Too many beauty products: These are the ones to skip and what to buy instead
We have both too much choice and too many products that claim to do things they can’t
There are too many beauty products. I love them but I know it’s true, and there are some products that I don’t think you need to worry about skipping. I don’t mention them to put down a specific brand — and anything that improves your day is valuable. However, I do think we have both too much choice and too many products that claim to do things they can’t, as well as too few restrictions on what a brand can print on packaging. For example, it is not illegal or even that unusual for a product to have Vitamin C in its name when it contains a fragrant orange extract, rather than a proper cosmetic form of the vitamin that skin can use.
Oranges do contain vitamin C, of course, but rubbing their zesty extracts on your face won’t improve things! I always recommend checking ingredients lists, but even those don’t tell you all about why some products are worth leaving on the shelf.
Once upon a time, 'Cleanse, tone and moisturise' was a skincare mantra, I remember schoolfriends with acne who bought three-part skincare 'systems' and used them religiously. The toner step was typically alcohol-based and helped to clear residue from the cleansing step. It usually contained fragrance and maybe an astringent ingredient such as witch hazel. Not only was this combination horribly irritating, but the inefficiency of the cleanser made you feel you couldn’t stop buying the toner, which always drained faster. Thankfully, great cleansers for acne abound these days. If you are or have a teenager suffering with spots, I recommend
A cleanser won’t resolve a hormonal issue but can help to manage skin comfortably.
Please ignore the above if you are using a salicylic, glycolic or polyhydroxy acid toner to exfoliate, these are a great gentle alternative to leave-on products.
This is another product that can leave irritating residue. Micellar water is a popular makeup remover. The residue can come from micelles: spherical aggregates of surfactants suspended in water. Surfactants are molecules with water-loving heads and oil-loving tails.
The tails trap the dirt and makeup, the heads allow you to wipe them off. These surfactants are typically very mild and can leave oil and even some dirt on skin’s surface. This is not a problem if you rinse your face afterwards or double cleanse (though a cleansing oil or balm is more efficient at sloughing off makeup), but micellar water alone is not enough. I much prefer oil cleansers that turn milky with water and rinse clean. combines sunflower and almond oils with soothing centella asiatica.
Retinoids (a family of cosmetic forms of Vitamin A) have been around for yonks and most women I speak to are interested in them. Their main concerns seem to be either that we fear we cannot tolerate retinol or retinaldehyde (the two most effective over-the-counter forms of Vitamin A), or that the products they’ve tried do not make a difference. Products that use retinyl esters such as retinyl palmitate, retinyl acetate, retinyl linoleate, or retinyl propionate may be the culprits in the latter case. These fatty forms of retinol are not bad, they are useful in fighting free radical damage and very gentle. However, it will take substantially longer (and many repeat purchases) to generate anything close to the same benefits from these ingredients than it would if you’d begun with a pure retinol or retinaldehyde in the first place. Some brands use retinol in their product’s name where a formula contains a retinyl ester but no pure retinol. In short, if you see ‘retinol’ in the name and retinol is what you want to use, check that it is also the ingredient included in the ingredients list where the law requires transparency.
, combines retinol and the retinyl ester hydryoxypinacolone retinoate. This doesn’t necessarily make it 'high dose' but it is gentle and has a range of other antioxidants, including CoQ10 and sodium hyaluronate (a form of hyaluronic acid), all of which help skin look and feel better.
Facial water-sprays are refreshing, especially when the air lacks moisture. The scent (rose is very common), contributes to an overall sense of wellbeing.
The problem with spraying water-based mist alone is that skin doesn’t absorb it, it evaporates from the surface if you don’t apply an occlusive moisturiser (e.g. ) on top to trap it there. Perfume ingredients can cause irritation, so trapping a pure mineral water spray or even shower water is better.
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