Time to go more simplistic in your home skincare regime …please, pretty please!

The major over-use of at-home skin treatments such as peels, retinol layering (usually a big fan), micro-needling, and, increasingly now, at-home electrical lasers, means there is an increasing number of us (male and female) with increased outbreaks, irritation, inflammation, pimples, breakouts and acne, according to New York dermatologist and spokesperson for Elizabeth Arden, Dr Dendy Engelman.

Personally I blame the profusion of ‘Sunday Facials’ on Instagram - recommending a different array of skincare products for multi-layering efficiency that actually don’t compliment each other, and hence not your skin, are potentially TOO aggressive and sensitising. As a result, an innocent enough skin recommendation of new products may cause all the above skin conditions that occur when our vital natural skin barrier of oils is aggressively removed and not able to adjust itself before another onslaught of skin ‘care’ trends follow.

And then guess what? The following Sunday - you’re offered a whole new collection of “Sunday Facial’ products to try! Really? Is it that hard to work out that no skin can possibly look or feel fabulous by switching ingredients (and brands) so frequently or as intensively?

My advice (from years of experience) is ‘step back’. Look hard at your skin in the mirror, tame down your regime, don’t up it. If your skin starts reacting don’t try out yet another product to try to help calm it down: pause a little. Our skin is an AMAZING living organ of the body - treat it with respect. Less has never been so much more than when your skin reacts.

Hence it was such a delight to recently try out a hands-on facial by facialist and makeup artist Frances Prescott of Tri-Balm fame - a darling I have often worked with on model photoshoots and whom I trust immensely for her passion for naturals. (Her Tri-Balm blend of sweet almond oil, rice bran oil, borage, mandarin and blackcurrant seed oils, is one of my favourite skincare multi-taskers, that hydrates and even exfoliates while it cleanses. Plus - ‘my thing’ - it smells DIVINE.) So we met at the exquisite Kettners (now owned by Soho House group) in Soho and I joined her in her room to try out her facial with the new Frances Prescott Tri-Spritz (Don’t you love the bathtub below?) - full of coconut water, and antioxidant chufa milk, white tea and white nettle, I vow, my skin looked its best for days afterwards. I was even filming with QVC and antioxidant supplement Imedeen (I’m a huge fan) only days later and they used a Dermascan handheld device live on TV to analyse the quality of skin’s collagen: mine was shown to be in the top 90% of hydration… and I’m 54. YES!

My message: eat your oils (I definitely do) and add them to your skin.

Try this simple facial routine

Here Frances explains how to create your own facial using this 100% natural plant-based skincare duo.

First, cleanse Cleanse with a facial balm, such as Tri-Balm, including gently around eye area. I prefer to use a hot cloth to remove and soaked cotton pads to remove around eyes . I prefer to add few drops of rose and orange essential oil in the water to soak the cleansing clothes before squeezing out. At the launch I was actually was a little more indulgent and soaked to hot cloths in the new Tri-Spritz.

Do a second cleanse and leave Tri-Balm on skin for about five minutes to help benefit from exfoliation ingredient in the balm (pumpkin enzyme ). I then remove again with hot cloth or water, which emulsifies it away if you prefer .

At this point a pressure point massage is an easy and really beneficial way to massage product into your skin and helps with drainage and circulation. I like indulging in mixing my own choice of essential oils … I’m led by my mood. I also like doing facial while I’m in bath and use the same aromatic oils in my bath: too much information?

Next, soak skin in my new Try Spritz, then a further layer of balm onto your skin for the mask part of the facial -the carrot tissue oil, rice bran oil, wheatgerm and sunflower oil along with Sodium Hyaluronate, help create the balm’s ‘moisturising mask’ stage in Tri-Balm.

Lie back for 10 minutes and place cotton pads soaked in Tri-Spritz over your eyes to benefit from the anti-inflammatory and de-puffing benefits of the white tea .

Rinse and remove all mask balm. Pat dry and finish with a final Spritz.

Do you love skin oils? Are you a natural skincare fan? Are you obsessed by Sunday Facials and need to calm down? Let us know what you do to go easy on your skin.