Before I got into the medical cosmetic world, I was dealing with aging skin myself. I didn’t feel old inside but I had that typical British fair skin that had been exposed to too much sun and wind — lots of sun damage, wrinkles, sagging skin, heavy eyelids, redness, zits, you name it.

My mother is a senior so every month we would go to Shopper’s Drug Mart on Senior’s Day and I would try whatever product Gaye suggested. Gaye is a lovely, earnest saleswoman who knows her products well. I tried home microdermabrasion kits and home peel kits, bought various skincare lines, tried samples of various eye creams. The kits and masks would make me look better for a day. The skincare products made my skin better hydrated but nothing made a major difference to my skin.

And these weren’t cheap products either. We were spending easily a few hundred dollars every month.

Part of the problem with skincare products is they can contain all kinds of amazing ingredients but if the ingredients don’t penetrate the skin then the effects are confined to the outer layers of mostly dead skin cells.

My medical training taught me what an amazing barrier the skin is so I like to see the scientific evidence that a particular ingredient is formulated in such a way to penetrate the skin.

Fast forward to me starting up Advanced Rejuvenation and looking into various skincare lines. I have to admit that the first thing that attracted me to Vivier was that it’s a Canadian company and family-owned.

Vivier touts their “IDS” on all their products — their IntraDermal System, a technology that allows ingredients to penetrate the skin. Hmmm.

I was skeptical. I’d tried every product at Shopper’s Drug Mart and they were all touted to do amazing things but my results were underwhelming.

“Show me the evidence,” I said. Vivier has the evidence, scientific papers published in reputable journals that document the experiments that prove that the IDS works. Vivier’s Vitamin C serum penetrates all layers of the skin and that penetration is associated with increased collagen production in the skin.

The scientist in me was excited — here was something that was proven to work. Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant as well as being an important factor for making collagen (remember the sailors in the 19th century who developed scurvy from lack of vitamin C? British sailors were called limeys because they had regular rations of limes to ward off scurvy). High concentrations of vitamin C also help lighten the skin.

Science is one thing but how about my own results?

My salesrep Carolyn carefully showed me how to apply the serum. The bottle of serum comes with a dropper. You put 3 or 4 drops on the back of your hand, taking care not to contaminate the dropper by touching it to your skin. The pale gold serum smells like oranges and sunshine. With the fingertips of your other hand, you pick up the serum and dab it onto your face. 3 or 4 drops is enough to cover your whole face. It soaks in very quickly.

You look in the mirror and your skin is glowing. It looks well-hydrated, smooth, glistening.

When my esthetician Laura first came to work for me, I was training her on all of our treatments and doing treatments on her so she would know what they felt like. I did a photofacial on her and then applied our Vivier products to her skin, including the serum.

Laura told me that in all of her years as an esthetician, her husband never noticed what she did to herself. New hair colour, facials, new makeup, whatever, it didn’t matter, her husband never noticed anything.

On the day Laura first tried the serum, her husband noticed. He said her skin looked glow-y.

Now I have to share with you here that I don’t recommend that you only use the vitamin C serum out of the Vivier line. All of the other products do amazing things for your skin as well but I suppose if you could only buy one thing, it should be the serum.

I have clients who bought the Vivier skincare line and haven’t had any other treatments and, month by month, their skin just keeps getting better and better.

I experienced this myself to an extent because, when I first started doing cosmetic medicine, I didn’t have anyone to do treatments on me. I had had a photofacial and a Pixel laser treatment early on but for many months, all I was doing was using the Vivier Redness Relief kit for rosacea. And people noticed. My skin kept improving.

Actually, as far as moderate rosacea is concerned, I think the Vivier Redness Relief kit, combined with photofacials is ideal. It has done wonders for my skin.

Getting back to the serum, I had an interesting experience that really showed me how well it worked. I had done IPL (photofacial) on my hands and arms to get rid of sun damage. Of course, I had done a very aggressive treatment on myself so all of my brown sunspots were inflamed (but I certainly got good results). Picture dark brown spots with swelling and a ring of redness. Not pretty.

At that time, I was putting serum on my left hand and applying it to my face with my right hand. I noticed that the inflamed sunspots on my left hand were healing faster than my right hand! I started alternating my serum between both hands and they both healed up quickly.

So, bottom line, if you’re like me and you’ve been trying products to try to make your skin look better with dismal results, stop wasting your money and come and get the Vivier products. They really work.