Let me share one of the most valuable takeaways from my time at Sephora — advice that might resonate with anyone who's exhausted every product imaginable without seeing any real progress.
A typical day at the store looked something like this: I'd dedicate nearly an hour helping a customer curate a personalized regimen, only to watch them walk back through the doors days later with armfuls of items seeking refunds. My immediate question? "How frequently have you applied this, and over what period?" The responses were often along the lines of, "I used it on alternating days for a short stretch and noticed zero change," or "I gave it a go one evening and woke up covered in blemishes!"
As much as I'd love for beauty products to deliver instant miracles, they rarely do. Picture skincare as a hands-on home improvement task — there's bound to be experimentation before you nail the technique, rather than casually scrolling through a tutorial once and expecting perfection on the first try. Achieving that "completed look" — radiant, healthy skin — almost never happens after a single attempt.
Reflecting on those refund situations, the standard guidance was to take everything home and stick with it for at least two weeks before throwing in the towel entirely. What surprised me was how many of those very same shoppers returned weeks later, repurchasing the exact items they'd nearly abandoned. The turning point? Genuine commitment paired with regular use. When your products fall short of expectations or trigger initial blemishes (note: blemishes differ significantly from allergic reactions — if you notice a rash forming, halt application right away), commit to a two-to-three-week window before drawing conclusions.
Dedicate that fair two-to-three-week stretch and you grant formulas the runway to work through hormonal shifts and seasonal transitions, while letting your complexion adapt to unfamiliar components. My own experience mirrors this perfectly with celery juice — my initial reaction was nearly nausea at how awful it tasted. By day seven, I'd grown accustomed to the flavor, and by week two, I genuinely savored it while noticing tangible improvements inside and out. Sometimes your system simply requires time to acclimate.
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Moving on to routine regularity. When a cleanser label instructs "apply twice daily," take it at face value — for cleansers across the board, a twice-daily rhythm tends to work well. Morning use washes away the dead cells your skin released overnight, along with any grime that settled on your face while you slept. Evening use, meanwhile, clears away cosmetics and pollutants gathered throughout the day. Masks and exfoliating treatments, on the other hand, perform best at just two sessions per week. That naturally leads us to another issue: going overboard.
A go-to example I love to share involves the Clarisonic cleansing device — which functions as an exfoliator at its core. Countless clients complained about relentless breakouts tied to their Clarisonic use with no resolution in sight, and the culprit was almost always excessive application that overstimulated sebum output. Limiting sessions to 2-3 times weekly is more than sufficient, even when using the brush head designed for delicate skin. Picture scrubbing your face with an oversized sonic toothbrush — that's a tremendous amount of intensity on your complexion!
Here's the bottom line: grant your products ample time (a minimum of two to three weeks) and apply them with steady regularity (when in doubt about instructions, reach out to the retailer or contact the brand directly) before deciding they aren't right for you. And stay mindful of going overboard! These small shifts can completely transform how your regimen performs.
xo, Keely
Credits // Written by: Keely Rust Photography by: Amber Ulmer. Image editing using A Color Story Desktop.
Stillness Speaks Louder Than Mere Quiet.
