It’s no secret that you can’t believe what you read online when it comes to your health. But it’s a completely different story when it comes to the beauty industry. As Anjali explains, the world of skincare is clouded by paid advertising and PR companies – even a simple personal blog could have been a paid endorsement by a makeup brand or skincare company. So, where do we get our information? Who isn’t biased? Is the truth anywhere? Answer: In this book.
Anjali Mahto’s Skincare Bible is exactly that. She backs every explanation of skin functions, ingredients and tips up with fact and explains the baffling nature behind each feature. We learnt a hell of a lot from this book. In all honesty, we’re tempted to keep it in our handbag at all times – especially when shopping. Not only are we armed with the knowledge of ingredients functions and what to look out for and avoid – we also understand how we work! Without further ado, here’s 3 things we learnt when reading!
SPF SPF SPF.
We will be the first to admit spf in the UK is completely ignored. The only time anyone wears sun protection is if they’re planning on actually sunbathing outside in the 5 days of summer we get. But UVA rays penetrate clouds and car windows – even though it’s cooler here, it’s still so important to wear SPF. We own many foundations that have added SPF so we figure… yeah, that’s fine – and we smile proudly wearing our IT cosmetics CC cream knowing it has that sun factor somewhere – aren’t we good! No, no no no. Anjali explains that in the winter, you may get away with it, but unless you’re wearing two thick layers of the ‘said’ foundation, it’s simply not good enough. Go for an SPF 20 or more for any months that are not in winter, get a separate moisture to wear under your makeup and let it dry for 3 minutes, and then, just then, will you be okay. The sun is the biggest culprit of premature aging, so rather than spending a ridiculous amount of money on collagen boosting peptides and retinols, just wear
SPF! Simple.
Wash not Wipe.
Okay, so… we sort of already knew this. We’re just lazy – we’ll say it now. Makeup wipes are a one swipe deal. They’re cheap, they can be thrown in a bag, your face appears to be clean – happy days! But no. You’re essentially smearing all the oil and dirt around your face. There are so many alternatives, there really is no excuse. Micellar water, cleansing balms, oils and foams. Anjali actually goes into great detail about which cleansing option is best for your skin type – ours is dry and sensitive, so we’re more suited to a cleansing milk/balm – but Micellar water is pretty good for all skin types, so they’re a good go-to, especially if no water is available. Skin care is important, so the lazy way of thinking is likely not the best way to go.
Don’t listen to the marketing tags, actually read the ingredients
We’re all clever beings, we are capable of reading. When shopping online or in store, just stop and read the ingredients. She cleverly splits up ingredients per what the item does. For moisturisers – Anjali explains the 3 different types, and ingredients features. We were actually pretty proud of ourselves in this case – as, completely by accident we happen to use what we should. As a suffer of dry skin, ingredients such as shea butter and coco butter or emollients are great for us. We’re also pointed out ingredients to look out for such as perfume – another aging product. We’re taught simple things such as the further down on the ingredient list the less of it there will be in the product.
This book based its advice on ingredients rather than brands – we all know the famous names of Clinique, Estee Lauder, Paula’s Choice and so on, but it’s what’s inside we should be looking at. In a nutshell, it breaks down the bull.
Overall this was a wonderful guide to skincare and skin types. It doesn’t leave anyone out, having sections about pregnancy, hormonal skin, acne, eczema, rosacea, menopausal skin and so many others. We will genuinely be leaving this book in our glove compartment in case we go to any beauty stores and need a handy guide.
This really is the skincare bible.
Update: 10 days after completing skincare bible we have since found a new daily serum, actually bought a SPF and thrown out all of our make-up wipes. At first without the daily exfoliation of face wipes our skin did take a while to get used to it, but soon repaired once it got used to the micellar water. Also we swapped out our old Elemis serum (which was around £100 – yes we know, we gagged at the price when we first got it too) and replaced it with a £2.99 one, our skin has been blooming, and we found out we were allergic to Argan oil in the expensive one. The cheap one had all the good ingredients – including hyaluronic acid which was recommended for our skin type. So we’ve already saved ourselves £97; Hurrah! If we haven’t said it enough, we’ll say it one more time. If you care about your skin, you need this book in your life, we have already noticed changes in our skin health, and its not even been two weeks.