Because of the length of this newsletter, you might be better off reading it in the app or on the Substack website as some email clients will chop it off (if that’s the case, you should be able to click “View entire message” and see the whole thing. But let me know if any problems.)

Also a little note to say that this will be the last “live” newsletter for a few weeks. I’m heading off on holiday and wanted to take a break from writing. So over the next few weeks I’ll be scheduling newsletters that contain stories from the archives (paid subscribers, I’ll be pausing payments until I get back.) I’ll still be keeping an eye on things (I’m fairly rubbish at switching off entirely) so if you have any questions or want to chat, please do leave a comment.

So with all the housekeeping out of the way, let’s get into it…

BTW: some of the links in this newsletter are affiliate links which means if you buy a product through them, I can earn a small amount of commission. This will never influence my opinion on something: I only rave about products I really rate. If you hate the idea of this, please let me know, as this is very much a work in progress and nothing is set in stone (and, for more on my thoughts on affiliate links, click here.)

The power behind the throne

This is a bit of an addendum to last week’s newsletter which was — largely — about The Skin Diary. And, I’ll be honest, it was something that I did think about at the time, but the newsletter was getting so long, I didn’t really feel I had space to explore it.

However, a reader got in touch and flagged that throughout everything, I’d been talking about the dermatologists behind the brand, when actually, because we were talking about a skincare product, there must also be a cosmetic scientist or cosmetic scientists in the background actually formulating the product.

I’m going to paraphrase the comment, because it was part of a broader discussion about dermatologists generally, and not specifically The Skin Diary dermatologists, but it was really highlighting that however much knowledge and experience you have about skin, that doesn’t mean that you know how to formulate a cosmetic product. You can have an understanding that tretinoin is the most studied and most effective anti-ageing ingredient that we have, you might know how to devise a test that shows the efficacy of a retinoid, but that doesn’t mean that you know how to formulate a cream that contains retinol. Or know which of the 24,000 ingredients that you can combine in formulations, you should be combining with it. Similarly you might know that hydroquinone is effective at tackling pigmentation, but not have a clue how to devise a delivery system that ensures it gets to where it needs to.

Without a cosmetic chemist, there’s no product

This isn’t about doing down dermatologists, or saying that they should stay in their lane, it’s more about acknowledging the role of cosmetic chemists. Which I think is really important. So, while I did want to hero the cosmetic chemist behind The Skin Diary, when I asked who it was I was told “We don’t publicly disclose the identity of our cosmetic scientist/formulator, as this is commercially confidential.” Hmmmmm, is it commercially confidential, or would it detract from the dermatologists behind it? Because, from a product point of view, cosmetic chemists are the real rockstars. And I don’t understand why we don’t talk about them in the way that, for example, we talk about the noses behind famous perfumes, or the songwriters behind the best songs. We never assume that Kylie or Miuccia Prada was the perfumer, or that Madonna or Robbie Williams wrote all their own songs, so why aren’t we asking as a matter of course who the cosmetic chemist is when we’re shown a product? (I sometimes do, but not as often as I should.)

So you’re an expert… in what?

Anyway, this whole episode reminded me of something that seems to be coming up quite a lot on social media at the moment. It’s more than a little related to the dermwashing that I have covered recently, but I guess it’s a bit more nuanced than that, because it’s not about people who aren’t derms pretending to be derms, but about people who don’t have authority in a certain area assuming it. It’s someone who might have a PhD in physiotherapy making pronouncements about UV and presuming because they’re Dr So-and-so, nobody will challenge them. (And they’re often right.) But it’s also about people who might be tangentially related to a topic being positioned as experts in it.

I’m not calling out anyone specifically on this but it’s something that Jen Novakovich recently touched on (she is a cosmetic scientist — and doing a PhD in environmental misinformation in beauty)

The thing is, I get how this sort of thing happens. If, say, you’re a journalist writing about sun protection on a very tight deadline and you manage to get hold of a dermatologist in between patients, it’s tempting to ask them questions that might not necessarily fit within their area of expertise. Because, hell, you don’t actually have the time to find the academic whose area of expertise is precisely this. And even if you did, what’s to say that they’d be free? So you ask a practising dermatologist, something that might be better suited to being answered by an environmental researcher or a photobiologist, and the dermatologist might know a bit about this but their information might be out of date, or garnered from the wrong source (because this isn’t their speciality) and so poor studies, and misinformation get inadvertently disseminated.

And so incorrect stories about different types of UV filters being damaging to coral are propagated (I feel like there’s a longer newsletter that I could devote to this entire topic but Jen covers off the basics in that Instagram post above) and a false narrative about how different types of UV filters work in different ways (no, it’s not as simple as mineral filters reflect light and chemical filters absorb it, although I know that until started talking about it and highlighted, among other things, this paper, that it was a myth I was guilty of parroting.)

But let’s assume that you’re not a journalist on a tight deadline, let’s just assume you’re someone scrolling social media or looking through the internet, how do you know who is the authority figure on something? Well, helpfully, Jen and Michelle have put together an Instagram post on exactly what sort of topics different professionals within the beauty space might be best placed to talk about. It’s below and I hope it helps. Because all of these people are essential in our industry, and some get platformed more than others (or platform themselves) and so I feel like there are a lot of voices that we don’t hear so much of, and last week I was a bit guilty of not highlighting the (anonymous) cosmetic chemist behind The Skin Diary so, mea culpa, and I hope that this helps right that wrong a bit.

“Chicken skin” is normal

You may recall that a few months ago I spoke on a panel at SXSW London with, among other people, Dr Emma Craythorne, and I can’t recall whether it was on that panel, or when we were talking before it, but we started talking about constituted “normal” healthy skin. And I realised that when I think about wanting my skin to look normal and healthy, I want it to be free from hyperpigmentation and smooth and dewy and juicy. And Emma pointed out that actually that’s not the norm for skin of women my age, for most women my age, it’s normal to have uneven pigmentation and lines and wrinkles, and what I’m talking about is an ideal that requires a lot of work to achieve. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t aspire to something more, but I think it’s helpful to have a reality check about what is normal and what is aspirational.

In the same conversation, Emma mentioned Keratosis Pilaris aka KP aka “chicken skin” aka those bumpy bits you often get on the backs of your arms and thighs. She said it was extremely common and according to the British Association of Dermatologists, it’s a completely harmless skin condition that “may be present in half the population. It affects 50-70% of adolescents and approximately 40% of adults.” Basically it means that there’s an excess of keratin blocking the hair follicles, which gives the goose bump effect. And although it’s normal, there are a huge number of products on the market promising to help you get rid of it. Again, there’s nothing wrong with wanting smoother skin on your arms or thighs, but know that if you don’t, that’s neither abnormal nor harmful.

The reason why I was thinking about it was because Ameliorate, a company that’s long been the go-to for individuals with KP, just launched limited edition fragrance versions of their body wash and body lotion. Both contain their LaH6 complex, a blend of lactic acid and hydrating ingredients, which work together to break down dead skin cells and moisturise the skin — a combination that will work well on most dry and uneven skin, but is particularly effective for KP.

Now I’ve always been convinced by Ameliorate — people I rate, such as Nadine Baggott rate it, and the reviews are fantastic. I don’t LOVE that they have a section on their website product pages that is labelled “Clinical Trials” when while they may at some stage have done a clinical trial to prove that their products increase moisture in the skin, it’s fairly apparent — and even declared — that everything else comes from consumer perception panels…

Like I say, consumer perception panels are not nothing, especially when it comes to a condition like KP, but they’re also not clinical trials so…

Anyway, I digress, as I was saying, I’d always liked the stuff in the bottle, but the bottle — or rather the tube — itself didn’t look great. I mean it looked fine, if you didn’t mind something that looked vaguely medical and pharmacy like, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you’d necessarily want on display in your bathroom…

But then last year, they gave the entire range a rebrand and suddenly it looked way more appealing…

But the other issue that I had with it was that it always smelled a bit. I don’t know how to describe it… yoghurty I think is probably the best description. Which, given that it contains lactic acid is not that surprising. But I just did not love it. And the thing is, AHAs do smell. At a recent launch Caroline Hirons was talking about how active ingredients in skincare, such as her antioxidants and acids, do stink. And a lot of the time, I don’t care. (I think weirdly I don’t mind if my facial skincare smells or feels odd — Skinceuticals CE Ferulic aka thin liquid Marmite is a case in point, but I believe in what it can do for my skin, so I don’t care — but I want my bodycare products to feel a bit indulgent, even when I am expecting them to do something too. I know, it’s not rational, but that’s how it is.)

So imagine my delight when I discover that there is a limited edition Tropical Retreat version of both the Body Wash and the Body Lotion. They’re the same formulas as the originals that gave such great results, but rather than smelling yoghurty, they smell of summer holidays (bergamot, coconut, ylang ylang & bourbon vanilla to be precise, but not as gourmand-y or sweet as the vanilla makes it sound.) I will admit there is a very faint yoghurty undertone to the body lotion but you have to sniff pretty hard to find it

Anyway, if you were taken by the promise of the Grown Alchemist body products that I wrote about back in March but couldn’t quite stomach the price (basically £60 for the pair), then this duo (£31 for the pair) might be a more budget-friendly option — admittedly these are 300ml bottles when the GA ones are 500ml, but still significantly more affordable.

Smell differently

Finally, a little heads up for fragrance fans, or just anyone who is bored of identikit smells. There are lots of things that might grab your attention about Idiom Fragrances — the imagery is just really cool, one of the men behind it is Rob Calcraft, one of the founders of REN who, much as I hate the concept, were clean beauty before clean beauty became the marketing BS it has since become. He then went on to launch Cultured Biomecare, talking about the skin microbiome before we all became obsessed with it. And in March this year, he launched Idiom Fragrances, unpretentious fragrance, designed to be played with and layered — their tagline is “Smell like no one else”. I got tipped off about their latest pop-up which runs in Soho until 26th July and so headed down there to see what it was all about.

There I met Mark O’Shea who has known Rob since the early days of REN, and between now and then has worked with a number of major beauty and fragrance brands, including a stint at Aromatherapy Associates. He talked me through the concept.

“We’ve got seven fragrances that are designed to be worn alone, or layered — layered with each other, or with a fragrance that you already love and wear.”

The fragrances themselves are designed to be straightforward, this isn’t about topnotes and basenotes, the idea is that you read the name of the fragrance, and the three descriptive words and you know what you’re getting.

Acoustic Rose is floral, juicy, amber; Bergamot Hi-Fi is zesty, green, radiant; while Saffron Haze is amber, leather, wood. Sure you can, if you really want, read the small print about rose, apricot, osmanthus and tobacco, but that’s kind of not the point (who knows what osmanthus smells like anyway?)

“We wanted people to get the idea that if they like a floral but want it spicier, they could mix Acoustic Rose (floral, juicy, amber) with Pepper Solstice (spicy, amber, warm).”

The price — £38 for 30ml, £6 for 2ml, £35 for the Discovery Kit with 2ml bottles of all seven — is designed to encourage experimentation.

“We could have made 100ml bottles but that makes it less accessible. We also decided to make the bottles without a cap. If you’re paying for the cap, it’s not going on what you’re actually wearing.”

From reading about them, I knew that Saffron Haze (amber, leather, wood) was going to be my bag, but I was also intrigued by 3D Amplifier (brighten, deepen, extend). It can be worn alone and has a sort of clean, warm skin vibe, but, they say, layered under any of their fragrances, or your own, it has an ability to do exactly as it promises, and amplify it. I was fascinated by this because what they’ve done is blend together three of the most well known molecules in the world of fragrance, and three stars of the Escentric Molecules range. There’s Iso E Super — the sole component of Escentric Molecule 01 — Cashmeran — the only ingredient in Escentric Molecule 05 — and Cetalox, which is a slightly more complex form of Ambroxan — which makes up Escentric Molecule 02.

The friend who tipped me off about Idiom, called 3D Amplifier “a weird miracle thing”, saying she was wearing it under her usual perfume and that it had just “switched it up.”

The science of what these molecules actually do is really quite nerdy, it’s down to a number of factors including their ability to hang around a long time, but also in the way that they can change the evaporation profile of the other perfume, and how they interact with olfactory receptors to shift what we’re smelling.

Anyway, from a commercial point of view it’s a no brainer, because you’re not asking someone to walk away from something they already love, instead you’re saying, “Buy this, it will make whatever your own perfume is smell even better (and different from everyone else who is wearing it.)” Because that’s what it does, it’s like turning up the volume, or the intensity of the colours. I am 100% sold.

So are their customers, 3D Amplifier is their second bestseller behind Acoustic Rose. And even as someone not sold on rose usually, I can see why. (Although I might have to reconsider my stance as a non-rose person as I recently finished Phlur’s Rose Whip, which is a woody, musky rose that I adored. Maybe I should be mixing Palo Santal (cool, creamy, woody) with Acoustic Rose…)

As it is, I bought the Saffron Haze, which I do like, and Mark kindly gave me the Discovery Kit too so I’ve been experimenting with the rest of them. And seriously thinking about going back to buy a 30ml of 3D Amplifier to play with under two of my ride or dies, Prada Amber and Escale a Portofino. Who wouldn’t want a technicolour version of something they already love?

I know there are plans afoot for something more long-term, and of course you can buy from their website, but I love getting hands on so if you’re interested, do hotfoot it down to 33 Great Windmill Street before they shut up shop on 26 July.

Right, that’s it both for this week and until later this summer. Whatever you’re up to over the next few weeks, enjoy yourself (and wear sunscreen). Until next time…

BTW: some of the links in this newsletter are affiliate links which means if you buy a product through them, I can earn a small amount of commission. This will never influence my opinion on something: I only rave about products I really rate. If you hate the idea of this, please let me know, as this is very much a work in progress and nothing is set in stone (and, for more on my thoughts on affiliate links, click here.)

I feel like I spend so many of these newsletters boring on about things that are getting on my wick, so this week I am so bloody thrilled to be able to talk about something that I think is genuinely amazing. (For clarity, this isn’t a sponsored newsletter or anything like that, and I hope you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t enthuse about anything that I wasn’t genuinely convinced about. I am very aware that someone might go out and buy a product with their hard-earned cash because of something I’ve said and I take that responsibility very seriously. Yes, I was hosted at an event and have been given product samples but I go to a lot of events and get given a lot of products, and I don’t rave about them all.)

So, with that disclaimer out the way, I went to an event last week held by a brand called The Skin Diary. You might not have heard of them, they’re not flashy, they’re not in Boots or SpaceNK, they’ve only got two products both of which are pretty pricey and, I’ll be honest, the packaging is a bit meh. But the people behind the brand are genuinely some of the most impressive consultant dermatologists, academics and geeks in the entire industry and so it was obviously a brand that was going to grab my attention from the get-go.

A dermatological superteam

Please let me do you a little intro so you understand the magnitude of these big hitters.

First up, Professor Chris Griffiths OBE — I’ve been geeking out over dermatologist / scientist / academic Chris Griffiths since 2007 when he appeared on the infamous Horizon documentary that catapulted No7’s Protect & Perfect to stardom. On that programme he used a test that he and his colleagues had developed (see “The Manchester Patch Test Assay” below because it is worthy of it’s own separate paragraph) to show that the No7 product was able to restore some of the proteins in UV-damaged skin in a way that has the potential to reverse some of the signs of ageing (wrinkles and loss of elasticity.)

But that high-profile TV appearance aside, his research has been responsible for some of the most important anti-ageing dermatological discoveries in recent decades. He was part of the team that showed the importance of retinoids in repairing older skin, he literally wrote the book on dermatology (he’s the editor in chief of Rook’s Textbook of Dermatology, which is the dermatology textbook), has published more than 850 peer-reviewed papers and is the closest thing geeks like me get to a rock star.

His co-founders are Dr Clare Kiely, a consultant dermatologist, skin cancer surgeon and lecturer in skin ageing and aesthetics at the University of Manchester; Dr Richard Barlow, a consultant dermatologist who was the founding president of the British Cosmetic Dermatology Group and who now specialises in skin cancer and cosmetic dermatology; and Dr Tamara Griffiths, president of the British Association of Dermatologists and one of those rare creatures who is both American board certified and on the UK specialist register for dermatology and also finds time to be the medical programme director for the University of Manchester MSc in Skin Ageing and Aesthetic Medicine. I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to put something on their face that this group has conjured up?

Add in the fact that Beibei Du-Harpur, another dermatologist / academic who I’ve written about before is their scientific engagement lead. Plus the fact that they’ve been working with another University of Manchester academic, Dr Abi Langton, who is working on various long-term projects with No7, both assessing efficacy of their products and as part of a research initiative that’s looking to improve understanding an inclusivity of all skin tones. And finally that they’ve also been working with another of my favourite geeks, Mark Birch-Machin, a professor of molecular dermatology at the University of Newcastle, who has developed a non-invasive way to look at what’s happening in the DNA of your skin cells (and whether your skincare is helping or hindering). And you can, I hope, understand why I’m pretty excited about this brand which is barely three years old. It basically brings together some of the biggest skincare brains in the country.

But while the personnel involved are more than enough to get my attention, what they presented last week was something that had me wanting to stand up and applaud. Given that I’ve only been writing this newsletter since December, I’ve devoted more words than I care to count to what I’m broadly going to call “science-washing”. You know what I mean, it’s the buzzwordification of “clinically-tested” and “science-backed”, the conflation of consumer panel tests and clinical trials, the sheer bloody nonsense of it all that does a disservice to scientists and cedes control to marketing. So Dr Kiely was very much talking my language when she stood up to say:

“There’s a very big difference between talking the scientific talk and walking the walk,” She went on to explain that “clinically proven can mean anything. It can refer to an ingredient that’s been tested on cells in a petri dish and been shown to be effective. But in drug development 90% of the things that work in a petri dish fail in humans. Just because an ingredient can do something doesn’t mean that that translates to a performing product.”

And this is something I’ve talked about before; brands taking manufacturer in vitro (not on real people) tests and just plonking the ingredient in a formulation (hopefully at the same level that the manufacturer tested it at) and just assuming that it will do in real people’s skin in a finished formula what it did on cells in a test tube as a solo ingredient.

“Cell to surface” testing

So yes, I loved this. But what they talked about subsequently I loved even more. The Skin Diary has developed what they call a “cell to surface” testing approach. And honestly, it’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect a bunch of dermatologist / academics to come up with. It involves testing the final formula at three different levels:

1. Looking at the cells — this is the petri dish bit; but it’s not individual ingredients in a petri dish, it’s looking at how the final formula impacts gene expression in cells. [A quick aside, don’t get too hung up on the term “gene expression”. As we get older some genes do more and some do less — this is referred to as how these genes are expressed. And the reason why you want to change the way genes express in cells is because you want to help cells work more like they do in young skin than in older skin.]

2. Looking at clinical trials — but proper clinical trials, randomised ones where you use machines to assess things like wrinkle depth, hydration and UV protection and the people using those machines don’t know what the subjects have been using and whether it was the product or the control.

3. Looking in the mirror — as Dr Kiely pointed out, there’s no point proving something in a lab if you can’t also see it on your own face, so that’s where consumer perception tests come in. And this is the thing, I’m not against consumer testing, I just don’t think that, in isolation, it tells you that much about the product and its efficacy.

They’re setting the bar high for themselves — and this sort of testing is expensive, which is part of the reason that their products are. But I think having a brand (that for all its big hitters is still a small, indie brand, it’s not L’Oréal or Unilever) showing what’s possible, and setting a standard for others to aspire to can only be a good thing for the industry.

The Manchester Patch Test Assay

While I’d heard this talked about in the past, I don’t think I had a very good understanding of what it was — and why it was so revolutionary — and so hearing Prof Griffiths explain it was really eye opening.

Basically if you want to see if an anti-ageing product works, what you normally have to do is get people to try it for months to see if it changes the proteins in the skin and helps build collagen and elastin, as these are the markers of a product like this “working”. But this test allows you to get an idea of whether a product will work in less than two weeks.

A small punch biopsy is taken from photoaged forearm skin to act as the baseline sample. (The forearm is often used as a proxy for “UV damaged / aged skin” as it tends to get most unprotected sun exposure.) Then, the skincare product is applied to the forearm covered with a protective film. This is reapplied every 4 days for a 12-day period. A new small biopsy is then taken to evaluate the changes in collagen and fibrillin (two of those proteins involved in the structural repair of skin) over the course of those few days.

This was the test that Prof Griffiths demoed in that Horizon documentary, showing that Protect & Perfect could help repair UV damaged skin. And the rest is No7 history.

What about the products?

I know, I know, you’re all like “well this is all very well but show me the juice” — and we’re getting there. The two products are a Moisturising Day Cream with broad spectrum SPF50 (£92) and a Night Repair Therapy (£135). I know, I know, I told you they were expensive didn’t I? I almost don’t want to go into them in too much detail because I fear this might start to sound like an unpaid advert. But they really have stuffed a tonne of impressive ingredients into both of them and — it goes without saying — that both have been tested in this skin to surface way, with undeniably impressive results.

I’ve been using the Moisturising Day Cream as my daily SPF for a while and I really like it. It’s lightly scented, but not overpoweringly so, moisturising without being greasy, and packed with antioxidants and DNA repair enzymes, it uses chemical rather than mineral UV filters so there’s no white cast (plus they’ve encapsulated the filters so they shouldn’t cause issues for sensitive skin), and I haven’t had an issue with it pilling under my makeup. Their tests show that, at a cellular level, it has the ability to reduce UV-induced collagen damage and inflammation by a factor of almost four, and studies on real people show it offers a hydration boost that can still be measured 24 hours later. In short it’s pretty much the perfect SPF, if only it wasn’t so much more expensive than every other SPF I recommend. That said, I think it’s a bit like the Klira Dayscript (more on that later) where you could 100% get away with it being the only thing that you use on your skin in the morning because it has so many other ingredients you don’t necessarily need another serum…

I’ve not tried the Night Repair Therapy yet, but slathering it on for the first time it feels like a really nice night cream — not surprising really, it’s got a load of seed oils in it as well as niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, and — interestingly (to me, at least) — the same peptides (a combination known as Matrixyl) and retinyl palmitate that you’ll find in No7 Protect & Perfect. The Skin Diary tests show that, at a cellular level, it actually outperformed prescription tretinoin (0.025%) when it comes to boosting levels of fibrillin and collagen. (Only they can’t say that because comparing a cosmetic to a prescription drug gets you in all sorts of trouble, so instead they say it’s 20 times more effective than retinol.) Studies on real people show measurable improvements in wrinkle depth. Again, there’s nothing not to love about it — apart from the price.

I wish I had the self-restraint to ditch everything else I own for three months and just use this pair because the befores and afters they showed of people who had used only these two products demonstrated really impressive improvements — not just on lines and wrinkles but also on skin tone and pigmentation, radiance and redness.

The winning combination

These ingredients aren’t unique — you’ll find various combinations of them in any number of skincare products so I was fascinated that they’d decided to use the same peptides (Matrixyl) and the same vitamin A derivative (retinyl palmitate) in the night cream as are found in Protect & Perfect. For a number of reasons. Firstly with any other brand I might have assumed they were piggy-backing on a successful competitor, but with this lot, it would be a bit like accusing a Nobel prizewinner of copying your homework. But I also couldn’t really understand why you’d use retinyl palmitate — an ingredient which is pretty lowdown in the vitamin A hierarchy, especially because, years after the Horizon documentary I was speaking to Mike Bell from No7 about peptides (it might have been around the launch of Future Renew). We were talking about how powerful peptides can be and when I quizzed him as to whether it might have been the peptides making the difference when it came to anti-ageing skin, rather than the retinyl palmitate, he admitted that it could be.

So, obviously, I put the same question to Prof Griffiths, and his reply surprised me. “I don’t think it’s the peptides or the retinyl palmitate, I think they work synergistically.” And, later, discussing it with Dr Kiely, she said that neither the peptides nor the retinyl palmitate would independently give the sort of result that they give together, they are literally greater than the sum of their parts.

Anyway, I thought it was a really interesting evening, both in terms of the people I had the opportunity to speak to (I am 100% pinning down Abi Langton for a chat for this newsletter in the near future as she is a proper fount of geeky testing knowledge and is right at the cutting edge of what we are able to do when it comes to analysing efficacy), the aspiration that The Skin Diary has to raise the bar within the entire industry when it comes to testing, and what I learnt from all those dermatology brains. And I hoped at least some of this might interest you too. As ever, let me know in the comments.

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Why your sun protection also needs an antioxidant

I mentioned Klira Dayscript above and the reason I wanted to talk about that was because a study was recently presented at the British Association of Dermatologists Annual Meeting 2026 which suggests that daily use of an SPF 50 with antioxidant technology can help protect human skin from ageing better than an SPF alone.

The product — let’s call it Klira Dayscript because there’s absolutely no reason why the Klira PR would have sent me this study in the same email that contained all the information about Dayscript if it wasn’t actually Dayscript — was tested on real people and Mark Birch-Machin’s Skin Life Analytics company (the same one that tested The Skin Diary’s SPF to show its impact on collagen damage etc) looked at the impact on damage to mitochondrial DNA (more damage is associated with sun-exposed skin and photoageing.)

The upshot was that adding antioxidants to SPF gave better results than using an SPF on its own. I’ll be honest, this isn’t wholly surprising. We know that SPF alone doesn’t stop all UV getting to the skin and, as such, doesn’t protect from all UV damage. It’s part of the reason why I’m such a fan of antioxidants, they can help pre-emptively protect skin from UV damage, and also help to repair it. That’s why I’ll always layer an antioxidant under my SPF. But I get that not everyone wants to do that because it’s another step in the routine so if you’re not up for faffing, picking up a product that already contains antioxidants — such as Klira’s Dayscript, The Skin Diary’s Moisturising Day Cream, or even Prime Forever’s antioxidant-packed SPF50 Primer — means you’re getting more bang for your buck than you would if you just used a broad spectrum SPF50.

I also think it’s worth using multiple antioxidants. (Or, more accurately, products that stack multiple antioxidants.) We now understand about broad spectrum sun protection and using a range of filters that can protect us against different types of UV light, but I also think we need to think about using a range of different antioxidants because different free radicals require different antioxidants, and I’m expecting that to increasingly be a focus in years to come.

That’s all for this week. As ever, let me know your thoughts on any of this in the comments. Until next time…

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A few weeks ago, I saw James Welsh flagging what I consider to be a massive issue with Bioderma…

Like James, I was previously a big fan of Bioderma. It’s a French brand that I’ve recommended in the past — it was one of the first micellar waters I used, they had some great sun protection and I even washed my kids in their oil wash. But no more. Because in…

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I am so pleased to see body care finally getting the same sort of attention that facial care has had for years. Although it’s taken a while for it to become properly mainstream. While researching this piece I found an email to a commissioning editor that I wrote in 2018 that included the following p…

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How important is what I look like to you? Do you feel that I need to look a certain way to be an authority in the beauty industry? This has been something that has been preoccupying me for a while but it sort of came into sharp focus this week in various different ways.

Last week, I wrote about The Lipstick Lesbians new venture, Leaked La…

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So I promised you this a few weeks ago and I finally pinned down hair stylist Michael Douglas to talk to him about something that he mentioned to me aeons ago, way before the recent launch of his hair styling range, The Numbers. He had pointed out that everyone is au fait with skincare ingredients but — apart fro…

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