Cleanse, Tone, Moisturise

These days we don’t have enough time for anything so there is no surprise that we try to simplify our beauty routine. Cosmetics companies see that and we constantly have new products that will shave off minutes of our morning and evening maintenance drill. But does it really save us time and, more importantly, money?

Let’s look at the evidence. Long time ago all we had to do cleanse, tone and moisturise, plus an occasional visit to a beautician to pick our blackheads and squeeze our millia.  I’m not even going into the pre-holiday waxing and preening.

When did it all got so complicated. Sure, we use wash off cleansers, moisturisers with built in SPF, shellaq manicures that last longer…. But we use more stuff. I’m as guilty as any of us.

On one side I use a wash off gel cleanser, which in theory, should be enough, but it isn’t. To take make up off properly I still need a nice milky or oily cleanser, eye make up remover and a toner. By the way, toner doesn’t really tone anything, it’s just there to remove the last bit of dirt that cleanser missed.  So I counted four products so far. Plus your cotton wool, muslin cloths etc. You get the picture.

As we try to cut on the time we spend on the cleansing that we don’t do properly in the first place, our skin gets congested so we have to exfoliate, use things like clarisonic, purifying masks, moisturising masks, anti ageing peels etc.

Going to a beauty salon to try new “breakthrough” lifting, poking, prodding, dermarolling treatments all in the hope we would save time at home. Again, you get the picture.

Perhaps it’s time we went back full circle to the old fashioned routine. I know there’s nothing cutting edge about it, but I’m a true believer in proper cleansing. The cleansing will massage and stimulate your skin and you’ll end up with a clearer skin. It will also gently exfoliate the dead skin cells. If you don’t believe me try putting on make up five times in a day and taking it off. Your face will be painfully sore.  So morning and evening would be enough.

If your skin is on a dry side I also believe you will benefit from moisturising waters that most Japanese cosmetics companies do and also Melvita, but deep cleansing masks, lifting masks, scrubs etc will be the thing of the past.

I’ve done this routine before and I need to start doing this again, who is with me?

The ingredient of the week – Alpha Tocopherol (Vitamin E)

I’m not going to go into great depth about what alpha tocopherol is (I’ll be calling it vitamin E), I just want to mention the skincare benefits, especially now when we are having a mini heat-wave and are prone to overdoing it in the sun.

Alpha tocopherol is the most biologically active form of vitamin E, a natural fat soluble antioxidant that stimulates the immune system. It’s present in many foods, mostly vegetables and oils. So it’s really good for you and you should eat more of it, ok? Now we can move on to the all important skin stuff.

So what can the alpha tocopherol do for our skin? Quite a lot actually. It’s one of the anti-ageing free radical fighters (antioxidant), but it’s very commonly used for treating sunburn, general skin dryness, skin irritation and scars. Instead of buying shedloads of creams that contain questionable amounts of vitamin E in it, go and buy the supplement from the health food store or pharmacy and use it neat. And it’s cheap.

Vitamin E supplements normally come in little oil capsules, you pierce the capsule and apply it on the affected area. It’s very greasy, so it’s not for showing off, but it will soothe the skin quickly. You can also add it to a cream if you wish. It’s also great on cuticles so no need to splash out on a specialist cuticle potion.

The added advantage of buying a supplement is that it won’t go to waste. The capsules are easily portable, won’t spill and you can eat them. Can’t eat the cream, can you?

A quick note though: some people can develop an allergic reaction to a synthetic form of vitamin E, so please check the source.