Jack & Hill: A Beauty Blog - make-up, cosmetics, perfume, and the substance of style

Post-flight skin therapy

This is me, 13 hours after my 9+ hour flight without moisturising masks, creams, or lip balm (and post-Hakkasan). You can see how tired I am, but what you can't see is that my skin is soft and my lips are completely lacking in dryness.

Once I got home, I immediately slicked up my lips with some Tarte 24/7 Lip Sheer. I then slathered my face with Elemis Exotic Cream Moisturising Mask*. Instead of rinsing this off after ten minutes, I left it on while I took a nap, only washing it off with Elemis Rehydrating Rose Petal Cleanser* when I took a post-nap shower. I layered Cosmesis Oil-Free Moisturizer under Tarte Clean Slate Primer, then applied my makeup as usual.

Today, the morning after the dry journey before, my skin is still smooth and shows no sign of dryness. This hasn't always been my experience with post-flight skin, and I'm thrilled not to have cracked, peeling lips either. Say, there may be something to this whole making-an-effort thing...

*Get this, until the end of August, for 20% off - an exclusive Elemis discount for Jack & Hill readers.

Murad AHA/BHA Exfoliating Cleanser: Quickie Review

I'm afraid this was far too drying for my skin. The texture of the cleanser was similar to the Cosmesis Self MicroDermabrasion that I tried and liked several months ago, but that product never left my skin feeling dry. I'm not a big fan of granular scrubs in general, as I prefer to let acids eat away at my face on their own. If you're interested in the Murad line, you might like to check out Paula Begoun's take on some of their products:

At the beginning, Murad's products were all about AHAs and his products were indeed well-formulated in this regard. But Murad also had poorly formulated products (now there are even more) that contained alcohol and other irritating ingredients, ranging from arnica to citrus oils.

Well, my boyfriend - who is the least hippy-dippy person you could ever wish to meet - swears by the all-natural arnica for making bruises go away, and a friend of ours even used it to help her recover from the soreness of childbirth. So perhaps take Paula's reviews, as you would any others, with a pinch of salt. (I've also found that exfoliating products for the face can successfully be repurposed as foot scrubs, always to be followed by a very emollient cream applied at bedtime and covered with thick socks.)

Minor Miracle Cream

I am a skeptic when it comes to face creams that purport to do anything other than lubricate the surface of the skin and smell nice doing it, but I have been using Cosmesis Bruise Away cream, with arnica and vitamin K, on my face for a couple of weeks now, and dang it all to hell, it works.

If you're wondering, no, I have not moved to Phoenix and hooked up with a meth-snorting roofer named Wayne who loves me stupid with his fists every night.  I'm just of Scandinavian descent, which means that I have think skin and weak capillaries, and my cheeks are a bit spidery, and the Bruise Away is purported to work on spider veins.  The worst of mine, acquired during pregnancy, I had zapped with a laser around ten years ago, which left a wee bit of brown scarring, but the fine lacy stuff has been there ever since.  Until now.  Now it's gone, and here I am shilling for Cosmesis again.

(And if you've never met Wayne the Roofer, you must read Padget Powell's Aliens of Affection.)

Moisturizer for girls who hate moisture

I take very poor care of my skin, always have.  Throughout the 1980s I pretty much showered with dish soap and nothing else. And in the past ten years I've spend as much time on the water in sun, salt and wind as your average pirate, and I still go to bed with makeup on more often than not. Mostly, my neglect stems from a combination of laziness, inattention and the false confidence that comes from favorable genes (my mom was mistaken for my sister until quite recently). For a while, I was an avid user of Tony & Tina's skincare line, motivated not by any sense of duty or rectitude, but by how wonderful each product smelled.  Tony & Tina, of course, is no more.

So I have been pleasantly surprised to find myself using some sample products that came in the mail from Cosmesis Skin Care almost daily.  The line's signature ingredient is Rooibos, aka African red tea. 

The Red Tea Rejuvenator is an amber gel that has only three ingredients: water, Rooibos extract and hyaluronic acid. It is soothing, and vanishes immediately. The oil-free facial moisturizer has a longer ingredient list, but what I like about it is that five minutes after it goes on, there is no feeling of slatheredness remaining. So far as I can tell, its primary function is to emulate a native state of dermal equilibrium. Plainly speaking, it's a moisturizer that doesn't feel so damned moist.

I'm curious to try the Bruise Away Cream. This may sound odd, but I have a chronic bruise on my arm where my car door always hits me when I try to "catch" it while juggling a cup of coffee in one hand and my laptop in another.  Though what I really need would be a miracle cream that would help me grow a third arm, or better yet, a prehensile tail. 

Powered by Qumana

Cosmesis Self MicroDermabrasion

I've never had microdermabrasion before, though my best friend back in the US, Karri (we've been friends since freshman year), and I used to always half-jokingly talk about how badly we needed it. This was before we were old enough to work, and so had no money, and even after we were working, but didn't have parental approval to do such things. (Karri now works as an RN in a cosmetic surgeon's office - you can guess whether she's had that dermabrasion yet or not. All I'm saying is, she really needs to guest blog here.)

So you can imagine my intrigue and delight when I received a jar of Cosmesis Self MicroDermabrasion amongst a package of lots of other Cosmesis goodies from Dr Gary Goldfaden, the dermatologist who created the red tea-based line. Of course I had to rush to use it, and have now done so. I loved the feeling of such tiny particles rolling across my skin - so much nicer than big chunks of walnut shell, rocks, and whatever else some cheap-o lines use in their exfoliating scrubs. But I need to wait until tomorrow and see if my skin seems raw or otherwise sensitive before I can register more of a verdict. So far, so excited...