Neal's Yard Brightening Products

Following the lovely treatment that I had at Neal’s Yard Spa on the King’s Road earlier this year, I impulse purchased a load of products.  Because I am a sucker.  But that’s my lot in life to buy lots of natural beauty products and then report back to you all what I think!   I’ll be honest, my reaction was a bit ho-hum to the products.  I have been obsessed for more than a year now tackling the problem I have with sun spots on my face.  I swear nothing ages a woman more than sun spots, except maybe wrinkles, but fortunately those aren’t an issue for me yet (please, don’t hate me.)  So I will continue to be obsessed with those pesky little brown pigmentations on my face.  Let’s face it every generation has their own worries!

Here’s the list of products that I tested below.  I used up every last drop of all of them before I felt qualified to give my opinion.

Brightening Serum Treatment - After cleansing I applied the treatment to my “problem” areas, near the corners of my cheeks where sun spots abound (which is totally bizarre because you’d think they’d be more on my nose and cheeks where the sun has a better chance of getting to my skin!)  The product was easy to use although the smell was a little too crunchy granola for my taste.  Although being in a glass bottle, the top was easy to open and close and easily packed without leaking.

Daily Brightening Moisturizer - I used this too twice daily after I applied the Brightening Serum treatment.  I liked the smell of this a little bit better.  Packed with African Star grass, Tara, and vitamin C this moisturizer contains 95% organic ingredients.  That’s as high a ratio as you’ll ever see so kudos to the formulation team!

Wild Rose Daily Moisture SPF 30 - What’s the point in trying to attack sun spots if you’re just going to go out into the world without SPF?!  As far as this mineral sunscreen goes, it was the first to be certified by the Soil Association and I actually quite liked using it.  It glides on nicely and doesn’t feel chalky or like you’re wearing a mask.  I applied it a few times a day when I was on a beach holiday and I didn’t get burned on my face.  The color is just a little off-white so it helps you to not look like Caspar the Ghost when you apply it.

All in all I felt that while my skin tone was a little more even, no noticeable difference was made on the sun spots that plague me the most.  I’m starting to wonder if “natural” products have the power to really tackle things like sunspots.  But then again I think that I should be kinder to myself and not obsess so much over vain things like sun spots.  On another impulse I bought 4 products from the Comvita Olive White Brighteningrange.  I’ll let you know whether I see any more improvements in my complexion from these products.

Neal's Yard Spa Detox and Glow Treatment - Kings Road, London

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you’ve all had a relaxing and enriching end to 2011 and beginning of 2012.  Back in early December it occurred to me that I had massaged about 30 people in 2011 but no one had reciprocated on me. I felt that I gave myself a little TLC.  To top it off my back and neck had so many knots in it that I could barely lift an arm (I'm only a wee bit exaggerating here).  It was definitely time for me to get my own treatment.

With the Neal's Yard Kings Road Spa being a 25-minute walk from my flat (and whose products I was familiar with since they contain a high percentage of organic ingredients) I decided to see what they had on offer. I booked a Detox and Glow package with Aya. Perfect! And it was, about 98% perfect.

The treatment started with a full body brush to stimulate lymphatic drainage and help remove the toxins from my body, of which I imagined there was a lot.  Aya brushed my skin very gently, much more gently than I brush my own skin, not soft enough to be ticklish, but soft enough to be distracting. But maybe I'm not being too kind to my skin if I'm brushing it too hard?

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The Double Cleanse

I’m having a bit of a skin moment.  I’m hoping to turn it into a skin lifetime.  It all started with my discovery of the Gel.  You need go no further than my previous blog posting to read about its marvels.  My second epiphany came with my new nightly cleansing routine.  It’s called “the double cleanse” and I’ve now been doing it long enough to decide that it works really well (3 weeks).  I’ve heard about the double cleanse for a while now.  Beauty insiders rave about it.  I’m not sure why I resisted trying it for so long, probably because you do have to invest a fair amount of time.  My nightly skincare routine now takes close to 10 minutes but you can multitask at certain points.  Here’s what you do:

Step 1 (2 min): Select an organic vegetable oil for your skin type (avocado for dry skin, jojoba for normal or combination skin, grapeseed for oily skin). Note: olive oil is a great cleansing oil for all skin types, plus you probably already have some in your kitchen.  I’m using rosehip oil at the moment because I’m trying to fade my sunspots.  Although so far, it’s hard going.

Massage the oil in circular motions for the full 2 minutes.  Set a timer if it helps.  I’ve taken to listening to podcasts during my nightly skincare routine as a nice way to pass the time while I’m doing all the primping and preening.  During this step you can even massage the eye makeup off your eyes provided you are using a pure vegetable oil and haven’t added any essential oils to it.  Mineral makeup in particular sticks well to oil and comes off easily.

Step 2 (2 min): Repeat step 1 this time preferably with a cream-based cleanser, or if you must have foam look for a sulphate free non-irritating version.  I really like Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish and Neal’s Yard Remedies’ Chamomile Cleanser.

Step 3 (30 sec): With a warm, damp muslin cloth massage off the oil and cleanser taking care to rinse the cloth a few times when it starts to fill with product.  This step is also very exfoliating.  A few times a week spend a little more time on this step.

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Q&A - How to Make the Natural Beauty Switch

I recently received this lovely e-mail from a reader.  She asked such a great question that I wanted to share it with you along with my answer.  I love getting e-mails from readers.  Feel free to send your questions to Katherine [at] naturalbeautee [dot] com anytime and I’ll post the best questions along with answers.Photo courtesy of Daily Mail

Dear Katherine,

I'm a big fan of your blog and twitter and think that you're absolutely stunning and inspiring. I am 30 years old and after stumbling upon your 30th Birthday post I thought I'd write in.  Basically, as an eco-beauty beginner, I get overwhelmed by all the names of things to buy and don't know where to begin. I'm not ready to throw away it all and start over. Do you maybe have a Top 5 products that one should originally switch over to? Say, is using synthetic shampoo better for you (relatively) than chemical facewash? Keep up the great work!

Thanks, 30 year old (eco beauty) virgin

Dear reader,

First of all “wow!” and “thank you!”  Second of all I love that you are interested in reducing the toxicity of your existing beauty regime.  There’s a couple of ways to approach your question.  Strictly speaking from a health perspective the best thing would be to look up your most commonly used beauty products in the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database to find out which products you’re using are the most toxic and replace the products with the highest toxicity scores.  This is easier than trying to remember a long list of complicated chemical names to avoid.  If there are any products in your bathroom that score more than 7 on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database, I would discontinue use immediately.  Products that tend to be rated the highest are hair dyes, nail polishes, and anti-aging products.  Coincidently these are also the hardest products to find natural substitutes for that will perform in the exact same way.  However, this is improving all of the time.

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