Beauty brains/the manual

Is VB’S power serum simply the best?

Power serums and hair strengtheners

My first memory of what ‘good skin’ feels like is my grandfather putting my hands on his face after shaving. ‘Soft as a baby’s bottom,’ he’d declare. We expect so much more than softness these days – we want a reversal of the ageing process, and will try endless new ways to get it. But what happened to simplicity? Sarah Creal, the formulator behind Victoria Beckham’s latest launch, Cell Rejuvenating Power Serum, is asking the same question. ‘I haven’t got time to waste,’ she says. ‘I want something that’s simple to use, easy to understand and leaves my skin looking and feeling healthy.’

Which may explain why she and Beckham teamed up with Professor Augustinus Bader, the scientist behind The Cream, last year’s most talked-about moisturiser. The Power Serum includes Bader’s Trigger Factor Complex (TFC8), a mixture of natural ingredients and synthesised molecules that kick-starts the skin to repair itself. But I’m most impressed by its use of fragmented hyaluronic acid, a clever way of making this moisturising ingredient more easily absorbed.

The blurb suggests using the serum under Beckham’s Priming Moisturiser, but I prefer The Cream (£65, augustinusbader.com). In any case, clinical trials show that the Power Serum balances the skin’s microbiome to help keep nutrients in and aggressors out, while moisturising and strengthening the surface.

If you ask me, it has transformed my parched, weather-worn skin into a firm, glowy canvas that’s as soft as a baby’s bottom. My grandfather would be proud.