Oils you need in your beauty bag
They can cleanse and moisturise – but are oils really all you need in your skincare routine, asks Lisa Armstrong
The challenge from the Telegraph’s beauty team was clear: abandon your usual skincare products – all of them, even the Niod copper amino isolate serum that I and so many others have sworn by for the past two years – and replace them with oils, and only oils. For six weeks.
This didn’t sound like too big a stretch. I’ve been a fan of facial oils ever since being introduced to them by skin guru Alexandra Soveral over a decade ago. I like the way they feel and smell; the way you can massage your face and body using oils for lubrication – unlike cream moisturisers, which contain hefty amounts of water, they don’t evaporate into the skin instantly. I like the way they visibly nourish the skin, plumping out fine lines and, at the same time, leave a sheeny residue. I’ve been using Soveral’s Angel Balm Cleanser – not strictly an oil, since it’s not liquid, but oil-rich – for years.
You will gather I’m not an aficionado of matt complexions, which can look ageing. But I understand why so many women are wary of oils. Won’t they make your skin greasy? (Yes, if you overdo it; a few drops suffice.) Block pores? Encourage rapidly expanding colonies of spots? Seep into your hair and wreck your blow-dry? And while it’s more or less obvious how oils can deliver nutrients deeply, it’s more of a leap to understand how you can efficiently clean your skin with oils.
For that, you have to get to grips with the science of like attracting like. Pure oil will draw oil (or sebum) out of the skin, if used correctly. I alternated between de Mamiel’s Pure Calm Cleansing Dew (£50 for 100ml, spacenk.com), Tata Harper’s Nourishing Oil Cleanser (£68 for 125ml, cultbeauty.co.uk) and MV’S Organic 9 Oil Cleansing tonic (£62 for 65ml, cultbeauty.co.uk). Spot the link? That’s right. None of them is cheap. However, they’re all gorgeous, with expensive plant ingredients (unlike some of the cheaper oils that use polymers, mineral-based ingredients and cheap fragrance).
All of the above turned the usually dull process of cleansing at the end of the day into a treat. It’s hard to nominate a favourite. It’s all down to personal preference. Late into the experiment, I was sent Romilly Wilde’s Light+energy Cleanser (£54 for 100ml, romillywilde.com), which may just be my personal number one. For oil virgins, it has the advantage of being mixed with manuka honey and saffron, which makes it feel a bit more like a conventional creamy cleanser, albeit an ultra-luxurious, rich one.
With all of them you need a flannel and water that’s hot enough to produce steam. Massage the cleansing oil into your skin for 10 seconds or so, then carefully apply your damp, hot flannel over, but not touching, the skin. Allow the steam to open the pores, and wait for the flannel to cool a little before using it to wipe away the oil and dirt. I often do this twice – partly because I love the smell, and also because a small section of my brain still doesn’t truly believe that oils can cleanse. But they can. And unlike some other cleansers, oils never leave skin feeling tight.
When it came to replenishing,
I love the following: Alexandra Soveral’s Midnight Oil (£41 for 15ml) and Forever Young Oil (£51 for 15ml, both alexandrasoveral.co.uk), Votary’s Jasmine Facial Oil (£65 for 30ml, spacenk.com) and Neal’s Yard Rejuvenating Frankincense Oil (£32 for 30ml, nealsyardremedies.com).
I broke rank with the beauty team’s moisturising creams embargo – and here’s why: “Of course you need to use moisturiser on top of oils, especially in winter,” Alexandra Soveral said, when I explained my mission. “Oils don’t retain moisture and for as long as the central heating is on, moisture will evaporate from the skin [since there’s none in the air]. The fundamental mistake that many people make is that dry skin and dehydrated skin are the same thing. Dehydrated skin needs moisture. Dry skin needs oil.” Some need both.
For the same reason, I added an eye cream into the mix – Soveral’s Forever Young eye cream (£39). Apart from that, I stuck religiously to the brief. No serums, no hi-tech antiageing potions, no retinols (ever).
Guess what? My skin has never looked better. But I don’t think it’s just the oils. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Hay’ou jade facial massage tool (£35, hayoumethod. com), which uses Chinese pressure strokes (it’s called gua sha) to increase circulation to the skin (by as much as 400 per cent, apparently) and improve lymphatic drainage. There isn’t room here to go into more detail. Suffice to say, this little implement is a skin changer, especially used with oils. Will I go back to all those hi-tech formulas? It’s part of my job to test them out, but I’m not rushing.
I like the way oils visibly nourish the skin, plumping out fine lines