All About Skin Studio

A little life dump. Turns out it’s all content and kids x

ok, brutal honesty as promised.

there is genuinely one.. deep winter, you’re inside all day, and you’re nowhere near a window. our uv index up here sits on the floor from about november to february, and indoors away from glass you’re getting next to nothing. so on that one, fair enough.

that’s the whole list though.

‘it’s cloudy’ isn’t it, uva comes straight through cloud. ‘i’m sat by the window’ definitely isn’t it, that’s the one spot indoors you actually do need it. ‘it’s not even sunny’ isn’t it. and ‘the blue light from my screen’ really isn’t it.. that one’s marketing.

spf isn’t the boring step you tack on at the end. it’s the whole point. you can polynucleotide and laser and collagen bank til you’re skint, but skip it the rest of the year and you’re filling the bath with the plug pulled out.

one genuine exception. the other 360 days? don’t be a t**t.

meg x

listen to your skincare mother. it’s not about spending more, it’s about spending right. your skin does not know what you paid, it only knows what you put on it.

save this, send it to the friend with the £300 shelf, and stay close because the products i’d never buy again and their cheaper swaps are coming next. i’m naming names

meg x

The best collagen banking is free. No serum is going to save you if you do not nail these first!

As an esthetician, this is the bit nobody wants to hear. You can spend hundreds on skincare, but skip the free stuff underneath it and you are wasting your money. Skin ageing is biological, and most of what protects your collagen costs nothing.

SPF aside, none of this costs a penny:

protein every meal, your skin is built from it
7 hours sleep, your skin repairs overnight
ditch the sugar, it stiffens collagen through glycation
manage your stress, cortisol breaks collagen down
sunglasses and shade, squinting writes the lines in
vitamin C from food, peppers, kiwi, oranges
lift weights, resistance training thickens ageing skin
stop smoking, it destroys collagen
know your hormones from 40, you lose around 30% of your skin’s collagen in the 5 years after menopause

No serum makes up for skipping this. Get the free part right, then the products on top have something to work with.

Save it. Send it to the friend dropping £80 on serums without doing the leg work first. Follow for part 2, the routine.

meg x

STOP wasting your money. Part 2 is here, and these are the products I would not buy again.

As an esthetician, here is the bit the brands hate. Half the time you are paying for the box, the marketing and the dermatologist on the advert. Not the formula. Here is what actually holds up, ingredient for ingredient.

La Roche Posay Anthelios UVAir SPF50 serum, £26. Cute. Garnier Ambre Solaire Super UV SPF50 is £13 with the same SPF50, the same hyaluronic acid and the same niacinamide. Make it make sense.

Avène Hydrance Light, £18 for a basic moisturiser. No. E45 Face Care is £6, gives you glycerin hydration and hyaluronic acid, and is fragrance free, which the Avène is not. The cheaper one is arguably the gentler one.

Medicube Zero Pore Pads, £24. The Boots pore pads have the same AHA and BHA, and the same 70 pads, for £8. That is £16 you just kept.

Avène Hydrance Aqua Gel, £22. The Inkey List Omega Water Cream is £12 for the same featherlight gel finish, and it throws in niacinamide the Avène does not shout about.

La Roche Posay kids SPF50, £27.50. Soltan Kids is £5, both SPF50+ and water resistant, and your child will actually sit still long enough for you to apply it.

Formulation is king and I will always say that. But these? Keep your cash. The cheap swaps genuinely hold up. Promise.

Save this for your next Boots trip, and send it to the friend who is still overpaying. You know exactly who.

meg x

The whole “expensive skincare must be better skincare” thing needs to die.

These are the affordable Boots buys everyone writes off as a waste of money. The catch? They quietly outperform products triple the price.

A foot cream that gets your feet properly sandal ready. An SPF so light you forget it’s even on, super hydrating, and under a tenner. A facial SPF50 that’s thick, hydrating and defends against ageing. A vitamin C eye product for brighter, wider awake eyes. A self tan with zero orange and zero biscuit smell. And a hypochlorous spray for breakouts and reactive skin at a fraction of the hyped up ones.

Affordable skincare isn’t lesser skincare. Half the time it’s the same hardworking ingredients in cheaper packaging, and you’re paying extra for the label and the marketing.

So before you drop a fortune, save this for your next Boots trip.

Which one surprised you the most?

meg x

a little life dump because not everything needs a perfectly planned grid.

Paris with my girls. croissants for breakfast, long lunches that turned into longer ones, and me quietly clocking my skin in every shop window the way only a skincare obsessed girly pop does.

there was a Skin Rocks launch, a spa day I did not want to leave, and a lymphatic drainage session that left my face looking like it had had a full night of sleep for once.

here is the honest bit. I am three weeks post CO2 fractional laser and Paris was the first proper test. the resurfacing does the deep work, smoothing texture, softening fine lines and waking up collagen from the inside, but the recovery is not glamorous. peeling, sensitivity, and an SPF habit that does not get a day off. travelling through it taught me that healthy skin is not about the one big treatment, it is about everything you do around it. is your co2 girl.

so yes I packed the laser aftercare. yes I reapplied SPF!

if you are thinking about CO2 fractional, ask me anything. I will always tell you the real version, downtime included!

meg x