Product watch: Skin replenishers
While a solid eight hours is important for your health, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll wake up looking your best.
Here’s how to get some proper beauty sleep.
If you spend your days in central-heated rooms, replenish your skin with Environ Ultra Hydrating Capsules, €59.95 (A). This anti-oxidant enriched oil is lightweight and leaves your face feeling silky. It also contains adaptogens, which can improve the skin’s resistance to daily stress.
Night-time is ideal for using powerful anti-aging products, as retinol’s benefits are diminished by the sun. To tackle under-eye bags and wrinkles, tap an intensive product like Philosophy Miracle Worker Retinoid Eye Cream, €52.50 (B), lightly over the area.
Silk bedding has many beauty benefits. Unlike cotton, silk regulates the skin’s temperature, reduces hair breakage and doesn’t absorb natural moisture. Silk is naturally hypoallergenic and contains amino acids and cellular albumen, which speed the skin’s metabolism. Treat yourself to a sleep mask, €28.50 (C), and pillowcase, €48, from Silksleep, both of which are made from 400-thread mulberry silk.
If spring fashion makes you determined to get your pins out on a Saturday night, weather be damned, than apply St Tropez Everyday Gradual Tan, €17.75 (D), nightly from Sunday. This contains moisturising aloe leaf and an “aroma-guard” ingredient that hides the fake-tan smell with a fruit and floral scent. You’ll be a natural golden-brown by the weekend.
Finally, try applying a scent you associate with happy memories to your wrists before sleeping. This is tremendously comforting and makes for sweet dreams.!
If you own one of those show-no-mercy magnifying mirrors, you probably spend a substantial amount of time examining your pores. They’re sort of mesmerising. New this month, the Clarisonic Mia 2, €150 (E), can leave your skin much cleaner than cleansing by hand. The brush oscillates at over 300 movements per second, massaging away impurities in 60 seconds. This leaves you plenty of time for pore-gazing.
In Shirley Conran’s girly classic, Lace, the French heroine takes a rolling pin to her slim thighs nightly, chanting “Il faut sufrir pour être belle” (One must suffer to be beautiful) with masochistic fervour. Whether you accept cellulite as an unpleasant part of being a woman or are adamant that your backside shouldn’t show a smidge (I’m with Shirley), there are products that can help. For an anti-cellulite bath, Sligo-based skincare company Voya offers Lazy Days, €18 (F). Chuck this organic seaweed and salt treatment in the tub on a Sunday morning and soak. Seaweed has moisturising and detoxifying properties. You’ll emerge feeling recharged, with skin a-buzzing. Let the seaweed dry in the net provided and it can be reused. For best results, exfoliate in the shower first using Voya Time to Shine Body Buff, €29 (G).
For daily prevention and care, invest in a good cream like Rodial’s Size Zero Body Cream, €60 (H). This contains Pro-sveltyl, an ingredient that limits fat-cell formation, prevents water-retention and reduces the circumference of the thighs, abdomen and hips. Daily skin-brushing takes discipline but the result is smooth, glowing skin. Sweep the Voya Organic Exfoliating Body Brush, €20 (I), briskly upwards from your ankles towards your heart for 10 minutes.
Cellutox Aroma Spa Ocean Wrap, €115, at The Beautique Spa, Hayfield Manor Hotel, Cork
The Beautique Spa is gorgeous. Each beauty room is fitted with unique, “Best of Irish” interiors, including mini chandeliers, vintage tchotchkes and floral-patterned sheets. After introducing myself to Orna, my lovely therapist, I changed into paper knickers, a soft cotton robe and slippers. I was first dry-skin brushed from ankle to upper torso, heels to upper back with a cactus-bristle brush. This feels very invigorating and encourages skin-cell renewal. She then exfoliated the same areas with a revitalising, seaplant-based scrub. She then applied marine-algae seaweed to my entire body and wrapped me snugly in cotton sarongs. The wrap allows natural body heat to enhance the cleansing and detoxifying effects of the seaweed. Ora very sweetly likened me to “a seaweed goddess” and “a green mermaid” but I’m glad I wasn’t photographed.
While the seaweed worked its magic, Orna performed a scalp massage and applied cooling eye-pads. Scalp massages generally make my skin crawl, but Orna’s technique is so light that I didn’t flinch and focused instead on the conflicting sensations beneath the wrap. I was aware of both the warmth of the seaweed and how cold and tingly the detoxifying active-content made my skin feel. After 20 minutes, the seaweed had turned to clay. I showered and felt suddenly energised, as though I’d downed a ginseng shot. Orna then gave me a heavenly-scented massage with sea buckthorn, sea fennel, lemon and juniper oils. I hung out in one of the candle-lit relaxation rooms, sipping green tea and admiring my gleaming limbs. I tripped out of The Beautique feeling sylph-like and renewed.
All products used are by Elemis and the treatment lasts 75 minutes.
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