Would you bathe in dried MILK powder?
THE steam wafting under my nose carries a sugary s weet, creamy aroma. The smell is so evocative of a cake-laden cafe counter that I half expect someone to bring me a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge cake.
No such luck, alas, because I am not at a cafe, but in the bath. A milk bath, in fact — and the delicious fragrance is rising from the cloudy white water and rose petals swirling around me.
I’m testing a rather bizarre beauty tip, one that television presenter Holly Willoughby apparently swears by to keep her youthful bloom.
She said she had picked up the ‘weird trick’ from skincare guru Liz earle, who advised her to mix ‘old-school dried milk powder’ with rose petals and lavender oil.
‘Then you just take a scoop of the powder and put it in to make a milky bath — it’s so soft!’ the 36-year- old mother of three enthuses.
Compared with Liz earle’s £26 famous facial cleanser, which hordes of celebrities swear by, it’s affordable. And she is not the first to dream up this beauty fix.
Cleopatra was said to bathe in donkey’s milk every day, while during the 17th century milk baths became popular in British royal circles. In 18th- century France, Napoleon’s younger sister Pauline demanded her servants make a hole in the ceiling above her bath so they could pour milk directly into her tub.
An established, if bonkers, beauty ritual, then. But can it improve my skin?
I visit Dr David Jack, a skin specialist and aesthetic doctor, who assesses the state of my skin before and after I take my own milk bath, to find out.
Inspecting a magnified picture of a patch of my forearm at his clinic in London’s Harley Street, Dr Jack says my skin is ‘ pretty normal’ for a 39-year-old working mother of two, whose chaotic beauty routine extends to a daily shower and a sporadic dollop of body lotion: ‘It’s reasonably hydrated with minimal sun damage.’
SO WHAT benefits, if any, can I expect from a milk bath? ‘Milk contains lactic acid, which is a member of the family of alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs) that break down the bonds between dead skin cells, removing them from the skin’s surface,’ says Dr Jack.
‘So there is a gentle exfoliating effect. The sugar chain molecules that milk contains are also a humectant — attracting water to the skin to boost hydration.’
I could even go one step further, he tells me. ‘The ancient egyptians used curdled milk in their baths, because the bacterial fermentation that takes place when milk goes off makes the lactic acid much more active.’
I glance at the supermarket-bought £3.70 cart on of Marvel powdered milk in my handbag and wonder if bathing in off milk could ever be worth it. Best to stick to powdered, I decide.
Holly’s beauty tip is certainly down to earth and budget friendly compared with most celebrity recommendations. That’s typical of the savvy presenter, who knows only too well that her image relies on her girl-next-door relatability.
‘My mum’s beauty routine was simple while I was growing up, I don’t remember a dressing table full of products and I’m the same,’ says Holly, married to TV producer Dan Baldwin, with whom she has three children, Harry, eight, Belle, six, and Chester, three. ‘I would give the same advice to my daughter; to keep everything simple, drink water, sleep lots and wear sun protection.’
And Dr Jack says that the milk bath may be effective in a few different ways. ‘Vitamins A and D in milk are antioxidants, which help neutralise damage from free radicals, repairing sun damage. Lavender oi l al s o contains antioxidants and will help seal in moisture,’ he says.
So I head off to mix a handful of rose petals — which also contain vitamin C and are said to have antibacterial properties — with handfuls of dried skimmed milk. Then, I sprinkle it under running bath water, squirting a bottle of £10 lavender oil from Holland & Barrett liberally into the tub.
At first, the milk powder congeals into lumps broken up by globules of oil. It could easily be dirty dishwater, but after giving it a good stir and scattering some more rose petals, it starts to look quite pretty, and stepping in it doesn’t seem as daunting. The smell of roses and lavender is overpowered by the stench of milk, and I feel like I’m sitting in a supersized children’s drink.
After 20 minutes peacefully submerged in my bath, though, I feel I could happily drift off. My skin is definitely softer, if slightly sticky, after I emerge and towel off. Next time, I might go for a quick shower to rinse off.
Crucially, after examining a new magnified picture of the same patch of my forearm skin and comparing i t with his earlier image, Dr Jack concedes that he can see a difference.
‘There is more definition between your pores, suggesting the skin cells are more plumped up and hydrated,’ he says. ‘But for the lactic acid to have any exfoliating effect, you’d need to have these baths fortnightly.’
If you love baths, that might be a tempting proposition. But I sniff my skin, which smells as if I’ve rolled through a condensed milk factory, and decide I’ll stick to showers instead.