Top Ten Summer Beauty Products 2010

This post is inspired by a tag mak­ing the rounds on YouTube. Some have gone beyond just beauty prod­ucts and into cloth­ing and even gad­gets, but for the sake of orga­ni­za­tion I’ll stick with my top ten sum­mer beauty musts.

Over the past two years, I think I’ve just really learned to live in my skin comfortably—just sort of learn­ing what works for me in terms of care and color. I’ve tried so many makeup moves and tech­niques since my first foray into full makeup 2 years ago and I’m that much closer to per­fect­ing my beauty stance.

Mov­ing into this sum­mer, I had the nerve to look at my 32 year-young face and decide that I needed to step up my anti-wrinkle game. Trust me, I rec­og­nize the insan­ity now and I plead guilty by rea­son of stu­pid­ity. Seri­ously, this is when you know you’ve gone too far, but at the time I had con­vinced myself that I was doing my skin a favor with the prevention-is-better-than-cure-argument.

Unfor­tu­nately, or for­tu­nately, depend­ing on your per­spec­tive the com­bi­na­tion of stress, the heat of O-Town + Oil and yes, the afore­men­tioned prod­uct junkie syn­drome had my skin scream­ing a very pro­found WTH!

I got the mes­sage loud and clear.

I had been on a per­fectly nice reg­i­men and then just had to have some­thing dif­fer­ent. So I went back to basics, and I prayed my skin would for­give me sooner rather than later. It took some time, read­ing and research, but I had to learn the hard way that just because my acne-prone skin is under con­trol, doesn’t mean that basi­cally I’m not still acne-prone.

This was a rev­e­la­tion in more ways than one. And soon after, I stood in the Wal-Mart beauty aisle over­whelmed to the point where I just had to ask God to show me what to buy. And believe me when I say that my steady reg­i­men for the past six weeks has been a God­send. I am over­joyed with the state my face is in (I touch it all the time, and I make my hus­band touch it all the time) and more than pleased to share and endorse my Top Ten 2010 Sum­mer Beauty Products:

1. With the sum­mer sun want­ing to have sum­mer fun with my hyper-pigmentation and blem­ishes my #1 prod­uct has to be my sunscreen—and not just any sun­screen, but Neu­tro­gena® Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sun­block SPF 30. Plus it comes highly recommended!

There are few words that describe a prod­uct that my hands can find with­out my eyes, espe­cially under the early morn­ing veil of sleepi­ness. I sim­ply will not leave my house with­out this on my face and decol­letage. It is an absolute must. I have tried any num­ber of glo­ri­fied sun­screens, but for this skin that I live in and its some­timish behav­ior I’m a devoted fan.

2. Neu­tro­gena® Oil-Free Acne Wash Pink Grape­fruit Cream Cleanser has given me the best expe­ri­ence wash­ing my face bar-none. (Pun intended). I love Dove. I loved think­ing I was the girl who could wash my face with Dove and then be done. I was wrong. I am acne-prone and this prod­uct under­stands my skin on a deeper, deeper level. It also hap­pens to be a plea­sure. I lit­er­ally stand in the shower or at the sink and just slow mas­sage my trou­ble areas.

Neu­tro­gena® Oil-Free Acne Stress Con­trol Power-Clear Scrub: This prod­uct might seem like it should be num­bered sep­a­rately as opposed to being an ad-lib to the above cream cleanser, but you have to under­stand the his­tory and how in a 24-hour period, these two prod­ucts work together or not at all. I’ve been intend­ing for a while now to make at least a con­sul­tant appoint­ment with the estheti­cian at my der­ma­tol­o­gist and then just putting it off. I never knew how even mild exfo­li­a­tion could truly ben­e­fit the skin. When you are acne and blemish-prone you’re think­ing of all the ways to not trau­ma­tize your skin. And I have used the almost oblig­a­tory St. Ives Apri­cot Scrub and Queen Helene’s Mask, but they can’t quite hold a can­dle to what this gem does. Lit­er­ally the tex­ture and feel of my skin has been trans­formed by my day and night reg­i­men, that has now been reduced (for dry­ness sake) to an every other night reg­i­men. I sim­ply love the skin that this prod­uct con­tin­ues to reveal.

3. Work­ing in strong con­cert with Nuet­ro­gena to most effec­tively elim­i­nate ALL and ANY exces­sive oili­ness through­out the day is Dr. Thrower’s Her­itage Quick Dry­ing Acne Treat­ment. This prod­uct was just hang­ing out in my med­i­cine cab­i­net. I mean I knew I liked it, but I didn’t under­stand how I could love it. I went from using this prod­uct twice a day all over my face in the begin­ning, to pulling back to once at night, and now just as a spot treat­ment for my cheeks dur­ing the day­time, under my foun­da­tion. I can see myself even­tu­ally using this only at bed­time or just when­ever any­thing rears an ugly head. I rec­om­mend this prod­uct to my oily girls who are also acne– and blemish-prone with absolute confidence.

4. Cetaphil Mois­tur­iz­ing Lotion: This next one is so unas­sum­ing, prac­ti­cally a whis­per in my life since it works along­side any­thing I could pos­si­bly incor­po­rate into my reg­i­men. It is easy to under­es­ti­mate this prod­uct, and eas­ier still to for­get how good it is when faced with the newest promises on the mar­ket. But Cetaphil is per­fec­tion, and when I feel too dry because I am excited at those self­same prod­ucts work­ing, and I think I can push it, it brings me back to cen­ter and the soft­ness of baby skin.

5. mark Mist Oppor­tu­nity Multi-tasking Refresher: I haven’t always known what to do with this prod­uct. The prod­uct states “if your skin needs a pick-me-up and your makeup needs a touch up then try this all-around skin revi­tal­izer pumped with grape­fruit, kiwi and lemon­grass extracts that deliv­ers a burst of antiox­i­dant ben­e­fits to purify, reju­ve­nate and replen­ish skin” I’ve found that this prod­uct stands up to this claim state­ment. It is in Oprah’s word “Fab-U-Lous!” This mist is a sum­mer sta­ple in my bag that imparts dewi­ness in the morn­ing, (whether I am apply­ing foun­da­tion or not), refreshes my face through­out the day, but espe­cially at the end of a long one.

6. MAC Min­er­al­ize SPF 15 Foun­da­tion Loose in Deep Dark and Deeper Dark: Up to this point skin­care has dom­i­nated, but believe me when I say this prod­uct has become impor­tant in my beauty reg­i­men. I bought it at my local CCO (Cos­metic Com­pany Store) to replace my MAC Min­er­al­ized Skin­Fin­ish Nat­ural, as it had hit pan (another first). It is not a sub­sti­tute. It works dif­fer­ently as it pro­vides a medium to full cov­er­age; and on skin which has become a nice and accom­mo­dat­ing can­vas, it is def­i­nitely Tynisha-approved. I mean who knew that a min­eral foun­da­tion could feel like a cream. The tex­ture of this prod­uct is just beau­ti­ful. And I don’t tend to be the girl who wears the same brand of any­thing on an every­day basis. I like to mix it up gen­er­ally. But there has lit­er­ally been no other prod­uct these past six weeks. Six weeks folks! And with a spritz of my mist Oppor­tu­nity, please believe that there’s good­ness all around.

7. mark Good Glow­ing Cus­tom Pick Pow­der Blush in Love Rush: In my opin­ion, mark blushes are win­ners, but for a sum­mer flush, Love Rush with your favorite high­light is the business!

8. Revlon’s Super Lus­trous Lip Gloss in Coral Reef and Milani’s Glossy Tubes in Shim­mer­ing Glow. Together, or sep­a­rately, what can I say… my lips thank you!

9. SKIN SO SOFT Min­eral Gems Glam­orous Gold Gelled Body Oil: This is a throw­back wrapped in new­ness. I love it on freshly shaved legs, on my neck, shoul­ders and back. I feel like I’ve been inhal­ing it lately, but there’s no reap­pli­ca­tion dur­ing the day and the prod­uct is not dry­ing. It gives brown skin a kind of glow that is worth so much more than $7.00.

10. And last but cer­tainly not least is Degree Nature­ef­fects in Orange Flower + Cran­berry: So nice and in an office where there are per­fume aller­gies, the per­fect touch of fra­grance. I’m a sweaty girl and it stands the test of my work day. Can’t wait to try the Olive Leaf + Pink Pep­per and Hon­ey­suckle + Tea Tree Oil.

What’s one of your must have beauty prod­ucts for sum­mer 2010 or just because?