MOISTURE MYTH

A little twist on my usual features, today’s post is an article which i’ve written for GroupOn’s London City Guide (which you can check out here). It was really fun to write an article of this style, opposed to my more standard ‘chit chat’ which I write on my blog. Let me know what you think :)

Moisturising is one such routine (or chore), which tends to land in the ‘meant to but forgot’ camp for me. We all know the importance of moisturising and hydration for our skin and general health, but with a lifestyle which doesn’t lend itself to pamper evenings and long baths, moisturising can often slip to the back of the priority list for busy working women (much like taking makeup off before bed or using one of the many hair masks which are piled up high in the bathroom). But with an increasingly demanding and high stress working life, long hours, late nights, a few bottles of red wine to help relinquish the pain – is hydration and therefore moisturising something we should all be putting higher up on our priority list?

No one wants wrinkles or dull dehydrated skin, this is evident in our mass consumption of all things beauty and skincare, medical quick fixes and investment in over promising products, which tell us they’ll solve all our wrinkle woes. Whilst we spend our (limited & ever demanded) time browsing online for the next best thing to use (what does Lisa Edlridge recommend?), perhaps we’re forgetting the basics. It may not be all about the botox & collagen infused moisturiser creams averaging £100 a pot … how about a simple glass of water (or eight) & an affordable high street moisturiser?

Claire Cisotti (Mail Online journalist) suggests that many iconic females including Kate Winslet & Joan Collins would agree with this sentiment. The £105 miracle treatments don’t necessarily provide those perfect results which we all wish for, instead a simple low cost moisturiser from our well loved high street brands can deliver far better results. Claire put this hypothesis to the test back in 2013 in a 4-week trial comparing 2 well-known facial moisturiser products that had quite surprising results. When comparing the results of the £105 Crème De La Mere moisturiser versus the £5 Nivea crème pot, it was very visible which product had delivered better results, not purely on skin hydration but also on reduction of redness and fading of fine lines as well. Nivea came out tops.

So let’s put that £100 back into the piggy jar (obviously reallocating our savings towards the Chanel 2.5 fund), pop down to our local high street store & grab one of the many affordable moisturisers on offer, promise to moisturise day & night and finally enforce the 2l a day water consumption.

Perhaps the 2l a day rule is the hardest to deliver on though (for me at least) … 8 x 200ml glasses is no easy feat, particularly when half the day is spent dashing around London from one meeting to another, but it’s one that is worth the effort and something which I’m sure we all promise ourselves we’ll do at the start of each new year. Do we have an excuse not to do it? With the budget saved from limiting our investment in high-end miracle skin treatments, let’s treat ourselves to portable (and stylist) water bottle that will easily slip into our Mulberry Tote or Prada Saffiano without any refute. Banish any possible excuse to not be drinking our daily-recommended amounts of liquid … water, not coffee and wine mind.

Here’s to finally achieving hydrated looking skin.