The Top 12 #DamnGood Esthetician-Formulated Skincare Products For Every Step of Your Routine, Tested!

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media Production.

0:07Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins.

0:20Welcome back to Breaking Beauty podcast, everyone. Happy 2025. We are in your feeds with a brand new episode on the very first day of the year. We're really happy that you're joining us. Hey, Carlene. Hi, Jill. Happy New Year. Thank you. Happy New Year to you too. You as well. So what we have learned in eight years of doing this podcast is that our audience loves skincare content and in particular episodes that feature estheticians. And I can understand why, because there's always so many tips, tricks, takeaways, and product advice from people that are just touching people's faces all the time.

1:01They just have those hands on hours that really lend itself so well to providing educational content. Yes, absolutely. And we've had some amazing estheticians on our show that truly, you know, whether they're getting celebrities red carpet ready or we have real like problem solution estheticians who are just like transforming people's skin. Yeah. Life changing. You know, without the use of drugs when it comes to acne and pigment and stuff like that. So, so much respect for and they're largely women, I will say as well. Now, the other types of episodes that do well in our history, our damn goods episodes, where we kind of check out the landscape, we test about a bazillion products and then we edit.

1:51That's what we do as two former beauty editors turned beauty podcasters. Indeed. And we deliver our edit of what we think is hashtag damn good. So we're smashing both of those ideas together today. We're smushing them together and we're doing a roundup of the absolute best esthetician developed skincare products in our opinion. So we're doing a top 20, I think, somewhere around there. We're going to have to go a little faster than usual, everyone, because there are a lot of products to go over. But really, when we started this podcast almost eight years ago, there weren't as many esthetician-led brands on the market.

2:34It was just a few, really, that you'd find at Sephora that really led the charge like Dermalogica, Kate Somerville. I mean, those are probably the goats, but we've seen so many more now that, you know, the barrier to entry is a little bit lower. Yeah. If you're trusting your face in someone's hands on a regular, semi-regular basis, if they're using certain products on you in the treatment, well, it kind of makes sense that an esthetician would then be compelled to make their own line because they're selling you product anyway, typically. And then with social media, you can, estheticians can show how they're using the product when they're not in the treatment room.

3:10And I just think it's incredible all the way around. Well, let's not forget also when they have a celebrity clientele. Yeah. And they've done somebody for the red carpet. You know, if Haley Bieber is your client and she's constantly getting compliments on her skin and you're doing her skin every single month or whatever, then it's a compelling argument to want to start a line. So anyway, we have tried so many. But I think the other thing I just want to add really quickly is there is, I think, also a camp of people who will be who will gravitate toward dermatologist developed skincare brands and some people who will follow more facialist, esthetician developed beauty brands.

3:51If you guys want us to do a roundup of the best dermatologist created beauty products in the future, let us know because we can do that too. Yeah, I already have a few favorites on that camp. We need to say off the hop that I have oilier skin. I have normal skin, but it is quite sensitive and rosacea prone. So my biggest issue is typically redness. And then because I'm in my 40s, I'm also dealing with that. Jill, you are typically about oil. Definitely more oily, sensitive, breakout prone. So keep that in mind when we are reviewing these products. Yes. Certainly because, and you know, we're talking about certain brands.

4:32I'm sure there's a, for every esthetician out there, there's probably a protocol and there's so many lines to choose from. So these are just the ones that we happen to get our hands on. But if there's like one that you need us to know about, I want to hear about it. I definitely want to hear in our Facebook chat room. I think we should drop some favorites that have been skin transformers. Yes. And on our Instagram as well. You know, we always post when we drop an episode and you can drop it in there. So because we want to know, but our other our listeners also want to know. Yeah. OK, so the roadmap, as it were, for today's episode, we're going to give you suggestions in each category, cleansers, toners.

5:11So there's exfoliating toners, there's hydrating toners. We're going to be talking about serums, beauty tools. I even have an SPF recommendation. And I do want to say, I just have to say, very unfortunately, I did not get to try Caroline Hirons line, which is called Skin Rocks. And she's like the most iconic aesthetician on social media, I would say, and also a podcaster now. So I do apologize that we didn't get a chance to give hers a go. But yes, is it available in North America yet? It's harder to get. Right. It probably ships. Yes, we do want to try it. And she's a past guest on our show, as are most of the aestheticians we're going to be talking about today.

5:52We'll link to some of those episodes as well in our show notes. So here we go. Our top esthetician created skincare products after the jump.

6:15Medicaid is one of our show partners this week. I became a convert to a new skincare brand in 2024. I do not know why it took me so long to try this brand, but it's Medicaid. And Medicaid is a clinically proven British skincare brand known for its age-defying results. It's founded by two scientist brothers over 15 years ago now. And their mission really was all about simplifying your journey to achieving great skin. And all Medicaid products undergo rigorous clinical testing and deliver incredible before and after results, plus their dermatologist recommended. And like many of you, I've been hearing so much about peptides recently.

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7:32Visit Medicaid.us for 20 % off your first order with code BEAUTY at checkout. That's M-E-D-I-K, the number 8.us and code BEAUTY to save 20%. We'll link to this offer in our show notes and on our website. Now back to the show.

8:04I'm Whitney Adebayo. You may know me from Love Island, but it's time to know me from a little island called Life. My podcast, What's It Giving?, features my sister Lizzie, as well as special guests getting into all the things, life, love, laughter. I'm not saying tea will be spilled, but I'm also not saying the floor will be dry. Send me a DM on Instagram if you have any dilemmas you want to be answered on our podcast. Watch or listen to What's It Giving wherever you get your podcasts every Wednesday. Be there or be square.

8:43all right carly i think with cleansers we want to start with talking maybe about a first step cleanser a cleansing balm when we're talking about cleansing balms of course i think we need to give a shout out to eve lom right for creating or at least popularizing this category in North America. I believe she's from the UK. Is she not? Actually, like Eastern Europe. It's like your people. Right. It's like Czech Republic or the former Czechoslovakia. Like that's how long she's been doing it. Right. So that's kind of an icon that I just want to hat tip. Yes. However, in this day and age, I wouldn't say it's my absolute favorite in this category.

9:24So Then I Met You Living Cleansing Balm is currently my favorite when it comes to cleansing balms. It's$39 US. And the founder is Charlotte Cho of Soko Glam. She's a trained esthetician, maybe not in practice. So I don't know, maybe people are going to argue with me on this one, but it is an award-winning cleansing balm that is great for all skin types. And I think that's the point of difference, aside from the fact that it smells lovely, like so fresh and like grapefruit. So you can use it in the morning and it looks like sorbet. It feels like sorbet, but it's good for all skin types, right? Whereas Jill, like I know you love this product.

10:08You have oily skin. Yeah. Do you find it leaves a residue or anything? No, I don't. I don't. But I also appreciate that it is a more modern take on it. Like it's not like get out the muslin cloth and put it on your face. Like I'm just not going to be the person that's doing that, even though I love the idea of being the flannel girl. This has modernized it. Yeah. It has the little scoop. You don't have to get your fingers in there. Yeah. I just like that it doesn't leave that oily skin feeling afterwards. so you can still move ahead with your subsequent skincare routine. Yeah. But it is still getting off because of the oils, the sunscreen and the makeup and all of that.

10:49While it has a lovely scent, there's less than 1 % synthetic fragrance in there. So it's not irritating. You know, she, again, because she has been trained as an esthetician, she knows what's up. Yeah. And I think she's a little busy these days running her brands and being a mom of two. So I doubt she's logging many hours in the treatment room. But the point being that she has that hands-on experience working on people. And she's tried a lot of product too. So what about step two, Jill? I wanted to show you the Jan Marini Bioglycolic Face Cleanser. It's$48 US,$62 in Canada. I think this brand is a bit of a sleeper hit amongst consumers maybe.

11:30Yes. But in the esthetician world, people worship Jan Marini. She is an incredible educator. She's been researching ingredients forever. And she's actually an innovator in the sense that she was the first person to bring glycolic acid to commercial use in beauty. Oh, wow. So she said at the time in 1994, when she invented this product range, glycolic acid was not used. It might have been used in treatment rooms, but for commercial use at home, it was not used. So the fact that this product came out in 1994, so it's what, 31 years old since we're in 2025? Is that right? And Kendall Jenner just used this in her like Vogue, Get Ready With Me video.

12:12And I think really what makes it stand out is that any skin type can use it. And even though it's glycolic acid, it does not sting. I think you should try using it. This is the cleansing gel. I'm sorry, technically better for, I would say, oily skin, but it really keeps your pores clear because it's that flash contact of an exfoliating ingredient. And so far, I've been really liking it. It's, you know, I'll be honest, nothing special to look at. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a workhorse brand. Yes. It's, you know, and it's, I think it's meant more for professional sales and, you know, you sort of, it gets recommended to you by your esthetician, then you buy it.

12:50You're typically not going to find it at the, on the shelf of, you know, a even blue mercury type of thing. And it's non-foaming as well, which I also wanted to bring up because a lot of glycolic acid-based cleansers are foaming. Right. Now you mentioned flash contact, which I do think is great for people like me with sensitive skin because then it's not sitting there for a long time. So it's one way to kind of use the ingredient without overdoing it. Yeah. I would still say 60 second cleanse. That's the rule that I still use when I'm using something like this. Saying happy birthday while you wash your face.

13:27Exactly. At least once, if not a couple of times. We need a timer in the shower. We just like turn it upside down. Absolutely. Anyway, after like really getting my hands on this and using it, I was like, we need to have Jan on the show because she is like, she has a warehouse, Carlene, full of product that's not her own. That's product from other brands. Yes. And she said, because she came up before the internet, this was how she would research product. She'd go out and buy. Right. I think there's probably still a lot of developers who do that. She has the original La Mer. It was called Cream of the Sea from Max before he sold it commercially to anybody.

14:10So she's got like a friggin archive. Oh my God, like a museum. We need to go do a roving reporter. and I'd be curious to see what has stood up. But anyway, she's a fascinating person and I will continue to use this. Okay. When it comes to toners, and by the way, I will say I'm a skin cycler. I'm not putting all of this on top, all of these actives on top of my skin every single day. But a glycolic toner that I discovered from an esthetician brand that I really like is from Biba, Biba D'Souza, who was recently on our show. She works with Billie Eilish. She works with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. She created a toner called the glycolic lactic toner.

14:48And what I really appreciate about this one is that it has glycerin in there. So it actually, when you put it on a cotton pad and put it on your face, you don't get stinging at all. And I think the combo of the AHAs together is really gentle and powerful to get that cell turnover. So you're getting that gentle glow. It also has one of your favorite ingredients, aloe vera leaf juice extract in there, hyaluronic acid. And it has those are all designed to alleviate the skin dryness. It's oil controlling, I would say. Yeah, that makes sense. So if I have like a big event or I really think I'm going to my face is going to eat my makeup, something like this is a good first step for me.

15:34Yeah, yeah, it's true. We can never forget that step of using an exfoliating toner before putting on your makeup for a great event because your makeup just goes on so much better. Yeah. That was always kind of the lore about the Biologique Recherche P50. Yes. Although that was not created by an esthetician. So that's a sidebar. But I also wanted to mention it's$38 US for this product. So it's pretty reasonable. Yeah. To get the same toner that probably Hayley Bieber uses on her face, you know. Absolutely. Or Billie Eilish. And I think what's important to know about or what's important to think about is like, yes, I'm saying ingredients you've probably heard of before, but I think it's really about like the recipe that these estheticians are able to, because they're used to kind of playing with professional products and putting them together in a strength, quote unquote, that will work for skin and get you the best results with no irritation.

16:27I think that that's, she's bottled that. Yeah. And Biba is also, in case you didn't listen to that episode, she is a big believer in non-comedogenic ingredients. So you can be sure that any product in her line is non-comedogenic for real. Because that term, everybody has a different interpretation of what that means or how they test it. She actually has an ingredient checker on her website. Or clogging checker, I think. Or clogging checker. And so you can copy and paste the ingredient list on your product, your favorite product, to see if there is a sneaky ingredient in there that is clogging pores.

17:07So that's just something good to know because she is a bit of a acne fixer. Yeah. Is what she's probably best known for. So I don't doubt that that's probably like triple A in this category. Love it. Now, not everybody is looking for acne products or to exfoliate in their toner. Of course, there's a whole different category, which is hydrating toners. And, you know, unless you're talking about K-beauty or Japanese toners, there are some great ones from estheticians where they're really using, they tend to be botanical ingredients. these types of myths, they're refreshing. And I find usually it's about not only hydration, but calming ingredients.

17:55Like usually it aims to reduce inflammation, that kind of thing. So I want to tell you about one that I recently discovered. I quite like it. It's Monastery. Have you heard of this brand? Yeah. Rachel Goodwin was talking about it on our show. Yeah. Or Molly Stern, one of them. Yeah. I think it was Rachel Goodwin. And I had not heard of this brand until then. First of all, it's beautiful. It's absolutely stunning. It is so up my alley in terms of like aesthetic and the backstory. So I'm going to just tell you very briefly. We have so much to talk about today, but the founder, her name is Athena Hewitt, and she's a master esthetician.

18:33She has 20 years of study and training, and she has a studio in San Francisco, Monastery Studio. And she created this line because like we've talked about a lot of products she had been using in her back bar were still irritating her clients and creating problems. So that's why she created this. Now, this hydrating floral essence, you can smell it here, Jill, was created as a collaboration with Sofia Coppola. No shit. Yeah. Like how chic is that? So it was created, it's called Hideaways, and it was inspired by Hideaways Resort in Belize. So it uses all like local ingredients. It does smell very beautiful, but I will say it is a bit, it might be a bit perfumey for some people, a bit floral, even though they say that it doesn't contain any added fragrances.

19:31So I think it's just the ingredients themselves. It really does feel like you're walking through like a tropical garden in Belize. The main ingredient is rose water. So that's really what you're smelling if you love the smell of rose water, which we know is calming as well. And then it also has orchid oil, orange bitter oil. So if you're not an essential oils person, this product is not for you. But one thing that I do think is worth mentioning is her no-no list of ingredients. So the products she does not use, no alcohols, that's to be expected, no petroleum, no shea butter. Jill, you would appreciate that because a lot of sort of all natural botanical brands use that, but you find that to break you out.

20:17No cinnamon oil, no salts, no coconut oil, no squalene. Oh, no, wait, no squalene. Right, right. That makes sense because that's not vegan. Correct. No fillers of any kind, no parabens, no salicylic acid, no sulfates, and no tea tree oil. Okay. Why no salicylic acid? Is that... Well, that can be irritating. I mean, it's still exfoliating to a degree. It may be irritating to some. Yeah. But it's also in a glass bottle, everyone. It's a mist. It's a mist. Yes, it's in a burgundy bottle. I'm spraying it right now. Live spritzing. And everything in this line is just absolutely stunning. Like, picture it like Sofia Coppola creative directed this line.

21:00Like, that's how chic it is. Yeah, it really is very special. If I didn't mention it, this is$120 US. Okay. And yeah, the whole line is in this kind of like botanical, super relaxing. lovely. So in terms of how you use it in your routine, it's an essence versus a toner. Well, it's a toner essence. Again, I feel like an essence is a non-exfoliating toner, really. It's a hydrating toner. But you can use it as a mist so that you can use it throughout the day as well. That's really the significance of a mist. Okay. So moving on, our next category is Best Serum. Ooh, okay. Such a tough one. There's a lot of good serums out there.

21:45Carlene, I think you might have gotten an import. Yes. This is my favorite product of the day that I'm showing to people. It's probably the hardest to get too. It's actually not. This is the Sophie Carbonary The S Serum. It's$316 US. It's not inexpensive. It's available at Moda Operandi in the U.S. And I believe they shipped to Canada as well. So this was a new to me product and I actually got it from the Moda newsletter. That's how I discovered it. And that's how I learned about Sophie Carbonari. Turns out that Sophie is Paris's most wanted facialist. Okay. Which I didn't realize. And she has clients like Caroline de Maigret, Lou Doyon, Naomi Campbell, and Rihanna.

22:35Okay. Her studio is in Palais Royale in Paris. Beautiful. She is known to create the glow. Okay. So she created this product. I believe this is the only product in her line, in her eponymous line at the moment. And it's really an all around hydrating and balancing serum. It's said to be good for all skin types. I would say it's a daytime serum. It has, because the main ingredient is vitamin C, which we know works really well during the day under a sunscreen. It has hyaluronic acid that's going to give you that plumpness, that stewiness. Centella Asiatica, that's wound healing. You know, that's really great for calming.

23:18That's in a lot of K-beauty as well. Exactly. Black cumin, which is another antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, vitamin C for moisturizing, and argan oil. So it's in a dropper, everyone. It's in a dropper, and it looks almost like it's going to be a face oil. But to me, it's almost like a hybrid. It's almost like a refreshing oil or a gel oil. Okay. And it has just a little bit of gold luster in it. So it feels so quenching on the skin and it just looks really beautiful even on its own. I think this is really that French girl aesthetic where, you know, maybe they're not wearing any makeup. Right. But I watched a video where she was talking about it and she actually recommends you can put it on even after makeup on the tops of your cheeks for a bit of glow.

24:06Do you want to try it? I'm not wasting a drop. Well, she sent me two bottles. So here's my holiday gift to you. Oh, it is made in Korea. Yes. Oh, yes. It is made in Korea. I just, yeah. So that's why the Sika is in there. I forgot it. Yeah. So designed in Paris, made in Korea. So it really has that beautiful texture, whereas I find a lot of other of these kind of like botanical organic brands are so you get that oil where you can really only wear it for before bed. So I just feel like this is a very special, unique product. And I could also tolerate the vitamin C quite well, which usually I can't tolerate vitamin C at all.

24:48Right. Again, it's like she knows what she's doing. Like they're not going to she's not going to do anything that might potentially irritate the skin. Yeah. Glycerin also in there. I will also say that this is a black owned brand. And I think in the esthetician space, we don't always see so many like commercially successful skin care founders. Right. So I think that's also another another item of note for sure. So speaking of K-Beauty, I'm going to talk about a serum that gives you glass skin. this is the peach and lily glass skin serum it's 39 us dollars it's available at ulta and of course the founder of this brand is alicia yoon she's been on our podcast she is an esthetician she grew up in korea i'll never forget on our show when she gave us those like facial exercises that she does that basically like strengthen the whole face like she it's like yoga for your face.

25:46She really knows the ins and outs of skincare and taking care of your skin holistically as well as topically. This product is so huge that one bottle is sold every two minutes. Wow. And it really introduced, I think, the whole notion of glass skin to North America. Yeah. It's really all about refining skin's texture so your pores aren't as pronounced, giving you that glass even tone of the skin. It's got niacinamide in there. It has yam extract, which helps to create more supple skin and reduce flakiness. It has hyaluronic acid complex. It has a peptide complex. It also has a centella asiatica derivative, and that's known to help skin and rejuvenate it.

26:29Which we can't pronounce. Yeah, I can't pronounce it, so you'll have to Google it that way. It's a derivative. That's all you need to know. Exactly. And I just find that it also gives you visible smoothing of lines when you are dedicated to using it. And it kind of does it all. And I understand why it's such a smash hit because a lot of different skin types can use it and see results. So if you're concerned about texture, you can use it. If you're concerned about fine lines, you can use it. If your skin is prone to redness or flakiness, you can use it. And I love following her content because she goes to Korea a lot.