Winter Beauty Part One: Moisture

Following on from last week's post on winter beauty essentials, it's no surprise to discover that we all reach for the same products when the cold sets in: moisturisers. Cold weather combined with an increased use of central heating conspire to dry our skin, leaving many of us with parched, dull and greying complexions. Not the route to a glamorous winter!

So what happens to our skin when the cold of winter sets in? A lack of moisture in the environment means that skin is more susceptible to the drying effects of cold weather, central heating and air conditioning, so the key to happy winter skin is to ensure that it is well moisturised. However, slathering on any old cream is not always enough to seal in that precious moisture.

Moisturisers fall into two categories: humectants and occlusives. Humectants draw moisture from the lower to the upper layers of skin - moisture derived from the water we drink. Occlusives act as a barrier to lock existing moisture into the skin, and form a layer of defence against further dehydration of the skin. Occlusive ingredients include oils and petrolatum - products that form a physical barrier on the skin - and humectants are found in more standard moisturisers.

First and foremost, it's as important as ever to make sure you drink 2 litres of water a day to ensure that your body is hydrated and your skin is healthy, so that your skin has a water supply to draw on. Secondly, most people will benefit from using a heavier moisturiser for day than normal, and dependant on your skin type, a combination of humectant and occlusive moisturisers will help. As I am prone to dryer skin on my body, my top tip is to use a body oil like The Sanctuary Spa Essential Massage and Body Oil first and then top with a standard moisturiser like Vaseline Intensive Rescue. This combination forms a barrier to lock in the moisture so that the skin is able to absorb everything it needs. It works AMAZINGLY!

This routine also works well for lips, and I use Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream topped with a coating of Vaseline on particularly cold, windy days. The Eight Hour Cream moisturises and the Vaseline locks it in: perfect!

Finally, for my face, I tend to use a slightly heavier cream than normal on my cheeks, but stick to the same products on my oilier t-zone. This year, I'll be switching up to Liz Earle's Skin Repair moisturiser combined with my beloved No. 7 Protect and Perfect serum.

Hopefully this will help you choose your winter moisture products. Do you have any moisturising tips?

Finally, if you haven't done so already, enter my Barry M giveaway here!

Image courtesy of nordiclandscapes.com

The NARS Pure Matte Challenge!

Finally, I have some time to post, and boy, do I have a lot to write about. Over the past week, I've bought Shu Uemura's Nourishing Hair Oil, Liz Earle light moisturiser, Rimmel's new lash growth mascara, Lancome's Teint Miracle foundation and a lovely capsule wardrobe for my trip to Rome next week: yey for shopping! So, that's the abridged version, and a little summary of the reviews you can expect over the next few days. Anyway, onto today's review: NARS Pure Matte lipstick! I was lucky enough to be invited to the Pure Matte launch at Selfridges, Oxford Street, and treated to a gorgeous application of my chosen shade from the range.

There are six shades in the collection, which is exclusive to Selfridges nationwide until 2nd October. The lipsticks are priced at £18.


From left to right: Volga, Vesuvio, Bangkok, Terre De Feu, Tonkin, Tashkent.

Above, I'm wearing Vesuvio, which is the most fantastically intense red I've ever seen! I also bought NARS' lipliner in Jungle Red as such a striking, heavily pigmented colour is bound to be prone to a bit of bleeding: never a good look. The liners are £14, but dupes will be readily available on the high street, although Jungle Red is outrageously beautiful and I am very glad I bought it!

Now, I make no secret of the fact that I have never been a lover of matte lips. I generally like my lips to be well moisturised and to always have a little slip. The thought of the heavy powder formulations that are so common in matte lipsticks has always made me reach for the Vaseline! For this reason, I decided to undertake the NARS Pure Matte 8 Hour Challenge! If I can manage to get through an entire day wearing a matte lippy, it's definitely got some decent credentials.

The product contains vitamin E, acai oil and a host of other nourishing elements, and I have to say, it really made a difference. It was 3.5 hours before I had to reapply, and that was only because I'd eaten a sandwich and transfered most of it onto the bread - not very appetising, I have to say!

However, look at my Starbucks straw below: only the tiniest bit had transfered from my lips!

Overall, I'm really impressed with this product, but then, I didn't expect anything less from NARS. I retouched my lipstick 3 times throughout the course of the day and got a comfortable 8 hours wear. The next day, my lips were a little dryer than normal, but nothing that a little more lip balm didn't fix. As for the colour, it's *phenomenal*. It's so pigmented, so intense, and really beautiful. If you're looking for an entry product to matte lipstick, or if you've had a bad matte experience, I'd take yourself to Selfridges and give these lipsticks a whirl. Although the range is currently small, there are more shades to be added, and the colours the six shades are so wearable, I'm sure there's something for everyone.

Will any of you be trying the NARS range?

The Grease Addiction (no, not the movie)

Since my late teens, I have been known to never be without two things: chewing gum and Vaseline. You can glean from these permanent handbag essentials that I like fresh breath and greasy lips. Yes, I am one of the many who has succombed to what's known to the Vaseline-fiend as 'grease addiction'; namely the need to constantly have a degree of slip on one's lips.

Harmless, you might think, but ask any Vaseline user how their day has panned out when they have forgotten their precious emolient, and they will recount tales of emergency lunch time trips to the nearest Boots, and an afternoon that was lost to the heady pleasures of multiple applications. If you're interested, I counted three tins of Lip Therapy and two of the full size, pick-them-up-on-the-baby-care-aisle pots last week, all dotted at various locations around the house - quite literally my Petroleum Pit Stops - with one a permanent fixture on my night stand.
It was then that I realised: I've got it bad. I started to wonder if this is something I should be concerned about, and began researching to decide whether Vaseline was less friend and more foe.

Vaseline is a by-product of crude oil processing, and considering the vast quantities of oil consumed annually, Vaseline production alone does not put any significant strain on the environment. That's a tick in it's favour. It is, however, a petrochemical, and as I don't ever get the urge to go down to the local petrol station and moisturise with a gallon of unleaded, I started to wonder why I consider it acceptable to use this products on my lips. That said, there is, no evidence to suggest that long-term use of petroleum jelly is bad for your health. Another tick.

After doing a little more research, it started to make sense as to why the cycle of Vaseline use is so hard to break. Vaseline is an occlusive, meaning that it sits on the skin rather than being absorbed into it. Where other lips balms generally sink in a few minutes after application and leave the lips moisturised but without slip, Vaseline stays on the surface until it's wiped or transferred away, leaving that comforting 'greasy' feeling that we addicts find ourselves longing for a few hours post-application. So, as it's not actually moisturising my skin, which was my motivation for starting to use it all those years ago, I seem to be pretty far from my original goal.

I've tried various products over the years, but none seem sufficiently slippery to enable me to wave goodbye to my dependency. Elizabeth Arden's Eight Hour Cream lip balm was down to a stub in two weeks and Carmex, Blistex and every other chemist chap stick has been trialled and tossed. At the weekend, in desperation to kick my habit, I picked up Kiehl's Lip Balm #1. It was soft, silky, and most importantly, it left that precious film on my lips, and I delighted in the prospect of a life without the clinking of Vaseline tins in my handbag. I sat back, contented, and read the ingredients. And what was staring up at me as number one ingredient? You guessed it....

Petrolatum.

It's my own fault for not reading the ingredients when I bought it, but it seems I'm still a long way from kicking my habit: it's just I've paid four times more for my fix. I'll be going back to Vaseline when this tube runs out, and speaking of which, it's about time for another application...