Category Archives: Facial oils

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Winter survival kit

Finished_Bathroom_Image_SmallI keep thinking it’s the end of winter and I keep being proved wrong. I was SO COLD last weekend that I ended up with two hot water bottles and two blankets in my sofa nest of an evening. [We could put the heating on for a bit longer but we just got the ‘winter’ bill and have decided that ideally we’d never turn it on again…ever]

I thought I’d missed the boat on my planned ‘winter kit list’ but given winter’s set to go on indefinitely, I’ve decided to post it up. I’ve used all of the following this winter and included them here because I LOVE them. Many are products I’d continue using into the spring and summer months, but they are so good for delicate, sore winter skin.

Can’t-go-wrong skincare:

  • Antipodes Grapeseed Butter Cleanser – I raved about this a couple of weeks back. Have developed an unhealthy obsession with it – to the point where I’m probably only days away from anxiety dreams in which there are global shortages or – horrors – it is discontinued.
  • Spiezia Organic Facial Cleanser – I’ve been using this up alongside the new Antipodes one. It’s my morning shower option because the floral smell just suits mornings. I reviewed this here.
  • Antipodes Vanilla Pod Hydrating Day Cream – again, I love this. I’m not going to go on about it here because Antipodes deserves its own dedicated post and I’ll try and get to it soon.
  • REN Bio Retinoid Anti-Ageing Concentrate – featured in a rosehip update a few days back. Works beautifully under moisturiser. I’m not sure it would work alone on winter skin – I think you need a bit more nourishment. But oilier skins may find this is sufficient on its own during warmer months.
  • Original Sprout Face & Body Sunscreen – a new suncare discovery. I’ll feature it soon.
  • Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint – not strictly speaking skincare but my choice of winter SPF on days when I’m not outside a lot (or at all…). This is really moisturising and therefore soothing for dry or sore winter skin. I reviewed it here.

Happy bodies:

  • Yes to Carrots Hydrating shower gel and Yes to Cucumber Calming shower gel – lovely and soothing for the winter months, even if the fragrances are more spring-like…
  • Australian Organics Jojoba Oil Exfoliating body wash – it’s important to keep scrubbing throughout the winter but I usually opt for a less abrasive option if my skin is sensitive. This scrub is more of a body wash with added scrub so I can use it more often for a very little exfoliation each time. Smells heavenly too.
  • Barefoot Botanicals SOS Daily Rich body lotion – previously reviewed here and a must-buy for dry, scaly legs.
  • Dr Organics Skin Lotions – perfect lotions for use year-round and soon to feature in their very own review because they’ve become such staples for me. Richer options for winter skin include Coconut, Vitamin E, Olive oil and Argan oil.
  • Jojoba oil – while my skin needs a bit more moisturising in the winter months, I find it irritating to slather on something rich and heavy first thing if it means I have to wait 10-15 minutes to get dressed while it’s cold. Plus, if I had 10-15 minutes spare of a morning, I would actually be somebody else (someone who went to bed on time, got up immediately when their alarm went off and was eternally smug). I’m not. A super-quick option is to put a thin layer of body oil onto dry or damaged spots then layer your normal light moisturiser over the top. The moisturiser seals in the oil so you don’t have to wait out the tacky, when-will-it-sink-in stage. Jojoba oil is a good choice because it’s lightweight and closest in composition to the sebum found naturally on skin.

Resilient innards:

Ok, so listen up. I didn’t get ill this winter. Not once. I have been bug-free since about September of last year. This is UNHEARD of. I’m usually ill at least once and, more commonly, I get those Russian Doll illnesses where being run down and worn out from the first one leads to the second one and so on. I also have a bad habit of going to bed too late. Normally 3-4 late nights and I’m already feeling the early sniffles of some germ. But NOT THIS WINTER. And I’ve most certainly not been going virtuously to bed at 9pm every night.

I’ve been using three things consistently since September (and a bit before then too) and I would now never chance a winter without them.

  • Baobab fruit powder: for a turbo-charged hit of Vitamin C, amongst other goodies. Please don’t replace your 5-7 portions of fruit and veg a day with this. But feel free to take this when you need an extra hit. I don’t take it daily. I tend to reserve it for days when I’ve slept badly, eaten poorly the day before or am just feeling generally tired. I reckon it’s the last barrier between me and illness and it’s worked, more than once. Organic Burst do a great one. I reviewed them here.
  • Zinc supplements: recommended as a skin supplement by Liz Earle, zinc is actually an immune support. I initially started taking it for my eczema because a healthy immune system supports good skin in the same way that a healthy digestive system does (don’t you just love the glorious interconnectedness of bodies??). However, I reckon it’s also been a godsend for fending off winter bugs.
  • Vitamin D: I wrote about this here and swear by it for beating the lurgy. I’d take this for the 6 months of the year when I wasn’t getting enough vitamin D from the sun (Apr – Sept, if we’re lucky).

UPDATE (15.03): Thanks to a comment from the lovely Sarah at Sugarpuffish I realised there was a glaring omission from my winter skin kit – the Comfort and Nourish balms from Balmology. Currently there’s a pot of the Comfort balm on my bedside table and I use it for pretty much everything, from lips to hands to stubborn patches of eczema. It’s become such a part of my routine at night that I ironically forgot all about it. But that’s now been put right. If you haven’t already, check out balmology, particularly if you have dry or eczema-prone skin.

Photos © Natural Beauty Cabinet. Please do not reproduce without permission.

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Rosehip, take 2

Regular readers will already know how much I love putting rosehip on my face. So consider this an update to my previous post here.

Rosehip oil is rich in Essential Fatty Acids – primarily Omegas 3 and 6. Omega 6, otherwise known as Gamma Linoleic Acid, is also found in Evening Primrose, Starflower and Blackcurrant seed oil (all of which you’ve no doubt spotted in skincare ingredients lists and advice on healthy diets and supplements). GLA helps to heal scar tissue, making rosehip a perfect ingredient for those with uneven skin pigmentation, acne scars, or those whose skin tends to mark very easily (subtext: those who, like me, tend to pick at spots. For shame. Hang your heads…). Rosehip oil also contains trans-retinoic acid, which is a natural form of Vitamin A; a key ingredient in anti-ageing.

All-in-all, I love it and have been putting it on my face, in one form or another, for about a year now. Just recently, I’ve been trying out a couple of new things so I’m introducing them here as other ‘rosehip’ options for those who share the love.

Rio Rosa Mosqueta oil**

The folks at Rio Rosa Mosqueta source their rosehip oil from high up in the Chilean Andes; the particular type of rose is Rosa Affinis Rubiginosa (for any botanists out there). I used it consistently for about 8-9 weeks and didn’t notice any reaction or change in the overall health of my skin – which is what I hoped for, because my skin was rosehipped to the hilt and all I really wanted to establish was whether the Rio Rosa product caused any decline.

As with all rosehip oils, just a few drops warmed in the palm of your hands and pressed lightly into the skin will do it. And I don’t think there’s anything separating the performance of the Rio Rosa rosehip oil from the Trilogy product I was using immediately before.

If I was forced to make a choice, I think my Pai rosehip oil just takes the edge. It contains concentrated rosehip fruit oil as well as the seed oil. Rio Rosa’s oil is fairly light in colour and quite runny or liquidy. The pai rosehip oil is gloopier and more like the colour of honey. For some inexplicable reason, I just prefer this – maybe psychologically, it just feels like there’s more in there. It also has a stronger grassy smell, like the Trilogy oil, whereas the Rio Rosa oil has almost no fragrance at all. Rosehip is a divisive smell so if you’re not keen, the Rio Rosa oil is definitely for you.

In short, the Rio Rosa Mosqueta oil is definitely one I’d recommend. If you’re looking to incorporate rosehip oil into your facial skincare routine, it’s worth trying a couple of brands before fixing on the one that suits you and your skin best. The three brands I most recommend for straight-up rosehip oil are Pai, Trilogy and Rio Rosa Mosqueta.

One final point. If any of you are interested in the science bit, there’s a really interesting page on Rio Rosa’s website which details some of the recent clinical trials on rosehip oil.

Available online for £10.49 for 20ml. There’s also a list of stockists on the Rio Rosa website.

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REN Bio Retinoid Anti-Ageing Concentrate

This isn’t a rosehip oil, per se. It’s a blended oil treatment with rosehip oil as one of its primary active ingredients. And it’s pricey. I reckon I’d probably not have rushed out and bought it for myself. (It was actually a free gift with a magazine subscription.)

Having said all that, it’s good. Really good.

It’s billed as an anti-ageing product because of the Vitamin A component (that’s the ‘Retinoid’ bit in the name). There’s no disputing Vitamin A works; it’s just not always an option for those with more delicate skin. REN’s concentrate gets my vote because its Vitamin A comes from natural sources – in this case, Andean Musk Rose Seed Oil and Sea Buckthorn berry flesh; much gentler options for sensitive skins.

In addition to that, it contains something called ‘Retinoid Analogue’ from Brazilian White Beggar’s Stick Flower, which apparently boosts collagen, corrects skin tone and repairs sun damage. If it does that, it’s a wonder product but I’ve no idea what retinoid analogue is (non-digital retinoid??) and I’ve never heard of the White Beggar Stick Flower.

South American stick flowers aside, I have very much enjoyed using this and I’d happily use it again in the future if I was feeling flush, as an alternative to my usual rosehip oil. It’s a rich, orangey oil with a nice gloopy feel and you need just five drops warmed in your palms and pressed into your skin. I use it nightly under my moisturiser – currently Antipodes Vanilla Pod Hydrating Day Cream (which is wonderful). Anti-ageing benefits will need to wait another couple of years (or ten) to assess, but it’s made my skin feel brighter, softer and calmer. And I get that lovely fresh-faced gleam along my cheekbones, which lasts all day.

Available from REN’s website, for £42, or from Beauty Expert for £37.80

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Ingredients: Rosa Rubiginosa Seed Oil, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Gossypium Harbaceum (Cotton) Seed Oil, Bidens Pilosa Extract, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea buckthorn) Fruit Extract, Parfum (Fragrance)*, Linum Usitatissimum (Linseed) Seed Oil, Tocopherol, Linalool.

*100% Natural Fragrance

**Disclaimer: The people at Rio Rosa Mosqueta were kind enough to send me a sample of their rosehip oil to try out. I’m featuring it here because I have no problem recommending it to others.

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BIO2You: for happy skin

Ever thought your skin might be depressed? Nope. Me neither. But the Latvian BIO2You products I started testing out a few weeks back promised happy skin and an anti-depressant action. Which was rather a unique USP.

BIO2You’s hero ingredient is sea buckthorn, which I’d only previously encountered in Weleda’s range of body products. To quote from the brochure:

“Aging is connected with oxidation caused be excessive amounts of reactive molecules…Antioxidants are the most powerful opponents to cell-destroying free radicals, but Sea Buckthorn is known as one of the strongest antioxidants because it has plenty of natural antioxidants – vitamins C, E, A, beta carotene, selenium, polyphenols, flavanoids…BIO2You uses only 100% natural sea buckthorn oil of organic origin which enhances microcirculation, improves epidermal regeneration and is also anti-inflammatory and analgesic.”

I’ve been testing Organic Omega 3-6 Serum Skin Antidepresant, the Organic Nutritive Sea Buckthorn Cream with Panthenol and the Organic Radiant Skin Mask with Sea Buckthorn and Hyaluronic Acid. And I’ve really enjoyed using them. All three feel light, refreshing and, with their slight citrussy tang reminiscent of a sweet lemon syllabub, perfect for spring.

I think the oil is my favourite of the three. Apparently it’s enriched with a pro-endorphin complex that strengthens the skin’s cell activity in the same way as natural happiness… That bit I can’t really expand on(!) but I can testify that the blend of sea buckthorn, rosehip, avocado, borage, macadamia, olive and jojoba oils have resulted in an oil that’s incredibly light, easily absorbed and really skin softening.

The oil and the cream in combination made for a light but hydrating base under make-up, although if you have oily skin you may find that the oil alone is enough of a moisturiser.

Both the cream and the mask are very light and fluid in texture but the slight tingling I noticed on dry patches after applying suggests there are active ingredients in there getting to work.

And is my skin happier? Well it’s been pretty calm, even and glowy recently, which has certainly been making me happier. So let’s make that a yes.

For more information about BIO2You visit their website. If you want to buy the products, you’ll need to go to Spirulina Skincare UK, the only stockist I know of so far.

Organic Omega 3-6 Serum Skin Antidepresant; £21.99

Ingredients: Octyldodecanol, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Rosa Moschata Oil, Persea Gratissima Oil, Borago Officinalis Seed Oil, Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis Oil, Olea Europaea Oil Unsaponifiables, Plukenetia Volubilis Seed Oil, Schinus Terebinthifolius Seed Extract, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retinyl Palmitate, Hippophae Rhamnoides Oil, Citrus nobilis oil, Citrus Aurantium bergamia oil, Eugenia caryophyllus oil, Limonene, Linalool

Organic Nutritive Sea Buckthorn Cream with Panthenol; £24.99

Ingredients: Aqua, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Argania Spinosa Oil, Cetyl Ethylhexanoate, Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Cetearyl Glucoside, Olea Europaea Oil Unsaponifiables, Tocopheryl Acetate, Panthenol, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Hippophae Rhamnoides Oil, Avena Sativa Extract, Malva Sylvestris Extract, Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, Allantoin, Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Lonicera Caprifolium Extract, Lonicera Japonica Extract, Citrus nobilis oil, Citrus Aurantium bergamia oil, Xanthan Gum, Cyamopsis Tetragonolobus Gum, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Limonene, Linalool

Organic Radiant Skin Mask with Sea Buckthorn and Hyaluronic Acid; £24.99

Ingredients: Aqua, Kaolin, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis Oil, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis Water, Glycerin, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Cetearyl Glucoside, Glycine Soja Oil, Malva Sylvestris Extract, Tocopheryl Acetate, Hippophae Rhamnoides Oil, Ginkgo Biloba Extract, Equisetum Arvense Extract, Achillea Millefolium Extract, Sodium Hyaluronate, Lactic Acid, Citric Acid, Malic Acid,Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Lonicera Caprifolium Extract, Lonicera Japonica Extract, Citrus nobilis oil, Citrus Aurantium bergamia oil, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Limonene, Linalool

Disclosure: Spirulina Skincare were kind enough to send me samples of the products trialled for this review. However, in keeping with my own policy, I’m writing about them here because I like them and would happily recommend them to others. If I hadn’t liked them, you wouldn’t be reading about them. Maria from Spirulina Skincare mentioned to me that they were interested in partnering with Beauty Therapists. If anybody reading would be interested in finding out more about this, you can contact Maria on sales@spirulinaskincare.co.uk.

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Doctor’s orders: Dr Organic Rose Otto Facial Serum

Dr Organic – now there’s a carefully crafted name. ‘Organic’ for the planet-loving earth mother in us; ‘Dr’ for the part of us that craves the “science part” delivered by a bespectacled, white-coated figure with a prescription pad, telling us exactly what we need to do for the good of our health.

Dr Organic is stocked in Holland & Barrett, which is where I found it. £12.99 seemed a reasonable price for a serum, putting it in the mid-range bracket. Until I got it home and removed it from the packaging. I’d assumed it was a 30ml bottle; the average size for a serum. But it’s 50ml, which is good value. Although, looking at the list of ingredients, I can see why they need a bigger bottle. There’s a lot to fit in there, including the polypeptides, phospholipids, ceramides, antioxidants and omega 3, 6 and 9 that Dr O highlights on the packaging.

I’m torn on this because I can be a bit of an ingredients purist and it’s hard to believe that every single one of those ingredients is serving an essential purpose. If I have one real criticism it’s that the rose and argan oils don’t appear higher up the ingredients list, and I’d like to see the ‘parfum’ removed. I’m also unsure about using the word “serum”. My expectation of a serum is something very light and silky in texture. This is really a facial oil and, as that, it stands up well and is very pleasant to use. But don’t expect instant absorption, a matt finish or a barely-there, slippery texture or you will be disappointed. 

To quote from the packaging, this is ‘the most advanced, balanced combination of anti-ageing, restorative and protecting oils ever formulated’. Organic Rose Otto oil is certainly renowned for its skin-renewing properties and its versatility for all skin types. Argan oil is the latest wonder ingredient, produced from the ground kernels of the Argan tree in Morocco; and the product also contains jojoba oil which is similar in composition to the sebum found in our skin and easily absorbed and passionflower seed oil which is rich in linoleic acid.

The bottle includes a handy ‘dropper’ in the lid which makes it easy to use just the right amount without wastage. To apply, put a few drops into your hand, warm between your palms, then press gently onto your face for a few seconds. This should deliver the right amount of product, although you may want to add a little extra in persistent dry zones. Many people find facial oils heavy, spot-inducing or greasy but this is usually a sign of artificial barrier oils, like mineral oil, or a sign that you’ve applied too much. Natural oils, in moderation, should absorb easily into the skin.

Even oily skins can benefit from facial oils although they can be tricky under make-up. I chose to apply this oil in the evenings only, layered under my usual moisturiser. Remember though that, when applying facial oils, you should stay well away from the eye; keep your application just outside the eye socket. Otherwise the oils will migrate into the eye (I reckon they use those fine lines as little motorways…). By day this can leave your eyes blurry or cause make-up to run. By night, it can cause puffiness, leaving you looking plumped up in all the wrong ways.

Applied in moderation, with due care around the eyes, I found that after a night’s sleep I was waking up with plump, soft skin that still felt very moisturised. Given that I’ll need a good few years(!) to use up the very generous bottle, I reckon I’ll have a brilliant idea of its anti-ageing efficacy by about my 45th birthday.

£12.99, 50ml from Holland & Barrett, in stores and online.

Ingredients: Prunus amygdalus dulcis (sweet almond) oil, caprylic/capric triglyceride, rosa canina (rose) fruit oil, glycine soja (soybean) oil, gossypium herbaceum (cotton) seed oil, oryza sativa (rice) bran oil, dicaprylyl ether, dicaprylyl carbonate, ricinus communis (castor) seed oil, simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) oil, limnanthes alba (meadowfoam) seed oil, passiflora incarnata seed oil, parfum (natural and food grade), argania spinosa (argan) oil, calendula officinalis, arnica montana flower oil, tocopheryl acetate, lecithin, ascorbyl palmitate, tocopherol, helianthus annus seed oil, pelargonium graveolens (geranium) oil, eugenia caryophyllata (clove) flower oil, rosa damascena (rose) flower oil, citronellol, geraniol, eugenol, linalool, citral, limonene.