9 minute read
Beauty
PERFECT PARTNERS
MAKE YOUR SKINCARE ROUTINE AS EFFECTIVE AS POSSIBLE WITH THESE CLEVER COMBOS
The world of skincare is a crowded one, and it can be difficult to know what ingredients will give you the best
results.
If you really want your skincare routine to work hard, it’ s all about choosing the right combinations. “Combining ingredients means you can simultaneously treat and protect at the same time. This in turn can increase the effectiveness, which will then deliver greater and faster results, ” explains aesthetic oculoplastic surgeon Dr Sabrina Shah-Desai (left). “Combining ingredients increases the effectiveness of the ingredient – certain ingredients work very well together, which gives enhanced results. ”
Whether you layer individual ingredients or choose an all-in-one is up to you. However, Sabrina urges you to make sure “the formulations are compatible and do not negate each other or irritate or aggravate skin ” .
Plus, pre-formulated products have a few extra benefits. “Some people prefer products that have combined ingredients as they are easier to incorporate in a regime, do not negate each other and are sustainably packaged, ” she adds. “Remember that using too many products can actually damage the moisture barrier and or cause other skin conditions (such as inflammation, redness and blemishes). ”
If you ’ re looking to boost the effectiveness of your skincare routine, these ingredient combinations are a match made in heaven…
Lacura Multi-Peptide Moisturiser, £7, Aldi.
Q+A hyaluronic acid facial serum, £6.50, Sephora.
Niacinamide and salicylic acid
“Both of these ingredients have antiageing and anti-acne effects,” says Sabrina.
GP and aesthetician Dr Ahmed El Muntasar (left) also loves this combination. “The salicylic acid, which is a chemical exfoliant, helps to get rid of any spots (whiteheads, blackheads) and gets rid of the top epidermis,” he says. “Then the niacinamide comes in and hydrates and nourishes the skin underneath, so it doesn’t get irritated.”
Rise and Defend kombucha face wash, £12.95, Skin Proud. SKIN blemish breakthrough tripleacid resurfacing serum, £14, e.l.f. Juice Boost brightening serum, £38, Wild Science Lab. Vitamin C and Vitamin E
If you’ve got products with Vitamin C and E but you’re not layering them up, you could be missing a trick.
“When combined together, Vitamin C and E enhance the effects of each other and give fantastic results,” explains Sabrina.
“When applied topically, Vitamin C is a powerful skin booster. It improves the appearance of your skin by reducing fine lines and wrinkles, repairs damage done by UV rays, stabilises collagen and gives dull skin a luminous glow. Vitamin E is a fat-soluble antioxidant that has antiinflammatory properties, and combats free radical damage by preventing oxidative damage to cells.”
Retinol and hyaluronic acid or peptides
Retinol is a powerful ingredient beloved by beautyt buffs for reducing the appearance of fine lines, but it also comes with its issues –namely, the dreaded ‘retinol uglies ’ , when your skin reacts negatively to the product. Potential side effects of retinol include “ redness, irritation and dry skin”, says Sabrina.
That’s why she likes layering hers with hyaluronic acid, saying it “helps to lessen the potential side effects of retinol… Hyaluronic acid is renowned for its ability to hydrate the skin, it helps the skin hold onto water, which hydrates the outer layers of the skin. ” To combat the potential side effects of retinol, Muntsara recommends applying a peptide on top. “Retinoids help shed off the top dead layer of the skin, and then what the peptide will do is repair the skin underneath, helping to maintain a nice, healthy skin barrier, ” he says.
Triple active retinol overnight renewal cream, £59, Dr. Brandt. Cetaphil rich night cream, £5.32 (was £7.99), Superdrug.
Vitamin C energy serum, £39, Caudalie.
SPF and Vitamin C
Applying Vitamin C before SPF in the morning is a genius idea, according to Shah-Desai, as it “will help protect the skin from UV damage and free radical damage.
“Vitamin C helps to reduce fine lines and wrinkles, slows down skin ageing and reduces the appearance of brown spots.” The order is important here – make sure you apply Vitamin C first, “to get the best benefits of these products combined”, she says. Ahmed is also a fan of this combination, saying: “Vitamin C gives you that daytime brightness and antioxidants for a nice glow, then the SPF on top of it protects your skin. There is some research that potentially shows that a good quality Vitamin C oil might make your SPF work even better.”
City Skin age defense broad spectrum SPF 50, £62, Murad.
Niacinamide and Vitamin C
Sabrina also recommends combining niacinamide and Vitamin C.
She describes both as “powerful” antioxidants, saying Vitamin C can have “a whitening effect on pigmentation and dark spots”, while niacinamide “enhances the prevention of pigmentation, [and] improves the whitening effect on brown spots”.
WHAT GIRL POWER MEANS IN 2023
SPICE GIRL MEL C TALKS TO LAUREN TAYLOR ABOUT POPSTAR PRESSURE AND HOPES OF THE ORIGINAL FIVE REUNITING
Things were very different in the Nineties, as Mel C can attest to better than most.
Mental health was rarely spoken about by anyone in the public eye, depression was “almost a taboo”, she says, and women’s weight was freely discussed – to the point where Victoria Beckham and Geri Horner (then Halliwell) were weighed live on TV. “It’s my daughter’s least favourite expression, when I say it was a ‘different time’. And it really was – thank God things have changed,” says Sporty Spice Melanie Chisholm, and mum to Scarlet, 13. “There’s so much more celebration of body diversity now. Young people don’t want to look skinny anymore.” But Spice Girls’ immediate elevation to global cultural phenomenon and the pressure to fit that popstar aesthetic had a devastating impact on her mental health. At one point, after Geri left the band and when Mel C released her first solo album, Northern Star, she was unable to leave the house.
“It felt like going outside was petrifying,” she says. “In the darkest times, in the depths of depression and eating disorders and fear, is the security of the four walls. I felt like the eyes of the world were on me through the media.”
The pain she was in would have been undetectable to the millions of Spice Girls fans around the globe. The band had put ‘Girl Power ’ firmly into the zeitgeist and happily played up to the personas of Sporty, Baby, Scary, Ginger and Posh. Meanwhile, Chisholm felt she had to keep powering through, “like a treadmill I couldn’t get off ”, she writes in her longawaited autobiography, Who I Am.
She says now: “With hindsight, I think it would have been really beneficial for me to have taken a break.”
During her battle with anorexia and excessive exercise, she turned “into a robot”, with daily 10km runs followed by
Mel with her mother and father.
two-hour workouts, and restrictive eating. She was at her thinnest in 1998, after the release of the group’s second album –Spiceworld.
“It’s like you have a big price to pay for being successful,” she explains. And she doesn’t believe she would have developed an eating disorder if she hadn’t been famous and under scrutiny.
While fans may have seen Sporty as the strong, fun, relatable Spice, inside, her fragile sense of self was crumbling. “I didn’t have confidence in my own thoughts and feelings,” she says.
The book is also the first time Melanie has publicly talked about being sexually assaulted during a massage, the night before the very first Spice Girls show in Istanbul.
Her story though, is ultimately one of resilience and learning to love herself – from working class roots and, at times, a rocky childhood (she was left with someone she barely knew for five months at five-years-old, while her musician mum toured) to stratospheric success with three Spice Girls albums and eight solo studio albums.
And it’s hard to argue that Mel hasn’t had the most success as a solo artist of all the Spice Girls – who could forget Never Be The Same Again and the collab with Bryan Adams, When You’re Gone? And, at 48, she’s still making music, her voice just as powerful and unmistakably Mel C as it sounded some 26 years ago.
“It’s completely my wish” for all five band members to reunite once again, she says, “we still obviously have to convince Victoria…
“Victoria wouldn’t mind me saying [the Olympics 2012 show] was difficult for her, she had a lot of anxiety about that performance. Obviously, her life has moved in such a different direction, she didn’t feel like she wanted to put herself through that again.”
Just recently, Mel split from partner of seven years, music producer Joe Marshall. But she ’ s good: “Obviously, it’ s always sad when things come to an end, but the book has helped me recognise that life really is a series of chapters. It’ s exciting to wonder what’ s going to happen next. ”
In fact, throughout the Spice Girls years, she was the only one who was mostly single, she notes, and the way singleness was so obsessively and negatively discussed in the Nineties compounded her insecurity about it.
“I hate the notion that, the generation I grew up in, traditionally learned we need to be part of a couple, that it’s the thing that makes us whole.”
Girl Power has come a long way since 1996. The Spice Girls wrote ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ as a response to men trying to order them about in the band’s early days (it was Horner who acted as the main catalyst pushing to write their own music and leave the managers who’d originally put them together) – and what Mel calls “early expressions of our version of feminism”.
She says: “It’s insane, the enormity of what we achieved in those two years and the legacy we’ve left, the impact it’s made, it still lives on – even if we’re not making music – people are still discovering the Spice Girls.”
Girl Power, she says, has infiltrated future generations. “My daughter [from previous relationship with Thomas Starr] is 13, so I see a lot of teenagers and a lot of her female friends are really vocal and opinionated and wise. I’m so impressed with the younger generation.”
A staunch ally for the LGBTQ+ community, she adds: “It wasn’t just Girl Power, it was about equality, and of course, we live in a very different time. Now there’s a lot of fluidity within gender and the way people define themselves. It’s really about being an individual and being able to be whoever you want.”
n Who I Am: My Story by Melanie C (Welbeck Publishing, £10)
