All About Cleansing & How to Choose a Gentle Cleanser

What Makes a Gentle Cleanser? All About Gentle Cleansing

Gone are the days of harsh cleansers that dried out your skin – everyone’s getting into gentle cleansers! What’s the science behind gentle cleansing, and how do you pick a gentle cleanser? Here’s the scientific background behind this skin-loving trend! Want more about the science behind choosing and using the right cleansers, moisturiser and sunscreen for your skin? Check out …

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Skincare Oils and Free Fatty Acids: The Science

Video: Skincare Oils and Free Fatty Acids: The Science

If you’re a skincare nerd, you may know that different skincare oils have different fatty acid profiles – that is, they differ in terms of which fatty acids they contain e.g. linoleic, linolenic, oleic and lauric acid. The fatty acids have interesting properties. For example, lauric acid is strongly antibacterial, and works better than benzoyl peroxide against Cutibacterium acnes bacteria. …

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5 Skincare Myths Ruining Your Skin

5 Myths Ruining Your Skin

You buy all the products, you put them on your face… and then your skin gets worse? Rude. Today we’re busting five skincare myths that are ruining your skin – and I swear I’m not just going to talk about wearing sunscreen every day. Video is here on YouTube, keep scrolling for the text version… Myth 1: High concentrations are …

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Do zinc sunscreens stop working and go toxic after 2 hours?

Chemical vs Physical Sunscreens: The Science (with video)

There’s a new paper on zinc oxide sunscreens not working and becoming toxic after 2 hours of UV exposure. A lot of people have sent me this paper, so here’s my analysis of it. In short, the researchers found that sunscreen ingredients broke down when mixed with zinc oxide and exposed to UV light, and the degraded mixtures had lower …

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Are You Washing Your Face Wrong? Busting Cleanser Myths

cleansing emulsification

I recently asked on my Instagram stories about cleansing myths, and I got back tons of replies! So here’s some cleanser mythbusting – unfortunately I couldn’t fit them all in this one post, but there’ll be a follow-up soon. A word of warning before we begin: the answer to a lot of these is going to be “it depends”. I …

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Zinc Sunscreens Don’t Work Better: Every Myth Busted

Chemical vs Physical Sunscreens: The Science (with video)

There are so many myths around mineral or physical sunscreens – the ones with zinc oxide and titanium dioxide – and how they’re supposedly better than chemical sunscreens with scarier names like oxybenzone and octocrylene. And it’s usually zinc oxide that gets all the hype. Some of these advantages are true… but so many are just myths. And a lot …

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Sneaky Marketing? The Inkey List Succinic Acid Acne Treatment

The Inkey List Succinic Acid Acne Treatment

The Inkey List are a brand that I generally quite like (well not anymore, now that I’ve seen their response to me raising this issue, and some of their other practices). They’re probably the main competitor to The Ordinary, which I also quite like. Both brands have lots of products, and many of them work well on my skin. They’re …

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How to Protect Your Skin Against Blue Light: an Update

Blue light protection products

I’ve talked about visible light and blue light, and their effects on pigmentation in lots of detail before. There’s been more studies done since then – fortunately my conclusions are still correct! In short, the vast majority of us don’t have to worry about visible light or blue light coming from our screens. There just isn’t enough light coming from …

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