(Beauty Report Card)

I Started Testing Wedding Day Skin Care A Year In Advance — Here’s What Actually Works

Total transparency.

April 8, 2023

Jennifer Behr bridal model hair pulled back

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We’re all friends here, so I can go full disclosure. Despite a year and a half of meticulous planning, there are plenty of regrettable things about my March 2023 wedding: forgetting to personally go over the band’s setlist, getting accidentally locked in a dressing room during dinner, and not trying hard enough to actually eat the wildly expensive cake. If there’s one area that helps me sleep soundly, though, (you know, aside from like, being married), it’s the commitment I made to testing and perfecting my wedding skin prep lineup. In addition to the standard pre-wedding facials, targeted treatments, and a few tweakments like forehead Botox, I dedicated several months to testing out the right products for the week of and the big day itself. By starting well in advance, I was able to experiment with masks, moisturizers, and several facial tools to see how they interacted with my skin, what paired well with makeup, and how long their effects lasted. Control freak-ish considering the makeup artist came prepared to do it all herself? Perhaps. But I was never what you might call a relaxed bride — it’s called being hands-on, people!

Below, the hero products that saw me through a week of pre-wedding prep and events, and the ones that got me aisle-ready on the actual day. If I could go back and do it all again with an infinite budget, I’d still stick with these.

Amanda Ross

Skin Care For Wedding Week

NuFace

NuFACE Mini+ Petite Facial Toning Device

$245

Personally, I’ve found that if you use a NuFace or similar microcurrent device daily for like, 35 days straight, you can maintain the results with thrice-weekly sessions after that. In the immediate lead-up to my wedding, though, I kept on that once-a-day schedule for a more lifted look. In the interest of full transparency, I will add this: I hoped microcurrent could have done more for the lines around my mouth. I adore my NuFace and continue to use it still now, but I wish I had listened to my derm and gotten some filler to supplement its smoothing effects.

Biologique Recherche

Lotion P50

$126

Not only is this cult-favorite Biologique Recherche toner a must for keeping oil and acne in check, but it was an essential for fading any lingering, last-minute dark spots or dullness. The brand’s products work so well with my skin that I even got a few Biologique Recherche facials in the leadup to the wedding.

Shani Darden Skin Care

Intensive Eye Renewal Cream with Firming Peptides

$68

My eyes are very deep-set, so flooding the area with as much moisture and volume is key for looking minimally exhausted. In addition to gua sha and facial massage to keep it all free of excess fluid buildup, Shani Darden’s peptide-filled eye cream helps so much with dryness, darkness, and general smoothness. One little pump is enough for both under eyes, the lids, and a little between my brows. In an interview, an actor once told me she puts her extra eye cream there every day and it stuck me with for some reason — now I’m a believer in it, too.

Aquaphor

Lip Repair Ointment

My idea of heaven is diving into a giant pool filled with millions of loose tubes of Aquaphor Lip Repair Ointment. Please note: This is not regular Aquaphor, nor the twist-up lip balm — those can’t even begin to compare to the Lip Repair, which is filled with extra vitamin E and shea butter. It is the most moisturizing lip product I have ever used in my life and doubled as a gloss over lip liner when I was trying to cram in extra hydration before the wedding.

111SKIN

Celestial Black Diamond Hand Cream

$75

It didn’t dawn on me that there would be so many closeups of my hands taken at the wedding until about the week before, which was luckily plenty of time. I’m already pretty good about retinol and sunscreen on my hands to slow signs of aging, but dedicating 10 days to hydrating hand care was all I needed. 111SKIN’s Black Diamond Hand Cream combined with open vitamin E capsules rubbed on my cuticles helped soften the appearance of lines and got rid of any cracks or dry skin around the nail corners.

Skin Care For Wedding Day

Shani Darden Skin Care

Triple Acid Signature Peel

$125

I woke up the morning of my wedding about 30 minutes too late for the 8 a.m. getting-ready call time, just hungover enough to be mad at myself. My vision of leisurely waking up wrapped in silk, stretching and preening while little cartoon birds tied a ribbon in my hair was out the window, and I had to go turbo to resurrect my dry, dull face. Shani Darden’s peel sounds intense, but even my very dry skin can handle it with no issues. By the time the solution was neutralized, the glow it left behind made me feel much better about the entire day.

Odacité

Cryo-Tech Facial Tool

$75

Facial bloat is kind of the final boss of my skin issues, so I made sure to bring this Odacité tool with me. Usually, I keep a larger ice roller in my freezer, but this double-ended stick only requires a cup of ice — perfect for traveling. When my sheet mask was nearly ready for removal, I used this immediately after, then again paired with an oil for extra slip until I felt sufficiently de-puffed.

Pure Body Naturals

Cold-Pressed Organic Marula Facial Oil

$10

And this is the oil. Plenty of brands make excellent cold-pressed Marula oil, but you can also buy it from any health food store or even Amazon. Any time slip is required, be it for facial massage, gua sha, or at-home dermaplaning (which I also did a few days before the wedding), I slather this all over, and then do a gentle, washcloth cleanse after.

Dr. Jart+

Cryo Rubber Mask With Moisturizing Hyaluronic Acid

$15

I’ve gone on record a few times proclaiming my love for these specific Dr. Jart+ masks, which I honestly keep on-deck at all times. The two-piece configuration means it really stays put, and the bouncy, hydrated feel of my skin afterwards is always such a relief. Despite my dry skin, I was insistent on matte makeup for the wedding, so getting my moisture in where I could was essential. Predictably, all of my friends made the same joke when I put the cornflower-colored mask on, asking if it was my “something blue.”

Augustinus Bader

The Rich Cream

$290

I basically had a March Madness-style bracket to determine which moisturizer would be the wedding moisturizer — despite being a 1-seed already, The Rich Cream won. It made my face look the most alive, like, hydrated, healthy, plump in the right places, and was just tacky enough for excellent makeup application. As the final test, I brought it to my wedding makeup trial and my rehearsal dinner makeup appointment just to make sure it interacted well with the exact products used.