When I decided to write a skincare article back in August, I asked lots of friends, family, contacts what their skincare worries and woes were, the first thing that many of them asked was ‘Sam, what’s a pentapaptide?’  Well, I’m still not completely convinced that I’ve found an answer, but from my own research, it’s a mild skin irritant that forces collagen into your skin, that makes your skin renew itself faster, therefore making your skin look younger and softer.

However, if you’re going to go down the ‘scientific’ route and get blinded a bit more by the terminology and technology in the market place, then what is Retinol?  What does it do?

It’s a derivative of Vitamin A, a product that is considerably weaker (try 10 times weaker) than the prescription only cream that really does make skin look younger, Retina A.

But all this knowledge is well and good if you have the time to research the advertising campaigns and their buzz words, but what about for the busy woman who really doesn’t have that sort of spare time on her hands and just wants to buy a moisturiser without having to take a dictionary with her?

There are so many to choose from.  Moisturiser with anti aging properties, with anti wrinkle properties, some for sun damaged skin, then there are serums, boosters, eye creams, eye serums, oils for oily skin, creams for dry skin.  It’s so confusing?

No wonder so many women revert back to the Soap and Water that their mothers and grandmothers used.  Or worse still, baby wipes.  That one scares me.  I have children, if something like a baby wipe is designed to remove welded-on-baby-poop, then its too strong for my face thank you very much!

So where to start?  well, Superdrug has recently launched Purity Organic Skincare, a range of products, just 7 of them, which meet pretty much all our needs.  They are missing an eye cream; however, the rest is there.  They aren’t complicated or overly fancily packaged, simple clean lines with 2 cleansing choices (wash or cream) 1exfoliator, 2 moisturisers (1 day and 1 night), 1 anti aging moisturiser and 1 anti aging serum/mask duo.  Simple!

So what do the experts say about the over complication of the current skincare market?

Katie May, creator of the Yin Yang Organic Skincare range says  “The market place for skin care has always been exciting – not just because it is big Global business ($55.38billion) – but also because it is complex, diverse and for ever evolving.   It is claimed that skin care started in the fourth millennium BC and is, in the 21 millennium AD, controlled by 5 large companies.  These companies invest infinite sums in advertising and promotion, to share the majority of this market.

Having been involved with skin care for almost 40 years, I have seen much come and go and evolve in many directions but, fundamentally, it remains the same.    It is full of mysteries and alchemy yet makes giant claims for eternal youth. During the last 40 years, there has been a growing use of the words natural and organic often inappropriately.   Smaller companies have made the first moves in this direction but they have been copied, outshone or taken over by the largest global players.”

Kirstie Allen, Founder of Pinks Boutique agrees “Your skin and skincare aren’t entirely simple – let’s face it, if they were, we would all have a blemish free complexion like a baby’s bottom! In reality our bodies, hormones and lifestyles are complicated and thus affect our skin.

However, it would be wrong to presume it is as complicated as some of the major non-organic brands make out. There is a great deal of product manufacture just for the sake of it, which makes these brands millions of pounds each time they bring out a new cream. In truth these ‘new’ products may not be entirely dissimilar to the last ones, and more sadly, they are usually full of chemicals which are used for effect and to make the product cheap to produce. Worryingly these chemicals are then absorbed into our bodies.

Pinks Boutique organic skincare is about working with your skin in balance and not overcomplicating it. We aim to ensure your skin has enough moisture, flower and plant extracts to help it stay naturally radiant. You do need to put some work in though, it won’t happen on its own. At a minimum you should aim to cleanse tone and moisturise both morning and night and ensure you exfoliate once a week. Enjoy it – it is a few minutes of each day you can care about yourself!”

So is simplicity the answer?  Is there room for science and technology in this apparently over complicated market place?

Planet Skincare, forerunners for current modern scientific skincare are honest about their products.  It’s there on the packaging, and certainly inside the information sheet.  Nothing complicated about them, and Caroline Clapperton, MD of Planet Skincare herself says ” Speaking from purely my point of view, I myself do believe in products that are backed by science and technology, but I do think that some companies do take this too far with the way in which they market their products to the end consumer and over complicate the marketing of their products with their science and technology

At the end of the day the consumer just wants to know what it is going to do for their skin.

Science and technology is constantly evolving which is a good thing in my opinion and help companies like mine treat specific skin conditions for both men and women.

I feel it is much better to layer products such as serums, put directly onto skin followed by a product with a great active such as planet skincare and finish with sunscreen

Our skin is subjected to more stress than it ever was and needs much better support. For example: the hole in the ozone, the decrease of vitamin and mineral content in our food, chemicals in our food and containers and last but by no means least, the damage from our stress filled lives.”

So is it really possible to re-teach a generation of women who have grown up hearing ‘I used soap and water on my face, it should be good enough for you’?

Well, as Caroline says, our lives are stress filled now in a way they never were, and our diets are dramatically different – gone are the home-grown vegetables and in with the processed packaged stuff.  Yes, they really do sit hand in hand together with how our skin looks.

Katie May explains it really well ” Once man had invented alkaline soaps and detergents more than a hundred years ago, soap and water was never good enough.  Added to this is our modern tap water supply, which is often a high pH,   This combination of soap and water is extremely detrimental to good skin condition.   It may clean surface grime and dead skin cells but it will leave the skin alkaline with a surface scum of detergent which prevents exfoliation and traps the skin’s sebum.   This is a mess, which left to continue over any period of time will cause skin function to close down.   The result is dry flaky dead skin cells trapping spots and lumps. This result is usually masked with make-up, which is “papering over the cracks”

Kirstie Allen puts it even more simply “From a science perspective, the problem with soap is that in general, it’s ph level is entirely different to that of female skin – it sits at approximately 10 on the ph scale, which is towards the alkaline side, whereas female skin has a level of 5.5, which is towards the acidic side.  Technically soap makes no sense!”

With all of this in mind, is it possible to buy products off the shelf without the potential ‘embarrassment’ of not knowing what you’re asking for?  Too many friends of mine have said that they feel foolish going to a cosmetics or beauty counter because they just don’t know what they’re asking for, or what they need, and are frightened of walking away with a £100 bill for products that they really don’t need.

Bharti Vyas created the Skin Wisdom range for Tesco and says ‘I am from the soap and water generation, and back then soap and water was and still is, a very effective way to clean the skin.  The difficulty presented to women today is that the environment we live in has changed, and there are more pollutants and impurities in the water and air around us that affect the condition of our skin and its aging process.’

Basically though, yes, the market is flooded with over complicated scientific sales pitches and marketing campaigns, however, with the right education, we can re-teach a generation of women who feel that soap and water is okay and get them on the right road.  It might need to be simple steps at first, but with experience comes knowledge, and as a woman gets to know her skin, she finds out where her problem areas are, for herself, not as bolt-on products sold in a bid to raise sales commissions, but as a real experience of her own skin.

Sam Donald

www.SamDonald.com