Skincare tips from a lady in her late 40s who has tried everything

 I need to acknowledge how incredibly lucky I am in the skin department, for the most part. However, age makes everyone its bitch and despite being a stone's throw from menopause, I still get spots. And to make matters worse, my skin has always been dry as a biscuit and allergic to practically everything, including citrus oils (bergamot, limonene, linalool, etc., which are in the majority of skincare products).

Thanks to my mother's extreme paranoia of looking her age (which, it must be said, served her well), I have tried to care for my skin from a young age. When I was 7 or 8, I remember spending my allowance on clay masks and moisturisers! (I should have been buying sunblock, but it was the 1970s so that wouldn't happen until, oh, twenty years later.)

When it comes to beauty and skincare in particular, a lot of people I know take one of two approaches: natural products only and 'throw every chemical known to man on there'. I fall somewhere in the middle. It's also very easy to spend a LOT of money on skincare, but these days there are loads of affordable products that easily compete with the pricey stuff.

Recently, I have been using the 'curly girl method' on my hair, which entails cutting out silicone in my hair products along with drying alcohols and detergents. And that got me thinking, if silicone and that other nasty stuff dries out my hair, what are they doing to my face? I  read the labels of my skin products, and discovered that most of them used silicone, even the dermatologist-recommended brands, such as Cetaphil, Cerave, and Elave. It turns out that silicone is actually not bad for your skin -- it can help retain moisture -- but I also don't want it in every single product, so I started searching for silicone-free skincare products. It was especially difficult to find moisturisers with SPF that didn't use silicone. But I found some, and I'm going to tell you how!

There are two websites that I use to figure out if a hair product is 'curly girl approved: IsitCG and CurlsBot. You simply copy and paste the ingredients into the tool and it tells you which ingredients are not 'approved' and which ones you should use with caution, such as ingredients that can leave build-up residue over time. Having realised that all of the precautions I take with my hair are the same ones I wanted to take with my skin, I decided to use the tool on skin products. 

One of my favourite brands at the moment is an American brand called Acure Organics, which is very affordable and can be ordered online, but it's not always handy to do that from overseas. If you're in America, though, do give it a try.

Cleansing

Ironically, I have found that the best routine for my skin has been a 'less is more' approach. For example, if I don't have makeup on my face, I don't wash it at the end of the day. And if I'm showering first thing in the morning with a bare face, I usually won't cleanse it in the morning either. I only cleanse my face after exercise and to remove makeup. Otherwise, I leave it be.

You may have heard of people who use oil cleansers, either formulas made by a company or an oil you can buy in a food shop. Coconut oil is one you see online a lot. While coconut oil is great for removing eye makeup, I do NOT recommend coconut oil to cleanse because it is highly comedogenic, which is a fancy way of saying it will clog your pores. If you like the idea of cleansing your face with oil, I recommend hemp oil, which available in any health food shop. Simply spread it over your face, and then wipe it off with a hot, damp cloth. Personally, I no longer cleanse with oil because the hot water in my house (and most houses in Ireland) is unreliable and you really do need hot water to rinse the oil from the cloth after you've removed in from your face. And even then, the oil tends to discolour the cloths over time. 

I recommend gentle, silicone-free creme cleansers. Here are a few that pass the test: Acure Seriously Soothing Cleansing Cream (UK link here), Earth Science, A-D-E Creamy Fruit Oil Cleanser, Dry & Sensitive Skin, Dr. Organic Argan Oil Face Wash, Dr. Organic Manuka Honey Face Wash, and Sukin Cream Cleanser. 

Moisturising

My skin has been dry since I was a baby, so I am always battling cracks, flakes, and rough patches. Here are the night-time moisturisers in my rotation currently: Sukin Calming Night Cream, Sensitive, Acure Radically Rejuvenating Whipped Night Cream, Acure Ultra Hydrating 12 Hour Facial Moisturizer.

And for day time, I try to use moisturisers with a fairly high spf, though it's difficult to find ones that I'm not allergic to, even the supposedly sensitive ones. But these three have worked well:

Radically Rejuvenating SPF Day Cream, Soltan Face Sensitive Protect 50+ SPF, and Avene Very High Protection Cream for Sensitive Skin 50+ SPF (there's a tinted BB cream version that's nice too).

Serums and other anti-aging measures

Once a week, I try to exfoliate with this glycolic acid cleanser from Image. Don't use
those abrasive exfoliants on your face! Back in the day, we used that apricot scrub,
which felt amazing, but as you get older, your skin is much more delicate and it can
wreak havoc. So you're better off using a chemical exfoliant. I massage it into my
face dry for exactly one minute, then rinse off with a cloth. 

In addition to my moisturiser, I alternate a few serums, which I use depending on what my skin is doing, the weather, and my plans for the day.

Because I have dry skin, I often use hyaluronic acid serum right after I wash my face. You want to always use hyaluronic acid when your skin is freshly hydrated (in other words, after it's just been wet). If you want to use it but haven't just come out of the shower, you can splash or spray your face with water, dab it dry, and slap some on. I use The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid + B5 because it's cheap and cheerful. 

I'm prone to hormone-related breakouts along my jawline and hairline, so I like to use a couple of products that keep these at bay and clear things up if I happen to get a couple of spots. They're both from The Ordinary: Niacinamide & Zinc Serum and Azaleic Acid Suspension. (The latter does contain silicone and has been harder to find in Dublin.)

Lately, I've been trying to give my under-eyes some love and attention, so I've been using these two products: The Ordinary Caffeine Solution and CeraVe Reparative Eye Cream. 

And finally, a few nights a week, I like to use a couple of oils. To combat wrinkles, I use The Ordinary Retinol Serum and then I like to use a roll-on rose hip oil around my mouth and eyes just to keep things soft and supple.

Before I close, I want to add one last product, which is somewhere between skincare and makeup. Glossier's Futuredew is an oil serum hybrid that gives my skin an amazing glow on days when I just want to look more polished. It's very subtle and I love the way it looks.

What are your favourite skincare products? Is there something you think I should try? Tell me about it!