Sunday 11 January 2015

Sparkling clean in 2015: Favourite cleansers

Happy Sunday morning my little Sparkles!

By request of one of my most frequent readers, today I'll be chatting about the cleansers that I use time after time. In addition to my guilty little secret of make-up wipes in one of my Blogmas posts (here), there are essentially three cleansers which I come back to time and time again.



Gold standard

When I'm being a good little girl and removing all of my make-up to be super clean and lovely, it's got to be Liz Earle's Cleanse and Polish (£14). I've been using this since 2005 and I would never be without a back up tube or two. This is a cream cleanser which you massage into dry skin and remove with a muslin cloth.

There are two dispensing methods available - pump and tube. You can buy the tube in a 200ml version which works out marginally cheaper per ml but I prefer the pump due to hygiene (airtight) and it controls the amount I use to the product lasts longer. If only in my nutty little head.

There are more expensive versions of the same idea (Eve Lom, Elemis, Emma Hardie etc) which I've used and found some to be great and others didn't work for me. There are also cheaper High Street dupes (e.g. Boots No7 Beautiful Skin), but time and time again I come back to Liz Earle.

Smells awesome, too - with an annual limited edition usually coming out at Christmas in a 150ml pump dispenser with some additional botanicals. I've not really bothered with these historically but one of my pals adores.


In shower

I'm using Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser which is about £9 and now available on Boots, which is a relatively recent thing - previously it was specialist importers bringing this stuff over from the States. Again, you massage into dry skin but you can either swipe this off with damp cotton wool or just rinse with water. I do the latter.

This never leaves my skin feeling tight and is designed for highly sensitive skin, so it's scent free with no foaming agents - but incredibly effective at make-up removal. I'm a big fan.

Sorry for stock photo - mine's a little nasty looking having been bashed around my bathroom box for a bit!

Lazy girl's friend

Bioderma Sensibio H2O (previously Caroline….per my photo!) is another product I'd read much about online before nabbing some on a trip to Paris with the ladies. It's a French pharmacy brand, which can mean much price inflation here in the UK by the time it's imported (I got mine for about EUR 10 for the 500ml supersize, whereas in the UK you will pay £10 or so for the 250ml size).

You needn't use only Bioderma as you can now get many a micellar cleansing water on the UK High Street, this is just one of the more popular brands with make-up artists…so I stock up like crazy any time I'm in France.

Chemically, the product has oil suspended in water so that it's really gentle on the skin, effective at make-up removal and yet feels like you're swiping a dampened cotton pad over your skin. Lovely stuff - and because you apply to the cotton pads yourself you actually have enough cleanser on there to be effective, which can be an issue with make-up wipes alone.

A cheaper alternative, which I really like due to a very nifty little dispensing pump is the Kiko Cosmetics Micellar water - available here for about £7.

If you're in London and certain other cities dotted across England you should have access to a physical store (list here), otherwise you an order on the internet.

I now keep make-up wipes more for removing swatches or for those days I've ran out of cotton pads.

Has the above helped? All of the products I use on a daily basis are suitable (in my experience) for sensible skin which is prone to redness, irritation and flaking. I don't suffer from acne so I can't comment as to whether these may lead to any flar
e ups - but from online reviews it seems like these are pretty popular universally on the blogosphere and make-up forums.

I hope this post helps to keep some underlying sparkle in your 2015 - a good foundation is great to find, but without decent cleansing and skincare there's only so much make-up can do!

Til next time kitty kats - love, hugs and gently cleansed kisses

xx Josephine xx

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