What's up, everyone? We're back. I'm Dr. Shah.
Dr. Maxfield. Welcome back to our channel, Dr. Lee, where we talk about all things skincare and dermatology. And today, we are doing one of our favorite brands ever, the best and worst of La Roche-Posay.
La Roche-Posay. I feel like I have an intimate love-hate relationship with this brand, and I really don't know why. It's probably not warranted, and it's probably unilateral, but that's okay.
Today, the best... and the worst of La Roche-Posay. What should you be investing in?
Here we go. Here we go. So I will tell you, love-hate relationship in some ways, mostly a love relationship.
I've been to France. I've been to La Roche-Posay, France, where they get their thermal water from, in fact. So great relationship that I have with the brand. My frustration comes from the fact that they changed the names of the products.
all the time. And the same product in the U.S. will be different than the products in Europe. And we have a global audience.
Somebody will say, oh, I got this product. It's not the same one that you talked about. So me, it drives me crazy.
And that's where mostly where my frustration has been as well. It's like I find a product I love, but then it changes. And I'm like, wait, or did it change?
Did the name and packaging just change? It makes it very complex for me to keep up with the products that I love. I want to continue using something.
And I feel like I can't. So that's mine too. That's where most of my angst comes from with this brand. So La Roche-Posay has had a lot of viral skincare products over the past year. It's the fastest growing skincare brand in the United States.
And they have phenomenal formulas. Some of my favorite products ever. So we're going to be talking about our favorite products and our least favorite products. So let's start off.
with one of our favorite products I think we both agree on. We're going to go into the moisturizing category because this is where I think La Roche-Posay really excels. So Lipicar AP Plus M, phenomenal product, probably top three moisturizers of all time. Which one is this?
What's the AP Plus M? Which one is this? The triple repair? This is the Lipicar.
The triple moisturizing cream? Yeah, triple moisturizing. Formerly known as the, uh... Balm. Cicaplast Balm.
Yes. No, not Cicaplast Balm. Not Cicaplast Balm. Do you see what we're talking about? Like, this is the problem.
But anyway, I 100% agree. One of my favorite body moisturizers. I recommend this to patients all the time.
They say, can you recommend a good moisturizer for me? I'm like, what skin type? Blah, blah, blah. This one often makes my little sticky note that I hand patients. So yes, Lipicar AP Plus Triple Moisturizing Cream is out...
Outstanding. The reason I think it excels personally is it's very hydrating. It somehow balances like a thick hydrating film without the greasy stickiness that I find a lot of body moisturizers leave behind. Ingredients wise, it shines. They added ceramides this year to the product, which the name change, apparently it warrants it.
But tremendous, generalizable, recommendable moisturizer. Right, and when it comes to moisturizers, of course you look at the ingredients, but it's really the performance for me that really hits home. This thing, when they say products last all day, sometimes I believe them, sometimes I don't.
This product definitely lasts all day, especially if you have dry skin. Now this is not for somebody who has oily skin, especially on the face. Somebody who has dry skin, just a phenomenal product that's really going to last all day for you.
This, like Dr. Maxfield says, has ceramide, it has shea butter, it has glycerin, but mostly it's just the performance over using it over a long period of time. Next up, let's talk about the Secaplast Bomb. Now, we've talked about this in another video. We'll just link it out if you want more details from it. This is definitely part of the best of list from La Roche-Posay.
This product is phenomenal. It also adds that dimethicone into the moisturizer. It's a little bit of a heavier, but which gives it more healing properties than some of the other products that we'll talk about.
Same thing. These are products I generally recommend in the office to people in real life. And it's for the person who's struggling with a sensitive, irritated skin barrier.
They're looking for a recovery balm. This is where that lives. Also, the mattifying moisturizer. We could live in the moisturizing category forever, but we won't.
The mattifying moisturizer. probably best in class maybe for this for people with oily skin. Gives you the nourishment your skin needs, protection, hydration, but keeps you from being oily. It's outstanding. The reason why I was smiling was because I was thinking about the products that I recommend in the office versus the products I recommend online.
And sometimes there's overlap and sometimes there's not overlap. So it's just an interesting point. It is. For me, it has to do with accessibility and demographics because for you, we know most of you are between the ages of 20 and 40 in the office. For me, the vast majority of my patients are 40 plus, 60 plus, 70 plus.
It's mostly like, can you navigate the Stylevanas and even the Sephora, Ulta's, Derm stores online? No. Well, then I need to be picking a product that you can just go to CVS and get, you know, that's where a lot of my dichotomy split is. Fair.
So let's move on to cleansers. So probably my favorite cleanser, and usually I don't like. products that are overly foaming, let's say.
I do like a good lather, actually. But the Tolarian Purifying Foaming Cleanser, this product is the one that comes in a clear blue bottle. It's a large bottle. It's going to last you a long time.
I I find that it leaves my skin clean without overly drying my skin. So this product is a tremendous cleanser from La Roche-Posay. That is definitely one of my all-time favorite cleansers as well.
Did you get the big box of this year where they had like all the cleansers from La Roche-Posay? I think I got that. I've also moved three times, so somebody got it.
Let's just put it down. It was incredible. It kind of actually stacked up. Their cleansing line is just phenomenal. The one that I've fallen in love with is their cleansing oil.
And I didn't expect I would love it this much. It really is. the only cleanser I've used for probably the last month and I just don't want to move on from it. I don't know why.
It's the season of change. Maybe I'm a little bit drier, but it's the perfect balance between a hydrating cleanser. It still has a decent amount of lather to it, so I don't feel like it leaves me greasy, oily at all.
It's functionally very effective. I'm... pretty darn obsessed with this cleansing oil right now.
Ingredients wise, it doesn't have like a strong, robust skin oil as the core component that I can find, but it is just an oil-based cleanser. It has things like niacinamide, all the blah, blah, blahs, surfactants, but it's just anecdotally outstanding for drier skin. So it's interesting that you say that.
So from my understanding, when they're doing market insights at L'Oreal, they found that the American consumer doesn't like the oil cleansers that much. It's very popular apparently in Europe and abroad, but in America, they find that consumers are not yet there with oil-based cleansers or cleansers that leave that more oil film, I guess you can call it once it's washed off. I particularly like it.
I think you particularly like it. And maybe a lot of the people who watch our content like it, but for some reason they say mass, they don't seem to like it or they're not quite there yet. So it should be interesting to see if this product really takes off in the United States or not. I feel like this one doesn't feel like you're... prototypical cleansing oil though.
And maybe that's why it's going to have a chance. Similarly, if I get a real just pre-cleanse oil, I'm not like the hugest fan of that. I feel like you feel it too much, but we'll see how this lives over the next year. Next up, let's talk about their sunscreens because the Anthelios line from La Roche-Posay, massive hit, especially abroad and in the United States.
So I'll just give you a few of the ones I really love. So one that I really love is of course the Melted Milk 60. This is good for the body and the face. What I like is that it comes in a really large bottle for people who want to use it on the body and the face seriously. Because a lot of times you get a two ounce bottle, you're definitely not going to be using that on the body and the face.
So this is more affordable, larger size, blends in really well. It's a chemical sunscreen, fragrance free. a product that I really love.
And then if you go to Europe or you go to French pharmacy when you're traveling, I definitely recommend checking out the UV Mew line from La Roche-Posay. This is the UV Mew 400 line. They come in a tinted and an untinted form.
Both are really, really popular, but you can't find them in the United States because of the filters. Yeah, which is always such a sad shame. But the sunscreens, I also like the Emphylos line.
I've definitely used them consistently while I've been surfing. Like I've gone through the bottles. So I like them. I don't think this is actually where the brand like super shines. I don't have a strong, strong opinion.
I do like these sunscreens. I think they're great, generalizable. Again, recommendable to most people. You're going to use it and enjoy it.
But I don't have like a star standout. I also don't have a major flop in this category. So there's one product I don't like from La Roche-Posay in their sunscreen category, just because it was so heavy for me and difficult to rub in. This is their Anthelios UV Correct Face Sunscreen SPF 70. So this product was just very difficult for me to rub in and so I'd ended up not liking it.
If you don't like that heavier sunscreen, white cast, then I wouldn't recommend it. And then the next category we'll go with are active ingredients. One that I also, again, recommend to patients all the time is their glycolic acid. And I have a specific reason why.
I feel like this is actually a fairly budget-friendly, straightforward glycolic acid product. It's fragrance-free and it has complementing ingredients. I think Kojic and tranexamic acid live here too.
This product is an easy recommend for someone who's looking to approach that exfoliating space for dark spots. This has a really good, powerful blend of ingredients that could treat texture and pigmentation. The issue with this product for me, and this is going to be dependent on the person, right?
If you look at the studies on alcohol in skincare, most of the time it doesn't seem to disrupt the skin barrier. What I will tell you from a consumer perception standpoint, aka me. in some of my patients is that products that have a lot of alcohol in them tend to sting when you apply them. And they also have that strong alcohol fragrance to them. So this product, the glycolic acid product has more than 10% alcohol in it because it's above glycolic acid in the ingredient list. And the glycolic acid is a 10% glycolic acid.
So it is a high concentration of alcohol. So if you get that sting sensation and you have sensitive skin and you don't like that sensation, then I personally put this on my... kind of mid list, but otherwise the ingredients are phenomenal.
Right. And this is going to be a common theme. You'll see why in a second.
But the other side of this is the Epochlar Duo product for active ingredients. If you have acne, you're looking to spot treat, this is a hero combination, hero product for you. Right. So this has benzoyl peroxide plus lipohydroxy acid in it. That combination is incredible, especially for spot treating acne.
You can certainly use it all over the face, but again, could be irritating for a lot of people. So especially as a spot treatment, one of the phenomenal products from La Roche-Posay. Now back to alcohol, back to alcohol.
So this is now the worst of their line. And we're basically going to be talking about the serums in general, their active ingredient serums. Like I think some have some nice combinations, like the retinol plus niacinamide, great dynamic combination, right?
The vitamin C, vitamin C plus salicylic. we love the L'Oreal vitamin C salicylate combo. The AHA here, there's the common theme that they have a high concentration of alcohol plus fragrance. I don't know.
And also I'm not a fan of the packaging. I know that's like trivial, but that color, I don't know. I love colors, but this packaging, I just really don't like.
Yeah. So they have a lot of serums. And to me, because of the plethora of skincare products that are available to consumers, I think that their serum line is a miss for me for the most part. So their retinol, again, has a lot of alcohol, also has fragrance.
They're high L-U-B-5, alcohol, and a lot of fragrance. They're vitamin C, alcohol, and a lot of fragrance. And when you have a lot of products that are widely available that don't have alcohol and don't have fragrance, and again, like Dr. Maxwell says, this is not us like disagreeing.
There's actually nothing really wrong. With alcohol in your skincare products, it could be a preservative. It also adds textural benefits to the products.
I personally don't like it because of the way it feels on my skin. He doesn't have as sensitive skin as I do. So it doesn't bother him as much.
And so for me, it's a miss on almost all of the serums from La Roche-Posay. And I think that that's just coming down to preference and the fact that it has fragrance. I will say though, I do remember one of the first serums I used on my skin.
was one of the La Roche-Posay serums. I don't remember. I genuinely don't remember which one has been years. And I 100% got a very burning, stinging sensation off the bat.
And that's uncommon for me just with my skin type, unless I already have a damaged skin barrier. I usually don't have a problem with that. But, and I do think that it was this constellation of ingredients that may not be a hundred percent necessary.
The last product I'll mention for La Roche-Posay as far as treatments and actives go. Has to be their Adapalene gel. This is a phenomenal acne ingredient.
It's probably the most powerful acne ingredient you can find over the counter. It's incredible for those open and closed comedones and it's gonna really improve the texture of your skin short of getting a prescription medication from your dermatologist. This is a...
definitely on the best list from La Roche-Posay, but I don't think that it is superior than any of the other options out there. So if you can find it for a good price, I highly recommend it. I'll put this here too.
There is a prescription adapalene. I was rereading the adapalene studies myself this last month for no reason whatsoever, but there is a prescription strength adapalene that still exists. So if your dermatologist is prescribing adapalene, it actually may be different than what you're getting over the counter.
The studies have shown that the higher concentration adapalene may be more effective compared to different tretinoins and things like that. So there is that caveat. We've never said that.
that before and I just wanted to make sure it lives somewhere so there's not this confusion about doctor prescribed adapalene, uroadapalene. There can be a distinction, not always, but there can be. Right. So adapalene that's prescribed now is the 0.3% adapalene and the one that's available over the counter is the 0.1% adapalene. So it's a lower.
concentration. You can also get a dappling plus benzoyl peroxide in one product called Epiduo from your dermatologist. So it simplifies your routine by having those two ingredients in one.
So of course, seeing your dermatologist is going to give you more options and usually more effective options, especially when it comes to acne. That pretty much summarizes our video. There is a lot more excellent products from La Roche-Posay that we didn't have a chance to mention, and we'll mention them in other videos as we come along.
Overall, an excellent line. A few misses for me personally, but one of my top... favorite skincare lines has to be top five for me.
Oh yeah, absolutely. They won me over with the moisturizers and now I'm here to stay. La Roche-Posay is in my top five as well. Thank you all so much for tuning in.
Please like, comment, and subscribe, and we'll see you in the next video. See you next time.