Beauty bible

Skincare science explained

I’M AT A girls’ night listening to two friends volley words like ‘acetyl hexapeptide’, ‘hyaluronan’ and ‘maitrixyl’ back and forth. Whoosh, there goes another: ‘palmitoyl tripeptide-1’. And here I think I actually duck.

We’re all ‘skintellectuals’ now – and while I’m in favour of us knowing and caring more about what we’re putting on our skin, and into our systems and the environment, most of the medi-beauty jargon emblazoned across our pots and potions these days is designed to confuse us into a frenzied buying state.

Remember the ‘science bit’ in those old L’oréal ads? Reassuring, wasn’t it? All those complex-sounding ingredients and colour-coded skin graphs added up to the absolute conviction that these products were efficient – and worth the hype. Which so many are. But no matter how awe-inspiring the skintellectual jargon sounds, beauty is never going to be a one-size-fits-all area. And to know which products could perform miracles for each of us, we need first to pare the beauty gobbledygook down to that single miracle-working ingredient – which is likely to be either a peptide, an antioxidant or a hyaluronic acid.

My facialist of 20 years, Su-man, cites hyaluronic acid (HA) as her pick, ‘because it’s so deeply hydrating for skin – and able to hold up to a thousand times its weight in water’. For that reason you’ll find it popping up in ever more products, from sun-protection sprays like Kate Somerville’s game-changing Uncomplikated SPF Soft Focus Makeup Setting Spray (£32, katesomerville.co.uk), which gives an even, matt finish while hydrating, to By Terry’s Hyaluronic Tinted Hydra-powders, which contain HA pearls that blur fine lines and pores (£42, byterry.com), to Tata Harper’s super-light Hyaluronic Gel Moisturiser (£92, tataharperskincare.com), which will quench even the thirstiest skin.

Top London-based cosmetologist Dr Ingrid Arion, meanwhile, argues the case for antioxidants, ‘because of their unique ability to fight the free radicals that do so much damage to your skin’. Arion tailors her ‘cocktail’ for mesotherapy (a microneedling treatment that imbues the skin with nutrients) to include whichever vitamins, minerals and antioxidants her client’s skin is lacking.

Lastly, founder of online beauty directory editorslist.co.uk, Olivia Falcon, says peptides are known as ‘nature’s Botox’, ‘because they communicate directly with the skin cells helping them to “act younger”: boosting collagen and skin elasticity, and reducing the appearance of lines and wrinkles caused by facial expressions and muscle contractions.’

When I first started working out in my early 20s, I remember being asked by the man at the gym whether I was there for ‘cardiovascular fitness or to build lean muscle mass?’ I thought about this carefully before replying: ‘I just want to look good naked.’ If you just want your skin to look good naked, these ingredients are all you need.