Skincare!

Oh skin. I love you but boy, can you bring me down and give me a case of the mean reds. I have made a helluva lot of mistakes when it comes to my skin, and I have gathered some hints, tips, and found some stuff that really works (and some that REALLY don't) along the way. I have already put up a post around cheap and effective skincare solutions, so do read that first.

As I might have mentioned earlier, my skin type is combination: it tends to get oily in the T-zone, but my cheeks and neck are normal. I am prone to spots on my chin particularly around that time of the month, so I need to treat my skin gently for the most part, but when spots come around, I want them gone as quickly as possible with no scarring. So as always, take these tips in the knowledge that while these things suit my skin type, they might not suit yours :)

So kicking off. Some skincare basics. There was an episode of How to Look Good Naked on a couple of years ago and the make up artist, Lisa Eldridge, was testing people to see how they cleanse their face. Once the people had cleansed their faces (or so they thought), Lisa ran a cotton wool pad with some toner over their face, and the amount of dirt, make up and oil that came off of the majority of people's faces was scary. How do we combat this? Pretty simple really! Wash your face twice. I have been doing this for a few months and have noticed a real difference in terms of the clarity of my skin and my likelihood to get spots. HOWEVER, please don't run off and buy a super strength Clearasil cleanser, use it twice when washing your face and expect that to solve your problems! For this to be effective, gently gently is the key. When you wash your face you will strip off some of its natural oils, and if you are washing your face twice AND using the cleanser equivalent of paint stripper, you are essentially doing the same painting your nails, not using a top coat, and then sanding the nails.

Cleansers which contain alcohol, lots of salicylic acid and parabens will dry out your skin quickly, and for a while it will look like your spots are clearing up, and they will in a sense be drying out. However, because you are drying ALL of your skin out, and your protective oils are being stripped, you will actually leave yourself open to dryness, and possibly breakouts. So how to counteract this? Go for super super gentle cleansers that will not strip away these oils, but will leave your face super clean and fresh. The best ones I have found thus far are listed below, but my main criteria for finding something super gentle is:

1) A fairly short ingredient list - and most of the ingredients I can pronounce!
2) Nothing that has scratchy abrasive particles in it (such as Aapri scrubs) as these can damage the protective barrier
3) Nothing that has alcohol salicylic acid or other harsh chemicals listed as one of the first ingredients.

The best ones I have found so far are:

1) The Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth treatment (separate review to follow)



2) Clarins Pure Melt Cleansing Gel



3) Soap and Glory The Fab Pore Hot Cloth Cleanser




4) Boots Essentials Fragrance Free Facial Wash

But I am always on the look out for recommendations :)

Other things I would note that are important when it comes to cleansing are that you should use hot, not boiling/roasting water. Don't aggravate your skin, you are trying to get make up off and remove dirt and built up oil, not scrub the oven clean! I hear quite often of women who wash their face (particularly in the morning) with cold water...I just don't understand it. Cold water closes the pores, so you may actually be trapping in oil, dirt and make up by doing this! Once skin is perfectly cleansed, then you can use cold water to close the pores if you feel the need, but honestly I have never noticed it making any difference.

Don't forget about your neck! Of course cleanse your face but your neck is there too and would love some lovin'! I tend to cleanse my neck in the evening, and use moisturiser on there as well if I feel it needs it.

I think some people get a wee bit puzzled when it comes to toners. Really, they are just a handy thing to use to take off any make up that might be left on your skin. I really like Sanctuary's Pore Refining toner (review to follow), but again, for your toner keep it nice and gentle. Don't undo all your good work with your cleansing by loading stuff on your skin that will just dry it out.

Moisturiser...can be a very useful thing, and god has the make up and skin care industry jumped all over it. Moisturiser is a wee bit like putting a plaster on a cut. Feels great to begin with, but only when necessary. You wouldn't put a plaster somewhere you didn't have a cut, so use moisturiser the same way. If you have some dry skin, or you feel your skin is just a bit patchy, then of course use it where required. But overusing moisturiser is probably one of the leading causes of spot formation. You are essentially putting stuff onto normal skin, that was functioning fine, and you can cause pores to produce more sebum and oils by putting on too much moisturiser, thereby causing break outs. For a time I was convinced I had dry skin, I was using quite a strong Loreal Pure Zone toner and moisturiser at the time, I stopped using the moisturiser, and in a few weeks to a month, the dryness that had been on my face, particularly my chin, had cleared up. It felt odd to begin with as you are inclined to put more moisturier where skin is dry, but by gentle exfoliation of the old skin and letting the skin do its job, it cleared up all by itself. The skin is a clever old thing you know!

Lastly, spots. The buggers have a way of showing up and sticking around for the long haul. However, paired with an effective and gentle cleansing programme, some odd treatments have a way of reducing the length of time spots take to go away. I am not promising overnight solutions here, but these may help you. Firstly, do not pick your spots. Secondly...do not pick your spots! Seriously, to avoid scarring and spreading of bacteria, just do not touch them if you can avoid it. You then need to find something that works for you that helps to shrink the spots. Now, these are things I have found that work for me, but as I said earlier, they may not work for you and you may need to do some further digging around til you find something that is effective. For me, my holy grail right now is Sudocreme.





You know that stuff that comes in a grey tub and is generally used for nappy rashes? Yep, well, it's cheap, smells like lavender, is gentle enough for baby bums, and clears my spots up a treat. It is an emollient but it has a very high zinc content which shrinks spots (for me!). It does feel quite heavy when compared to nice light moisturisers and other spot treatments, and the first time I used it, I put a thin layer all over my face as I had some wee bumps on my face all over that seemed to have occurred from too much silica in my foundations. I left it on over night while I went to sleep, woke up, and honestly I did notice a difference. The wee bumps were generally gone, the other couple of spots I had were not as red and a bit less 'new' looking, and I was very pleased with the results. Now, I will just use it directly on the spot and leave it overnight, but if I get the bump problem again I would do the same thing.

Other things that sometimes work for me are tea tree oil,



again left overnight, Loreal Pure Zone toner applied by cotton bud ONLY to the spots (too strong for the rest of my face), and most controversially... haemorrhoid cream! I don't use this as much anymore as I don't find it as effective as it once was, but my mum still swears by it and applies it when she feels a spot coming on or one has already developed. It definitely does shrink the spot (that is what haemorrhoid cream is designed to do, after all) but in my opinion the scar/mark of the spot stays just as long.

So, hope you guys enjoyed that, as usual please leave some feedback and let me know what else you would like me to write about!

eyeslipsface.co.uk/ELF - the best o' the bunch!

Hey ladies,

So there has been a lot of buzz for the past while around a fairly new name to make up – ELF (aka eyeslipsface.co.uk). The brand prides themselves on their low prices and the fact that they are only able to be purchased online (hence, the low prices). I have had several hauls from ELF, and have been using their products for long enough to know the best products they have to offer. I’ll outline some of their rather genius designs, all of which can be found and purchased on www.eyeslipsface.co.uk :)


1) Studio mineral primer



This is one of the best primers I have had the pleasure of using. It is silky smooth, effective, and a little goes a very long way. Just pump out a pea-sized amount into your palm and spread it over your face. With primer, application is important. Instead of using short strokes to cover your face, use your palms to glide and smooth it on, effectively smoothing your face at the same time so you end up with a smooth canvas to begin your make up on. The only downside of this product is the pump; when will make up companies learn that pumps, generally, ain’t the way forward unless they have something at the bottle of the bottle to push the remaining product up? However, you can screw the pump top off and scrape out the primer with cotton buds. Do this and your primer will go a long way. Only £6 for 14g!

2) Studio Stipple Brush/Powder brush



Flat Powder Brush



Stipple Brush

Before these brushes, I pretty much hated the idea of foundation brushes. I had tried several foundation brushes, and found that the finish was more streaky that sleek, and I ended up with either too much or too little product on my face. I tried another stipple brush from Boots, and I did find it better but again, it had a tendency to streak and make my foundation look quite obvious. But these ELF brushes are different. They seamlessly blend my make up, whether I want it heavy or light, and they work perfectly every time. The bristles are soft and gentle, and excellent quality – they both work far harder than their price tag would lead you to believe. The flat brush I find gives an even smoother finish than the stipple brush, and I find I am using less product than I would be if I used a sponge or my fingers. These are both absolute steals at only £3.50 each– buy several and support ELF and the fact they don’t have a 5000000% mark up like some high-end brands!

3) Brightening Eye Colour



OK so I love Urban Decay and MAC palettes as much as the next girl, but at the end of the day, spending £11 a pop on coloured talc sure does hurt when you’re two weeks away from pay day. These quads are a god-send. They each contain 4 colours, enough to get you a combination of looks, whether you want to achieve the classic smoky eye, or perhaps a more wearable daytime variant. They now come in 18 varieties, which some truly lovely shades. The quads are small and the applicators are rubbish, however any palette you buy these days tends to have crap applicators and ELF should not be persecuted for following the trend, especially when their make up can be so much cheaper than other brands. The eyeshadow, while not of amazing quality, certainly has good colour pay-off and if used in conjunction with a primer, packs quite a punch. There is little-to-no fallout and the eyeshadow does last. The best thing? These babies are only £1.50 each! Experiment and buy a few!

4) Studio Complexion Perfection


It is an eternal struggle to find a powder which is both light enough so you don’t look like one of the cast from the Rocky Horror Show, yet dense enough to stop your make up from slipping down your face as the day ticks on. ELF’s Complexion Perfection does both pretty well. It is not an absolutely perfect product, as I think on some skin tones a light touch would not only be beneficial but necessary, plus the fact that it does only come in one shade is a bit limited. However, the packaging is reminiscent of NARS, the product looks pretty and high-quality, and when swirled, tapped and brushed on top of make up, it definitely does brighten and even the face. The colours may look scary (yellow, pink, green and blue) but in fact on the skin they all pretty much look the same, although my one trick is to use the yellow around the eyes to make them pop, and the green around my nose and chin (my Rudolph areas) to achieve an even face. The fact I have bought 3 in 6 months and am now touching pan on my third is testament to my belief in this product. You’d be hard pushed to find a better powder which doesn’t clog pores, brightens complexion (minus scary sparkles) and doesn’t break the bank. £3.50.

5) Super Glossy Lip Shine SPF 15




So, gloss. It is a wonderful thing, it can make us look healthy, it can make an otherwise bare face look polished, we Brits do love our gloss. However, the price of some glosses is beyond a freakin’ joke. Don’t get me wrong, gloss is pretty, but am I really going to invest £15 into something that, let’s be honest, is either going to be licked or talked off, or end up on my wine glass? I don’t think so! In my eyes, a gloss is a gloss is a gloss, if you are buying it for the colour, why not invest in a good lipstick and wear the lipstick with a slick of clear gloss on top? More economical as the lipstick will last longer, plus you get two items in the bargain! Speaking of bargain, ELF’s Super Glossy Lip Shine does what it says on the tin at £1.50 a pop. They smell good, they’re not overly sticky (if you do a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody head-rock, a few strands will stick, but not your whole head of hair!) and the effect is lovely. The colour range is not fabulous, with 10 colours being offered at the moment. Hopefully as the business picks up so too will their colour ranges expand, but for the moment there are the usual suspects of clear, pastels and slightly darker colours such as latte and mauve shades to choose from. The good thing is the tubes have 10g each which is quite a lot, and product is thick enough to feel high quality.

All-in-all, I urge you all to go on and at least sample some of ELF’s products, they are a great company with speedy delivery times that for the most part, delivery beauty on a tight budget!