CLEANSE, TONE AND MOISTURIZE.
So lectured Just Seventeen to my teenaged self, instilling a basic beauty mantra that made me feel endlessly guilty when I (every day) missed out the ‘tone’ part. And now looking after your skin seems to have got a whole lot more complicated – what about exfoliation? SPF? Where do BB creams come in? CC creams? Anti-aging? (come to think of it, I should really have been thinking about that one a whole lot earlier on than 31). It doesn’t help that my current beauty routine consists of a simple face wash, then rubbing in a blob of moisturiser and good to go. Yes, rubbing in – do people really ‘gently pat’? Worse, I’m embarrassed to confess that I only recently stopped using plain old soap to wash off my make-up. The look of horror on an author’s face when I told him that my preferred cleanser was a bar of Simple soap was enough to make me fork out on a proper face wash (he uses seven products on his face every night and he’s a professor who’s written more than 100 books – he really does have better things to do).
I now swear by Boots’ own Botanics range (this £3 cleanser and this anti-aging moisturiser) as all the products are plant-based and don’t irritate my sensitive skin. Once a week I slap on this M&S 1 minute face mask too, which is glorious. But when my friend Tasha received a pink goody bag of miniature bottles in the post last week, I wanted in. Especially when she told me they were all 100% natural – and free. Tasha has a fantastic Paleo eating blog and is one of these glowing-skinned clean eating beauties who makes you want to eat ten avocados and rub coconut oil all over your body asap. So if these little bottles were good enough for her…
The mysterious potions were from Angela Langford, a bespoke boutique organic skincare brand which shuns parabens, petrochemicals and anything remotely synthetic. You can order four sample bottles tailored specifically to your skin type and lifestyle, filling out a detailed questionnaire as part of the order process. Then £4.50 postage (and less than 48 hours later) the package arrives at your door, complete with a detailed description and ingredient list for each product.
Finally I tried the Bloom and Glow face oil. It took me a while to give this one a go, as being in constant battle against my oily skin, it felt really weird to be deliberately applying more oil. But actually, the high levels of essential fatty acids, vitamins & antioxidants in the oil help combat grease and gave my skin a properly healthy looking sheen. I’ve been trying to embrace the shine recently and wean myself off face powder, and I think this will really help with that.
The sample bottles are small and the full-sized products aren’t cheap. But the £4.50 package gives you almost a week’s trial, which is long enough to see if they’re working for you or not. I’ll spare you the no make-up selfie, but in my case, 5 days in, my skin is smoother, softer and brighter. And I’m absolutely a convert to toner!
For me, I am always looking for new skin care options. For whatever reason, I have pretty bad acne and most treatments both topical and pill based have little effect on me. I’ve tried some South Korean stuff and it worked pretty well, but it was expensive. I may have to look into these products and see if they do well at all. Thanks for posting this info!