Time to fatten up face your with cholesterol!

VITAMINS, acids ... and, um, cholesterol? It’s not the kind of thing you might expect to find in your skincare but this year’s beauty buzzword is, indeed, cholesterol.

And, according to the latest research, you might well need more of the stuff — not less. For while we’ve all been diligently lowering the levels in our bodies, we’ve been unaware of the fact that our skin, particularly ageing skin, needs plenty of cholesterol to function properly.

In fact, our skin needs cholesterol so much, it makes its own supply, entirely independently of the levels in your blood.

Cholesterol makes up one third of the skin’s ‘lipid layer’ — the fatty ‘mortar’ that surrounds the ‘bricks’ of skin cells in the outer layers of the epidermis — which makes our skin such a good, waterproof barrier against the outside world.

‘The healthiest skin is made up of the correct balance of three key lipids: cholesterol, ceramides and free fatty acids,’ says cosmetic dermatologist Dr Mervyn Patterson. ‘These lipids lie between our surface cells or “roof tiles” in our skin. They are the skin’s natural protection and ideally, they exist in a ratio of 1:1:1.’

When skin-cholesterol levels are good, this bricks-and-mortar arrangement lets our skin work properly and hold moisture.

But if our skin’s self-defence mechanisms aren’t working as well as they ought — because, for example, the cold weather and the central heating are doing their worst — tiny gaps appear in the skin’s barrier, accelerating moisture loss and causing damage.

Enter cholesterol creams, which, fans claim, help to repair this and improve our skin. Don’t worry, putting cholesterol on to your skin doesn’t in any way affect your blood cholesterol levels and taking statins won’t lower your skin’s levels, either. Here we test four of the best.