Let’s review Quinta Brunson’s nighttime skincare routine! Quinta is a huge fan of Olay so let’s figure out if these products are truly worth it! We’ll also review Quinta’s philosophy on skincare. 

Step 1: 

Before cleansing, Quinta begins by saying, “It’s good to rehydrate and recharge your skin at night. Your skin gets a bunch of germs and toxins throughout the day, and you have to get them off of your face!”

While Cassandra does believe that nighttime skincare routines are a little more important than a morning routine,  the word toxin is often used in Beauty marketing to get you to buy things. Many people will pay twice as much for a product if they think it will “detoxify” something. However, it is true that we should remove debris and build-up from our skin at night. During your nighttime routine, you also have a great opportunity to use treatment options like retinoids, hydrators, and ingredients that build the skin barrier. If your nighttime routine is thorough enough, sometimes you can just roll out of bed in the morning without washing your face, and you’ll only need to put on sunscreen. 

Step 2:

For Quinta’s nighttime routine, she says that she uses an oil-based makeup remover. She continues, “Then, I go over my face with a nice clean, white washcloth. This gets rid of any leftover residue on my face. The next thing I do is put on the Olay 24 Eye Cream for my bags. I wake up at 5 am, and I have to work.”

So, let’s look at the ingredients of the Olay eye cream. This eye cream includes retinol, and when it is formulated correctly, retinol is a powerhouse ingredient that can help the eye area. Retinol is great for fine lines, wrinkles, and puffiness. On the other hand, if you’re worried about purpleness, look for tyrosinase inhibitors like vitamin C .

The other key ingredients within the Olay eye cream are water, glycerin, and dimethicone cross-polymer. All of these are moisturizing ingredients. Given the texture, it’s probably a smooth texture. However, you can probably get these ingredients at a much cheaper price elsewhere.

So, are retinoid eye creams worth it? Well, one of the reasons Cassandra isn’t the biggest fan of eye cream is because most of the time, they’re just more expensive moisturizers put into tiny containers. It’s perfectly fine to like eye cream, but just be aware of marketing. You can find other products like the eye balm from Versed that offer similar benefits

Versed Smooth Landing Advanced Retinoid Eye Balm - $17.99

The texture is a bit like Vaseline, and it gives the skin an amazing glow.

Glow Recipe Avocado Eye Cream With Retinol - $42

This is another option for a retinol cream. Because of the glycerin in the formula, this is very smooth and hydrating.

 

Step 3: 

In addition to the eye cream, Quinta also uses the Olay retinol night serum. She continues, “I like to keep the products I use for my skincare routine to one brand.”

And actually, Cassandra does believe this has some merit. When a brand creates skincare products, they often create them to combine with each other. They make sure the formulations work and layer well with one another. Sometimes when you mix products from different brands, you don’t know how they’re going to interact with one another. This can cause products to peel up. However, sometimes one brand doesn’t have everything we need.

But, getting back to the Olay Night Serum, according to the ingredients, it seems like a watery version of the eye cream, especially since the first two ingredients are water and dimethicone. Like the moisturizer, it has retinol propionate, titanium dioxide, glycerin, and palmitoyl pentapeptide 4. However, this has the added benefit of a peptide. Peptides are good for anti-wrinkle benefits, firmness, and elasticity in the skin. But, for $40, there are much better retinol anti-wrinkle products. You could even get prescriptions with actual tretinoin from Curology for $25. Serums are not an absolute necessity, but as Quinta says, “They do that extra layer of work under your moisturizer.”

Normally, serums are targeted treatments that are hydrating or have certain benefits. You can also find these things in moisturizers.

Step 5:

Quinta uses theOlay Retinol 24-Night Moisturizer.

Quinta loves this moisturizer because she says, “it’s light, easy to use, and creamy.” “I feel like my skin is so taken care of after. I feel like I could just wake up and go,” she describes. 

But to be honest, this pretty much has the same formula as the other two. The only difference is that it includes tapioca starch. 

Step 6:

For Quinta’s second to last step, she likes to use undereye patches. Quinta tells us how she gets baggy eyes a lot ad because of that, likes to use the “peace out puffy eye mask.” 

Peace Out Puffy Eye Patches - $25

Cassandra loves undereye patches, but before buying them, it’s important to know the different reasons for getting undereye bags. Sometimes eye bags are little fat pockets, and sometimes they’re fluid. If it’s fluid, massages, and caffeine can help. In the case of discoloration and pigmentation, usually, ingredients like vitamin C, tyrosinase inhibitors, alpha arbutin, hydroquinone, and retinol help.  

Cassandra has never tried the Peace Out Puffy eye patches, but they actually have great ingredients. There is caffeine which minimizes the appearance of puffiness and niacinamide which helps brighten dark circles. However, Cassandra believes vitamin C to be the better choice for brightening under eyes. Fortunately, the eye patches do contain ascorbic acid which is basically vitamin C. Additionally, there’s also hyaluronic acid which hydrates the skin by binding moisture to it, and the formula also includes kojic acid. Moreoer, there’s acetyl hexapeptide 8, palmitoyl tetrapeptide 7, and flower extracts like gardenia and passion fruit. 

The peptides can help with collagen production and inflammation under the eye area, and the kojic acid helps with pigmentation.

Lawless Forget The Filler Overnight Plumping Mask -$22

Quinta likes “to put something hydrating on her lips at night.” Quinta’s lip mask has hydrogenated polyisobutene as the very first ingredient. Hydrogenated polyisobutene is a synthetic wax and shea butter. It’s very hydrating. Now, let’s look into what makes the lip mask plumping. Sometimes plumping can mean stinging.

This lip mask has ginger which has gingerol, an ingredient that can sting the lips. However, there’s also ceramide NP, and palmitoyl tetrapeptide. There’s black currant, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, and cranberry. There’s lactic acid too which is probably working as a pH adjuster in this formula as opposed to an exfoliant. There are a lot of colors and fragrances. So, if you’ve got sensitive lips, Cassandra would say stick to Vaseline. 

Overall, this routine has some good pros and a few cons. For Cassandra, Olay is not the most trustworthy brand as it is not cruelty-free and not vegan. Moreover, many of the products seem to be overpriced. But, find what works best for you, and the most important thing is consistency.