Desert Island Essentials

Skin care regimes can get pretty complicated on occasions. With cleansers, exfoliants, masks, toners, serums, day creams, night creams etc It's easy for a daily routine to feel like a full blown spa facial, twice daily. Not only is this time consuming but it's not that great for the skin either. Loading it up with more products that it can handle leads to only one thing, acne. Something I am all too aware of. Also, over using products can make the skin lazy so it doesn't perform it's own natural functions as well as it should.

Sometimes cutting back to the most simplest regime can do wonders for your skin. Especially if you are a product junkie like me.

At times when my skin has acted out and my acne has flared up, rather than reaching for 'so called' acne treatments I've found the best solution is to cut out all the unnecessary products from my routine. Stripped back to the bare minimum amount of products I apply to the skin.

The result, my skin usually clears up in about a week. I can then usually start introducing one product at a time back into my routine.

This is where the idea of Desert Island Essentials comes into play. Either you're suffering with your skin OR you are in between routines and you feel your skin needs a rest from the constant swapping and changing of beauty products.

Take a week out and strip your routine down to your Desert Island Essentials.

Here are the rules, you are stranded on a desert island and only allowed to have 3 skin care essentials with you.

Things like dental care and personal hygiene items are already there - we wouldn't want people to not brush their teeth or use deodorant, that would be gross. We are stranded but we're not animals!

Here are mine and the reason behind why I chose them.

1. Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser
Cleansing is the most important part of any skin care regime. Speak to any skin care professional and they will tell you this. If your skin is not kept completely clean then it is unable to perform it's own natural functions correctly. Incorrect or inadequate cleansing can lead to all sort of skin issue, including acne. It also means leaving traces of dirt & makeup in the skin, that any follow up product you apply to the skin is not able to do it's job properly.

It's important to pick a cleanser than doesn't strip away the skins own natural defences. I'm not personally a fan of foaming cleansers as they tend to contain SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) which can be quite harsh on the skin. Instead I prefer a cream cleanser, which is why I choose Liz Earle's Cleanse & Polish hot cloth cleanser. Made on the Isle of Wight, which is a tiny island off the south coast of England. Which was a holiday destination for me many times when I was a kid. Suitable for all skin types, I love the clean, fresh fragrance and when my skin is going through a bad patch, it never fails to balance things out again.

2. Clarisonic Plus
Again keeping on the cleansing theme, my next item would be my Clarisonic Plus. It might seen a bit odd to take an electrical item on to a desert island with me. I live in an 'ideal' world and of course, it would have been fully charged before I got stranded. Plus I know from experience that a full charge is more than enough to last a week, as I recently took it on holiday with me without the charger (brave move). Since having my Clarisonic my skin has been transformed from almost daily breakouts, to hardly ever getting a breakout. It's such an amazingly efficient cleansing tool that I could not imagine being without it for week. I'd just have to hope I was rescued before the battery gave up on my.

3. Ginvera Nude Green Tea BB Cream
I'm a little obsessed with BB creams at the moment and this definitely one of the better ones I've tried. BB stands for Blemish Balm (NOT Beauty Balm) and are great as they provide hydration, sun protection, usually an anti-ageing benefit or two and light coverage all in one step. Obviously being on a desert island you need a multiple purpose product such as this and when you're rescued you'll want your skin to look it's best!

The problem with a lot of westernised BB creams is they are not strictly BB creams. The Ginvera BB cream comes from Singapore and is a very good example of a traditional BB cream. Some traditional BB's can be very light and not always suit western skin tones. This blends beautifully and matches my skin tone really well, even after a tan.

Obviously this is a bit of fun, you'd never get away with just 3 products in your everyday skin care routine. However by choosing just 3 products for your desert island essentials it may help you think more about which products are not necessary in your routine and therefore could afford to ditch for a week. What do you pick as your Desert Island Essentials?

Pampered Prince