How to improve your skin
Get perfect skin. With the right products and expert advice from Beauty Editor Jo Glanville-Blackburn, you can improve dull, dry skin and turn it into a radiant complexion
Clear pores and bright skin
It doesn’t matter how religious you are about cleansing, once a month, you’ve got to make time for a treatment. I ordered The Oxygen Peel from Philosophy (philosophy.com) – a two-step at-home system that cleans out pores and clears blackheads in no time.
Alternatively, for a great grainy scrub, try Px Prescriptives Instant Gratification Skin Renewal Peel, £24 for 75ml, which is a bit like a five-minute mask too, or L’Occitane Immortelle Brightening Smoothing Exfoliator, £22 for 75ml, which smells so pretty and really brightens and lightens the skin.
Anti-ageing toners
I have always loved Shiseido’s Benefiance Balancing Softener, £32 for 150ml. No matter how taut your skin feels after cleansing, this plumps it right back, before you apply your moisturiser.
Another one I’ll add to my list is Nivea Expert Anti-ageing Tonic, £17.99 for 200ml, with Bioxilift and hyaluronic acid, aimed at rehydrating and restoring firmness to maturing skin, helping to retain moisture. Seal it in place with a day or night cream over the top.
Primers
Between your moisturiser and your make-up base, skin primers miraculously help to fill pores, soften fine lines or smooth the surface of your skin, so that anything else you put on top just seems to glide on more easily.
My favourites are all so lovely, I flit between them day after day, but no day goes by now when I forget them. Armani Fluid Master Primer, £32 for 30ml, Clarins Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch, £21.50 for 15ml, and Estée Lauder Face Primer Plus Colour Correcting Base, £18 for 30ml, are top of my list.
My tip: always remember to moisturise underneath these or they’ll draw moisture out of your skin, and cleanse well every night, as silicones have a tendency to clog pores if the skin’s not cleansed well.
Foundation
Use it sparingly, just to even out skin tone or redness, keeping your concealer for brushing out bigger blemishes. Favourite foundations of the moment: any mineral foundation powder I can get my hands on – the latest on my desk being the lovely Prescriptives All Skins Mineral Make-up, £24, on good skin days.
I won’t go without Clarins Instant Smoothing Foundation, £22, on wrinkly days; Guerlain Parure Aqua, £31, a moisturising formula that covers beautifully with a damp natural sponge, for cover-up days; and Shiseido The Make-up Perfect Smoothing Compact Foundation, £32, for lovely lazy days.
Jo's pick of the best:
Primer: Estée Lauder Face Primer Plus Colour Correcting Base, £18 for 30ml
Smoother: Clarins Instant Smoothing Foundation, £22
Foundation: Guerlain Parure Aqua, £31 for 30ml
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