How to choose between professional grade or drugstore skin care brands?
Skin Care: professional grade or drugstore, that is the question! What are the significant differences, how should you choose, and what are the benefits?
Today's product lines are formulated to be highly effective, ingredients are better than ever, and new ways to deliver the ingredients into the skin are more efficient. With that said, our expectations of the results that a product can provide have also increased. Many products are designed to cleanse, soften, smooth, and hydrate – and this takes place on the outer layers of the skin.
When products are purchased through a professional esthetician, a thorough consultation will help determine the products best suited to achieving the client's goals. The esthetician is trained in product knowledge, physiology of the skin and has the experience to predict most outcomes for the skin. She is trained to make suggestions on how to use the product that might differ slightly from the instructions on the package. This is in the best interest of the client and their skin. Reactions can be monitored, product or instructions on use can be modified – as a client, you have the support of your skin care professional, and you work together as a team to address your skin care concerns. Plus the ingredients with a professional grade skin care line are just that, professional grade and high quality.
Products sold in drug stores typically are more simple, consisting of lower quality or less expensive ingredients. This makes sense, since a drug store brand typically costs less than a professional skin care brand. When determining if a drugstore brand is what you want, you will want to look at the first five ingredients to determine if that product is what you are looking for. These ingredients will give you an indication of how well the product works. For example, if you are after a product that will brighten and boost collagen you would be looking for Vitamin C. If it is at the top of the list, it would be more effective than a product where vitamin C is near the end of the ingredient listing.