MY EVER EVOLVING SKINCARE ROUTINE

At 51 I am properly in my fifties, weird as that sounds to my ears, it is a fact. Slightly disconcerting is the mental image I have of myself. She is the 40-year-old me rather than the 51-year-old reflection I see in the mirror today. I guess most people have a “best of” date in their head, mine happens to be 38ish. Yet even though my skin has aged, overall I’m pretty happy with it. However there are a couple of things I have major issue with. First is pigmentation and second is inconsistent hydration.

The first thing, pigmentation, has been an ongoing battle for decades. I tend to believe the combination of my parents DNA makes me prone to it. My Mother is very dark skinned, had black hair and dark brown eyes. Rumour has it her biological Father was Spanish hence the olive skin. My Dad is naturally very pale with blonde hair and blue eyes. Incidentally being such a whitey made him prone to basal cell carcinoma from the burning Aussie sun. Not a great environment for a builder with Irish parentage but that’s colonialism for ya. In any case their skin combined made mine a strange pale yellow.  Easily tanned but when hidden from the sun as white as plaster.

Just briefly while we’re on the subject, isn’t DNA incredible? Family traits, both physical and psychological, totally fascinate the hell out of me. A great example is my Son Jasper who has blue eyes and milky white skin, neither of which came from me or Mark. Isn’t that amazing? I love that Jasper has so much of my Dad in him! Although he is the absolutely spit of Mark in every other way, bless.

So back to my skin – Removing my pigmentation is not that difficult, the trouble is it always comes back. Unsurprisingly it returns in the exact same place which shows the problem goes very deep. I’ve tried pretty much every treatment available to eliminate it forever but nothing lasts. I’m currently researching new types of lasers. I’ll get back to you on that shortly.

The second thing I’m constantly working on is finding the perfect moisturizer. This was never an issue for me until I reached the magical menopause stage. Prior to menopause I could literally slap on any old crap from the discount bin and I was good. Consequently I took very little interest in brands or indeed what they claimed to do. My only reason for reading the bottle was to check it wasn’t tested on animals.

HOW TO GET THE BALANCE RIGHT

Oh how I’ve changed…Since menopause altered my skins texture and moisture content I’m all over the packaging. Feverishly researching ingredients like a Scientist trying to reverse climate change. Ever the optimist me. What this one does and that one prevents and how to make them all penetrate more effectively Wahhhh!

It’s a minefield of half-truths and downright lies. How on earth do these brands get away with it? I often wonder if there’s actually any truth to their fanciful claims. There’s certainly a lot of bullshit to wade through while you’re admiring the skin of a thirty year old model. Yep that’s another thing that really pisses me off about most beauty brands. Sure the situation has improved lately but I wonder how sincere this move toward age inclusion is? Using a sixty year model to sell beauty products is great but why Photoshop her image to resemble a thirty year old? We know she’s sixty, you want us to know you have a sixty year old in your campaign yet you smoothed out her face. Why? I guess time will tell if big beauty will ever truly understand the dichotomy of their sales pitch.

So in one word, I’m all about balance. Fairness is balance and balance is healthy in every aspect of life. We need to balance the health of our economy with a healthy environment just as a balanced diet contributes to longevity. Everything on the planet is connected so when the balance is off…well let’s just say stuff goes off. Sometimes big time, like now. Like Trump. Waaay off.

Moving onto balancing my skins moisture – These days it can flip from dry and flaky to overly oily in the blink of a puffy eye. Whilst dry skin accentuates my wrinkles, using a rich moisturizer causes it to break out. And so without the right balance my skin goes off kilter. Therefore finding the perfect moisturizer is considerably fraught since going too far one way creates another problem to resolve!

MY REVIEW OF PERRICONE MD

*This is NOT a sponsored post & doesn’t contain affiliate links. Although Perricone MD gifted me the products I’m under no obligation to write anything at all. This is my unbiased opinion*

Perricone MD is new to me so I waited five weeks before making a judgement on the brand. They sent me a beautiful box containing Rejuvenating Moisturizer, Intensive Night Cream, Deep Crease Serum, Eyelid Lift Serum and Soothing & Brightening Under Eye Cream. All of these products contain the active ingredient acyl-glutathione. What is that you may ask?

Well apparently glutathione is the body’s main antioxidant, who knew? Not I. Perricone MD knows so they combined it with vitamin F, flaxseed, chia seed and macadamia oils to restore suppleness and a healthy glow to dull skin. Guess what? This is exactly what it did for me BUT…To be fair not really a huge problem, even though I typed a big but [Tempted to type “I like big butts and I cannot lie” heehee sowee] The Intensive overnight moisturizer was a definite no go for me as it’s way to rich.

Regarding the eye cream and serum, totally lovely and I can’t fault either. However the real winner in my book is the Deep Crease Serum and Rejuvenating Moisturizer. The two products combined is my winning formula, just superb. I enjoyed even better results after using my Dermaplane. Remembering to allow the serum to absorb before I apply the moisturizer was key. Absolutely lush I bloody love it!

Coincidentally Perricone MD do a starter kit including my two favourite products which happens to be half price at the moment!

Impressed with Perricone MD I took a long look around their website and found lots of interesting products. Next up I’m keen to test the Vitamin C Ester on lightening my pigmentation. There’s good research on using vitamin C in conjunction with microneedling for greater efficacy.

Thanks for reading, I hope you found my little article interesting or at least slightly amusing…

Bye for now darlings xx