Welcome & Intro Part 1

Welcome to my 1st post! I wanted to introduce myself, and give everyone the back story to my journey to becoming an Esthetician & what this page will include. This is Part 1 of 2, maybe 3 🙂

Let’s start...

I am Robin aka Skincare with Ro. I’m a 29 year old Esthetician in Los Angeles, California. I LOVE WHAT I DO! Besides that, I have 2 dogs, who are my world, as well as a boyfriend, who I love so very much!

Now to the interesting stuff... my journey to skincare... & it didn’t start quite like you’d think.

Most people “know”, or at least have an idea of what they want to do with their life by the time they are in their late teen’s or early 20’s. Not me. I was 28 when I finally found my calling, my passion, and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

It all started when I went to Sephora one day, just browsing and finding something to spend money on that I really didn’t need. An associate came up to me saying that if I spent $75 on skincare, I’d get a FREE Hydrafacial. So, I said, “Count me in!” She asked me all kinds of questions about my skin (normal to combo skin & acne-prone). As she was showing me a multitude of products, I really was clueless as to what exactly I was looking at, let alone listening to. Really, I was just shaking my head, nodding in agreement with everything and anything she said. I settled on a few products, which totaled WAY OVER the $75 minimum for the Free Hydrafacial. I was excited because it was the first facial I had ever gotten in my life. After one time, I was hooked! I went home afterwards, so excited to start my new at-home regimen that night before bed. After spending 15 minutes doing the steps as she had directed me to do, I found myself on the Sephora website browsing because I wanted to know more about the brand I had just spent so much money on. Caudalie was the brand, and still to this day, one of my all-time favorites! Besides wanting to know more about the products I bought, since truly I hadn’t understood a word she was saying while I was in the store, I was looking at the few other products she had recommended to me and used on my skin during the facial that I didn’t buy. ($200 was my limit for that day). I decided that night, I was going to return to the same store a few days later and buy those other products I hadn’t gotten. My skin was looking better every single day, for the most part (of course, I was experiencing some purging with a completely new regimen and products); however, I felt like, “if I have every product, then my skin will be PERFECT!” So... I went back days later. The woman who had helped me the first time and given me the facial, wasn’t working. Instantly disappointed, I just grabbed a few of the products I had come for, paid, and went home. That night, my regimen took me 2x longer than it had been. I was in the bathroom so long, I recall my boyfriend calling me to “come to bed” many times before I had even gotten halfway through all the steps. I wish I could stop here and say that I was now content with my products and regimen... and truly I was happy with it, but I still wanted MORE!! A week into this new found addiction/obsession/whatever you want to call it, I had started watching every facial video, skincare recommendation video, started following Esthetician’s on Instagram, started googling ingredients I would hear mentioned on this or that video, which would lead me to looking up something I read in that article, and the cycle goes on and on. But again... come Week 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc, I visisted that Sephora a plethora of times, bought probably over $1000 worth of products, and had no intention of stopping. (I was at least smart enough to only take so much money with me every time I went as an attempt to limit myself. What should have been done though, is my boyfriend should have taken my car keys away.)

Before I knew it, my collection was so big, and I was using so many different things on my skin every day & night, that again, my skin got AWFUL! I wasn’t just purging my skin anymore... I was hurting it, not helping it! So again, one more time, I went back to that same Sephora in Calabasas to talk to the woman who had started my whole obsession in the first place. She was great! Not only did she explain what I was doing wrong, which is clearly obvious now as I think back on it, but she gave me YouTubers I should watch, websites I should read, and what I should actually be doing to my skin day & night.

This is where the story takes a slight turn. One I wasn’t expecting...

I had a friend over one night, and she just so happened to notice my massive collection of products. She had known that I was spending a lot of time at Sephora, buying a lot of products, and posting reviews on my Instagram about some, but she hadn’t realized the extent I had gone to. This was probably the best thing to happen to me quite honestly because what she said to me, changed my life. “Why don’t you go to beauty school for this? Clearly you love it, so why not? What do you have to lose?” So I listened. I went the next day. I toured a school, applied, got accepted, and started 2 weeks later. I was ECSTATIC! I FINALLY FIGURED OUT WHAT I WANTED TO DO WITH MY LIFE (WITH THE LITTLE HELP OF A FRIEND)!!