 34. The only skincare product I've used was a Ponds foaming cleanser. The one in the white and pink tube. Some of my friends were using an exfoliator with hydroquinone which was super popular in my country. I also grew up with bad acne. My parents never brought me to a dermatologist until I was 17 when I refused to go to school. That was the start of me wearing spf. My dermatologist at that time said to me that all the treatments were useless if I don't wear spf everyday. I still remember that to this day.

That was awesome. Even with all of today's information, and having researched a LOT and been doing skincare for well over a decade, it took until just recently at 31, to realise I was in a vicious cycle with my actives lol (damaged skin barrier, but only slightly. Never enough to be obvious like how people say it is). Now only weeks later, I literally stopped using benzoyl peroxide, glycolic acid, and even for days now, god damn salicylic acid! insanity. Not even doing nightly 3-minute cleansing oil rubbing sessions anymore (at all). Also only cleansing once a day now. My skin is totally fine, hardly any pimples at all, no need for actives just yet, and the redness went away really fast. I had tried doing this before, but the skin get terriblllle when doing that, and that terribleness leads to pimples and you're just stuck... the ticket out was oil cleanser, to get rid of all that shit on my face, and then just waiting for the rest to sort itself out. I'm just waiting to see what my skin does, to figure out how to proceed from here without stumbling into another vicious cycle lol. It's just tretinoin and twice a day niacinamide currently (and once a day cleanser). The next thing I want to work on is upping my moisturiser game, since my desquamation (cool word that might fit) still isn't quite where I want it, though it's a BILLION times better than it was. I want to add salicylic acid back in via a cleanser, but I gotta see what my skin does first.

I think I somehow survived this. Thanks to Eczema..Cleansing&Moisturizer. Sometimes a Scrub or a Washoff Mask.

The best skincare routine that worked for me, from 16 to now (28 years): I complete stopped using make up. Is going very well.

Hello!!! Can you do a video talking about red light theray? Im seeing doctors recommending it everywhere and it feels like a little gimmick

Oh my gaaaaahd, 37 year old here and the products available in Canada were equally *terrible*. I was so embarrassed by my cystic acne and my mom’s offer of help was a very orange body shop “cover up”, except I’m an NW20 and it was… whatever orange shade Fabutan makes people, thus literally highlighting my acne 😭

Ugh, St. Ives apricot scrub and Noxeema cream survivor here, except from the 90's. I didn't seriously start using moisturizer until my early 20's.

5:10 even right now (23 y.o.) i using it but there are 4 ingredients in my ingredients list's bottle that are'nt mentioned at yours: palmitic acid, PEG-100 stearate, cyclohexaciloxane, stearic acid in between salicylic acid and sodium hydroxide. ah btw this mine are manufactured by Johnson&Johnson Thailand at 16 April 2021 so its a new improved formula but your point about glycerin and SA still relate.

Used noxzema sometimes and did nothing but thought the strong menthol would work some magic. Washed my face with clean and clear or whatever fragrance super foamy cleanser I could get. Would put on benzoyl peroxide gel in morning and never any sunscreen much at age 13. Just stripped my skin, put acne medicine and no moisturizer becausr my skin especially nose got oily after an oil. Would wash makeup off and apply .1 retinol and no moisturizer ever. Thought I try a face cream that wouldnt clog pore because I learned it was bad to not moisturize. Saw michelle phan or some youtuber say a certain aveeno cream was good for sensitive skin. It had a nice frangrance after 2 weeks of applying daily I noticed every time I applied it, it burned my skin. Wondered why if its for sensitive skin, did research turns out it was the fragrance (fragrance was in most skincare cream back then😐) stopped using it and didnt use a cream for a few years but did put sunscreen later on. These companies shouldnt exist for how bad they formulated their products. Literally just stealing our money and applying alcohol to the wound

I started with Noxema creme cleanser at about 12 years old. Never a moisturizer. I think I tried Sea Breeze astringent, but not with much regularity. Once I started working, I tried more Clinique and Origins products and started wearing sunscreen daily around 20 or 21. I never had too many problems with acne, though. I was pretty lucky.

Twin sisters here: Isocol (isopropyl alcohol) was our toner of choice, applied with a cotton ball, maybe pure tea tree oil. We got to the point of 3 times daily washing our faces with benzac wash AND following up with the cream. Bleached everything! Plus twice a week (maximum because we didn't want to damage our skin 🙄) St Ives scrub. Our skin was red, covered in pimples, an oil slick and peeling. Literally the ONLY good thing we did was get a dermatologist to prescribe us Roaccutane in grade 12. Ah memories.