Skincare of the Week 25/10/15

 It has been a long and busy week here at Get Lippie, and my lifestyle has shown a bit in my skincare choices, I've swapped to a more hydrating routine, and I've slipped a few new products in too.  I'll be concentrating on some night-time routines this week.  More after the jump.

Skincare of the Week: 17.10.2015

 

I've been beauty blogging a long time, well over six years now, and in that time my interests have changed. From basically wanting to catalogue my lipstick collection (where the name came from), to learning to love (and grow) my fingernails, then COLOURS, COLOURS, COLOURS, and finally to where I am now, which is obsessed with skincare.  Mostly I'm too lazy to spend hours every day applying my face - though I do wear a different lipstick every day still - so my skin needs to be tip-top at all times, hence the obsession.

My skin is combination-oily, prone to redness and sensitivity, and it is full of pores.  I suffered horrendously from adult on-set acne in my late twenties too - which I mainly cured through getting my skincare right. I'm in the "mature" skin category these days, but a lot of anti-ageing creams are too heavy for my oiliness, so I'm constantly on a quest to deal with my redness rather than my wrinkles (of which at the moment I have thankfully few, but the ones I do have grow slightly more entrenched every day - I'm learning to love them).  These Skincare of the Week posts are my way of diarising what I'm trialling, what I really love, what works - and if you see it disappear after just one use or two - what doesn't work at all.  So read on to find out what's been on my ugly mush this week.

First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads

If you've spent any time hanging around my instagram page, then you'll have seen these on my daily skincare routine posts a lot recently.  I do love a pre-soaked acid pad, they're usually thinner and more textured than a cotton wool pad, and so you get a good amount of toner on your skin, rather than soaked up by the cotton wool.

First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads are a bargain compared to my usual preferred pads  of choice (Zelens  PHA+ Pads, for reference), costing around £22 for sixty, rather than £65, and they're good and tingly all the same.  Containing a blend of lactic and glycolic acids alongside licorice extract, hyaluronic acid and lemon peel oil, these offer a gentle daily exfoliation, and they're alcohol free.

To use them most effectively, you simply wipe them over freshly cleansed skin and this both helps remove any dead, flaky skin patches, and also helps prepare your skin for any serums or moisturisers that you apply afterwards.  Cleansers are generally alkaline, and washing your face strips away some of your natural acid mantle, so using an acid-based toner will help bring your skin back into balance and your skin will be more easily able to absorb the active ingredients in your skincare.  I love them for making my skin soft and smooth on a daily basis. These pads are quite wet, and I find that giving them a little squeeze before applying to the skin will stop them leaving your face soaking wet.

You must use a sunscreen on a daily basis when using any acidic skincare though, no ifs ands and buts about it.  The worst thing about First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads is that they're a little difficult to get hold of, I had to get mine from Amazon.  Why aren't they in Boots and/or Superdrug?  I wish they were!


The Fine Print: Purchase


This post: First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper

Skincare of the Week 13.09.15

Last Sunday was a very stressful day, so I ended up giving myself a mini-facial in the middle of the day.  Oskia Renaissance Cleansing Gel was soothing with its rosy softness, then I slathered myself in Aveda Intensive Hydrating Mask for the rest of the day.  I love this stuff, oil-free, it is instantly cooling and soothing (I keep mine in the fridge.  That reminds me, I need a bigger fridge), and leaves you plumped up and less red and angry-looking.  As I'm approximately 2/3rds sheer grumpiness, this is a minor miracle, I'm sure you'll agree.

After a stressful Sunday, I needed a treat come Monday morning, and when that happens, I reach for the Zelens:

I've been trialling the Intense Defence serum for a few weeks now, there's a full review of it upcoming, but I like this.  I like this a lot.  If you have tendencies towards sensitivity and redness (as I do), you'll probably like it too.  I paired it with the Z Recovery Intensive Repair Balm, as that is probably my second-favourite Zelens product of all time.  A non-greasy balm (actually more of a rich gel-texture) this nourishes and just makes skin look fab after using.  Any time my skin is a bit stressed, or dried out, or over-stimulated with active products, I reach for this, and my skin is usually much the better for it after one application.

A tiny catastrophe on Tuesday when I couldn't find either my Bioderma Crealine spray OR my beloved La Roche Posay Serozinc, so I had to dig out my Caudalie Grape Water.  I actually like the grape water, but the other two are much better for my rosy-redness, so it wasn't really the end of the world.  I added in the Ren Rosa Centifolia Cleansing Water, as, for some reason, I woke up with mascara smudges.  My waterproof eyemakeup remover has gone walkabout, and I paid the price on Tuesday.

More about this routine (and why it was so special) after the break ...

Skincare of the Week - 22 August 2015

Joy abounds in the Get Lippie household whenever a parcel from Zelens shows up, and this week I was delighted that the two newest serums in the range appeared on my doorstep.  I'll be giving Zelens Intense Defence a good going over in the next few weeks, so expect my skincare routines to get a little ... visually undistinguishable ... for a while.  This was a simple routine that I'm already used to, so I can see if the serum does its stuff.