Just before my daughter turned 13 I took her through a lesson on how to look after your skin. Actually, I had to give her several as she was distracted by her phone, her Hudl and her Instagram posts. I decided to take a leaf from Oriental culture. Everyone waxes on (and waxes off, joke!) about the Japanese culture of good skin care. And lately we’ve started to realise the power of the new beauty capital of the world: Korea. When I first visited China in 1995, aside from ma

In June 2014, Illinois became the first state in US to ban the manufacture and use of microbeads in personal care products. The tiny plastic microbeads do not degrade and are so small they are not filtered out through waste water treatment plants. Instead they make their way into seas and rivers and have been found in the Great Lakes in US. Plastics come from oil and the smaller the beads, the greater the surface area to volume ratio. Therefore, these attract and absorb to

Sometimes people must hate therapists like me when we bang on about how you must body brush and exfoliate every day. Especially when I confess how I go through phases of enthusiastic almost daily brushing followed by a long hiatus of nothing, nada, absolutely rien. So what do I do when I feel guilty about not following what I preach? I reach for my Japanese exfoliating wash cloth of course. In one brief sentence, the Japanese love their rituals on bathing and invented this

Summer months bring us out in fewer layers of clothing and it’s fairly common to see bumpy skin, especially on the upper arms and backs of thighs. This is a condition known as keratosis pilaris. It is those little goosebumps on the skin which don’t go away, sometimes accompanied with roughness and itchiness and, in some people the prominent follicles stand out red against the surrounding skin. This is a condition known as keratosis pilaris. It is often seen on upper arms,

Summer months bring us out in fewer layers of clothing and it’s fairly common to see bumpy skin, especially on the upper arms and backs of thighs. This is a condition known as keratosis pilaris. It is those little goosebumps on the skin which don’t go away, sometimes accompanied with roughness and itchiness and, in some people the prominent follicles stand out red against the surrounding skin. Dr Des Fernandes, creator of Environ says that the solution is to use a neutralis

At any given time of year, usually cold winter and dry hayfever seasons, I have to do something rather messy to protect and soften my lips, otherwise I tend to get that build-up of unsightly flaky skin, the sort you're tempted to peel off with your fingers. 1) Grab an old soft toothbrush and rub against lips; 2) Mix olive oil with granulated sugar and rub against lips. The first doesn't feel that nice, the second requires a cleaning-up job. Enter the mineral lip exfoliator fr