The quest for the perfect Cleanser

Finding the right facial cleanser for your skin is the first step to a great skincare routine.

I have been trying many across the years including cleansing milk, micellar lotions, washes… and my heart had settled on one that I thought was the perfect candidate for my needs: Garnier Skin Naturals PureActive 2in1 Purifying gel + make-up remover.

 

Given my skin is combination and prone to blemishes, I have always been looking for products that would be very effective at cleansing and removing impurities, whilst not drying skin so much that it would put it out of balance. I also like the feeling of a proper wash using water so I can feel my face is fully refreshed and clean. Plus, I like a good multi-tasker, and this Garnier product is so gentle that you can also use it to remove all make-up including on the eyes without the slightest uncomfortable feeling despite cleansing effectively, which is a very tricky balance to achieve.

Presented in a convenient pump format, the formula is specifically developed for oily and combination skin, with salicylic acid to treat blemishes, and also boasts high tolerance with a no added fragrance, ophthalmologically and dermatologically tested formula (and zero parabens for those who care, though I personally still believe parabens are a necessary ingredient to allow longer conservation of formulas). It has a nice, translucent texture with a smooth, slightly sticky-on-skin texture making it easy to apply and easy to wash out too. The results are great every time – great clean feeling, and absolutely no make-up left. Love it !

“But what’s is the catch ?”, I hear you cry.
Well, I can’t find it anywhere anymore except online, as I guess it was discontinued from stores… That’s the issue with Garnier Essensials-type ranges: they keep bringing innovation, taking products out or repackaging them. Such a shame when they had absolutely nailed it in my humble opinion (I guess I was probably the only one to think that if it did not sell well enough to keep its space on the line-up). It can still be found online, though If you see this product stocked anywhere on a physical shelf, let me know !

So, as I am mourning my Garnier cleanser, I’ve had to change tactics and I bought 2 new cleansers yesterday to give them a try:

First up, I finally bought the Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish with Hot Cloth Cleanser (£13.5 for £100ml and 2 free muslin clothes).

I went to the Liz Earle shop in Sloane Square in London, and received lovely service from their beauty consultant, with specific advice on skin type, a demo on how to use the cleansing system, a free trial tube of a new light moisturiser and a pretty bag with wrapping paper. Happy days 🙂

I have heard a lot of great things about this cleansing system, and it certainly won a lot of awards, so I wanted to check what the hype was all about. They had just launched a limited edition with Orange Flower and Chamomile for Summer 2014, with a lovely flowery design, which I was told is milder than the original formula. I kept to the original for my first trial, especially as the formula contains Eucalyptus Essential Oil and Rosemary, which are great for combination skin for their antiseptic properties.

I tried it as soon as I came home – here again, the big plus is that the product acts as a cleanser and a make-up remover all at once.
The product comes in a pump bottle (it also comes as a 200ml tube but I find pumps are more convenient and also help keep the formula stable, effective and clean for longer). The texture is white, very thick, creamy and rich, almost balmy. The scent has a natural freshness to it given the essential oils in it and is not overpowering.

The idea is to use 1 or 2 full pumps on dry skin and massage the texture on skin with dry fingertips in small circular motions, finishing with the eyes (to keep the “panda eye” effect to the end and limit the amount of eye make-up going onto the rest of the face).The next step is what makes the ritual unique: you need to dampen a piece of muslin cloth under warm water, and then rub it carefully in circular motions onto your face to remove the product. This massage has a gentle polishing effect due to the imperfect surface of the muslin cloth which acts as a subtle scrub. The feeling of the warm cloth on skin also triggered holiday feelings as they reminded me of the lovely hot towels that I got given when traveling in Asia (or alternatively when going for dim sums in China Town, but that’s not as exotic). Finally, the finishing touch is to rinse out your face with a big splash of cold water to close the pores, followed by a gentle padding of the face on a clean and dry towel.

The results ? I actually found that the final water splash is not to be neglected: the first time I tried the routine, I failed to properly rinse out the full product and I felt it remained on my skin afterwards, a bit like a coated effect. The second time I tried it in the morning, I was more careful with that last step and I eventually felt very satisfied with the clean feeling of the whole experience, and also the nice glow that the gentle polishing effect gave to my skin. It also did not dry out my skin at all. So overall very positive, plus I found that the ritual aspect of it helps to bring back focus on the fact cleansing is such an important gesture to allow the skin to breathe properly and be healthy.

In my cleansing shopping franzy, I also bought L’Oreal Paris Skin Perfection Soothing Gel-Cream Wash (£4.49 for 150ml) which is proven to remove make-up and impurities and reveal a better skin texture, with no feeling of dryness.

I have been impressed by L’Oréal Skin Perfection range, especially their serum, so I have great hopes for this one. I have not tried it yet as I am investing in my Liz Earle test right now… but will give it a try shortly, let me know if you have tried it and what you have thought about it !

With love,

Your skinologist x

Skin structure 1-0-1

For all the time and money I spend researching new miracle skincare products, I have to have faith that skincare products actually work. But better than faith and hope in skincare matters is science. And to fully understand how products work, you first have to understand a bit more about skin.

So here goes: skin physiology 1-0-1.

The first thing you need to know about skin (and it actually blows my mind away every time) is that it is actually the biggest human organs and its surface covers roughly 2m square. We often think about heart, lungs or intestine as key vital organs; skin hardly ever makes it to the “top-of-mind organ list” (if such list even exists), yet it is the first protective barrier between our bodies and the external world and its breadth of nasty pathogen agents.

Healthy skin is critical to maintaining the integrity of the body. It protects against infections and illnesses, enables our sense of touch and sensations, helps regulate body temperature,  takes part in the synthesis of Vitamin D which is in turn key to maintaining a healthy bone structure and to aid cellular communication. My obsession for maintaining a healthy skin does not seem that shallow now, does it ?

Now let’s get technical. Skin is composed of 3 layers – The Epidermis, the Dermis and the Hypodermis (easy):  

• 1) The Epidermis is the thinnest, top layer of the skin (roughly 1mm deep).
  • This part of the skin does not have blood-vessel (which comes in handy if you happen to cut yourself with a sheet of paper every so often, at least the epidermis won’t bleed if this stays superficial) and  is made up majoritarily of  keratinocytes (creating keratin protein, like hair or nails but a softer kind).
  • The Epidermis itself is made of different layers of cells – to keep it simpler, lets’ consider 3 sub-layers as low, mid and upper epidermis:
    • The lower epidermis, closer to the junction with the Dermis, is made of basal stem cells that divide and multiply to rejuvenate the middle and upper epidermis.
    • In the mid-epidermis, you can find 3 other important types of cells like Melanocytes (which are responsible for variations in skin colour and interact with sun light to create a tan), Merkel Cells (providing a sense of light-touch), and Langerhans cells (acting like a detector against external pathogens).
    • With time, keratinocytes move up from the lower to middle epidermis as they evolve shape and function, to end up in the upper epidermis, closer to skin surface where they finish their journey and die (these dead cells on the surface of skin are the ones you scrub away (every week, religiously)  to reveal newer, more glowing skin underneath).
  • The top of the skin is thinly coated by a protective layer of sebum, a natural oil-based liquid which helps defend skin against external aggressions. When sebum production gets ahead of itself, skin pores can become obstructed and prone to blemishes and spots.

 

•  2) The Dermis which as you guessed sits nicely under the Epidermis, is connected to it by a small membrane.
  • The dermis is a thicker layer of skin, made of connective tissues and elastic fibers including collagen, acting a bit like a cushion structure around the body, giving skin its supple appearance.
  • It also contains other structures like nerve endings (to provide the sense of touch, cold, heat and pain), hair follicles, sweat and sebaceous glands, and lymphatic and blood vessels.

 

• 3) The Hypodermis (not technically part of the skin itself), connects the skin to the bones and muscles trough loose connective tissues and elastin.
  • It is made of fat, which serves as an other layer of cushion and insulation for the body.
  • It contains adipocytes (cells stocking fat as energy reserves for the body and which can cause cellulite appearance when in excess), fibroblasts (cells producing collagen and elastic fibres that are needed in the dermis) and macrophages (soldier cells that attack any nasty pathogens that manage to make it through the skin barrier).

 

Now you might start to understand that skincare can have different types of effects depending on what level of the skin they target.

Because the hypodermis contains fibroblasts synthesizing collagen and elastic fibres found in the dermis, skincare products with an effect targeting these deeper layers of skin will have a greater, longer-term impact on skin youthful look and suppleness than those with an effect on epidermis only:

• Basic moisturisers containing molecules like glycerin or other basic humectants only act at the surface of the epidermis, a bit like a short-term lubricant coating at the skin surface giving it an instant glow and protection.
• Advanced skincare on the other hand can have a full range of lot more targeted actions at several levels in the skin, whether it is stimulating stem cells, fibroblasts or collagen fibres. However most of the improvement they promise will take longer to materialise, as they will influence skin over time as part of its 28-days renewal cycle, influencing skin’s future appearance.

So it might well be worth paying the extra few pounds on this advanced anti-ageing moisturisers, and also give it a few more days to prove itself (probably 28 if you ask me), before you ditch it in the bin 😉

 

How it all started

I have been surrounded with skin care and beauty products for as long as I can remember. My parents were pharmacists and the best features of their drugstore were a huge beauty and dermo-cosmetics fixture stocking a myriad of exciting skincare as well as a small beauty salon. Sales representatives for skincare laboratories would visit my parents on a monthly basis to convince them to stock their new products or new brands. I would often happen to be sitting in my parents’ office quietly doing my homework in the corner after school when these meetings took place, and I remember being fascinated hearing all about the science going into the new ranges. My mum would sometimes interrupt the negotiation, turn to me and ask me for my opinion on some of the new innovations – which in hindsight was probably highly irritating for the sales guys, when the success of their deals sometimes hinged on the thoughts of an 8 year-old. I remember my mum responding quite emotionally to these sales pitches; business sense vacated her when it came to new exciting skincare, and she would just decide on gut feel to stock a whole new collection when shelves were already far too full and inventory far too high. You could feel the excitement in her eyes; she just “knew” it would be a hit (it was not always).

My parents sensed my passion for skincare early on and played along to it.
I spent my 9th birthday away from home in a 3-week Summer holiday camp. Most kids there used to receive parcels from their parents bursting with candy and toys. My parcel was skincare, with a sweet note from my dad: “I noticed you forgot some of your favourite face creams in the bathroom before leaving for camp, I thought I would send them so you can stay all beautiful”. (Of course I had not “forgotten” them, I had only packed Summer favourites). In that same Summer camp, I recall leaving the canteen with extra fruits in my backpack, taking them to my bedroom to later create a banana-based face mask to fight blackheads on my T-zone, or a peach and lemon juice to create a vitamin and fruit-acid boosted concoction for my face and hair.

When I was 16, my mother invited me to come along with her to the skincare conferences she was invited to by laboratories. I remember finding these events highly glamourous: evening cocktail, “petits fours”, posh hotels, and a huge scene where the pharmaceutical companies’ communication directors would put on a show to explain all about the breakthrough research and development that had gone into their products. This is when I decided: “this is it, this is what I want to do with my life”, and embarked onto the journey to Business School, to do a major in marketing and secure a 1st internship at l’Oréal.

10 years on, I have worked in a few beauty jobs, in colour cosmetics and make-up, hair care, body care which I have all loved, but I must admit my real passion has always and still lies with skincare. Now I feel is the right time to consolidate my skincare knowledge, product experiences and tell the story of my quest for the perfect routine – the journey continues with “the skinologist”.