When I reached my tween years Santa Claus became more inventive in his stocking choices, he moved away from oranges, brightly coloured stationary, totes socks and marzipan mice and skin are products started creeping in amongst the chocolate coins. At first he brought Simple moisturiser, cotton pads, body shop body lotion and white musk perfume.
Ever since I first slathered on scented body lotion I have been fascinated with skincare. Well if I'm honest this probably predates my stocking stockpile, my mother will happily tell her friends about the time I poured oil of Olay all over a boy called Sam when I was about 3, apparently he has amazing soft hair for weeks afterwards.
Over the years I have played with different formulas and combinations of products and whilst I will still mix things up every once in a while I have created a three collection of products; daily basics, the facial kit/ added extras and the travel kit.
The daily basics should cater for your general skin type. This is usually categorised as dry, normal, combination and oily. You may also have another skin concern such as fine line, puffy eyes, dullness, age spots etc, however in my experience if you get your basics to address the moisture levels in you skin you can use additional products to address specific concerns as well.
There are various ways of checking what your skin type but if you take a tissue and wipe it on your nose, if a greasy mark is left you are likely to have oily skin or skin with an oily t zone. If you often get a dull tone or flaky skin you are more likely to fit into the dry category. Personally my skin falls in the dry category but I find that heavy creams cause me to break out so I look for hydrating rather than emollient products.
Essentially you want to think about removing dirt from your skin (cleansing),removing the traces of your cleanser (toning) adding moisture (moisturiser) and shielding harmful damage (SPF). When thinking about the level of sun protection you need it is advisable to consider how prone your skin is to sun damage. I have very pale blue toned skin with freckles so I try and wear a high level of SPF even in the grim north where I live an actively avoid tanning in summer. The majority of advice I have seen suggests as a minimum you should wear factor 15.
Personally I like a wash off cleanser which you can use either with a hot cloth or a facial cleansing brush and I switch between either the Sanctuary Spa polishing hot cloth cleanser or No7 Beautiful Skin Melting gel Cleanser . I have in the past tried cleansers which you remove with cotton wool and I use La Roche-posey toleraine dermo-cleanser when my skin is feeling sensitive and needs to be removed gently.
The verdict seems to be out as to whether toners are necessary but my rule is if your skin feels tight after cleansing you probably should. Again there are many different toners you can use and I generally find that if I use a wash off cleanser I do not need a toner but for those days when I do I prefer to use a thermal water spray such as La Roche-Posay Thermal Water Spray.
The cleansing a toning part of my daily skin care routine remains the same regardless of whether it is day or night but I differ according to the time of day when dealing with moisturiser. During the day I favour l'occtaine's angelica range. I cannot rave enough about how hydrating this range is without being heavy or cloying which is often a problem with products designed for dehydrated skin. Personally I used either Angelica Hydration Cream or the Angelica UV shield SPF 40. It does smell quite herby when you first apply it but that quickly disappears.
As for eye cream, I do not separate this from the normal moisturising its just a bit more specific for more delicate skin. Currently I am using Temple spa windows of the soul which seems to tighten everything up.
At night I use facial oil for an extra boost of moisture when you can look oily. The best value facial oil have discovered is Botanics 100% organic facial oil with rosehip oil which is only £9.99 but as a boots own brand product is often on offer. Sanctuary spa also do an amazing facial oil but is to mind beat in price by Botanics. I find oil is too greasy to wear during the day but if you smear it lightly across your cheekbones it gives you a dewy complexion all day.
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