Up until recently I pretty much diagnosed my own skin type – and for the most part I was right, an oily t-zone that is really prone to hormonal and wine related breakouts. But there’s one thing diagnosing what you can see but it’s what lies below the surface that is truly interesting. I went for a fabulous treatment in The Heritage Killinard Spa recently and before we began the facial I had a skin analysis. This involves a UV lamp being placed near your face to expose area’s of pigmentation and hydration. When the light shone on my face I was surprised to see how many freckles I had…only they weren’t flipping freckles it was areas of pigmentation, or sun damage. I was rather jokingly asked if I was a sun worshipper which really made me laugh because I’m literally adverse to the sun. Perhaps though this is a more recent aversion firstly having two very fair little ladies whose skin I don’t want to hurt and also having lost a dear friend to skin cancer, you get my drift, I just don’t think that bronze equals healthy.
Nonetheless the damage is there and it probably dates back to childhood during which I was burnt plenty of times as I whiled away the hours outside playing in streams and with rocks (literally!). And it’s not like pigmentation is showing through on my face at the moment but it may and there’s nothing I can do to change things now. That said I can stop things going from bad to worse. I’ve always tried to wear moisturisers or foundations with a hint of SPF but now I’m taking things up a notch.
I spoke with Joanna Gardner, MD of Irish company Elave recently, and aside from being a really fascinating woman, the company does a huge amount of research in terms of skin care. Some might be familiar with foundations like Mac that looks lovely and broned in the mirror but the minute you step in front of a camera with a flash, boom, Casper appears. That’s the zinc that is contained in anything with an SPF. You know those pictures of celebrates with patches of ridiculous white below their eyes, that’s not there in reality, just in photo’s taken with a flash and that flash bouncing back off the zinc contained in the products they use. 
So how can I avoid this glare from flashback and still keep that all important SPF as part of my daily routine I hear you ask? Well I’ve started using Elave’s Daily Skin Defence which not only comes with an SPF 45 but it’s made using invisible Zinc – so once it has been absorbed onto the skin it won’t cause any ghostly appearance in pictures taken on say your wedding day or on a night out. I’m using this every day, even if the ‘sun don’t shine’ I wear it, UV rays are there everyday and most people know only too well how possible it is to get burnt on a cloudy summers day.
In general, other that the pigmentation my skin was in pretty good nick, it was well hydrated apart from my poor eyes that were enveloped in a purple circle of sorriness. I use the Guinot Fresh Eye Cream most nights but I need to step it up and use it morning and night. I like this because it has a metal tip that is really cold when you apply the skin so you don’t need to keep it in the fridge because Lord knows it would never get used if I left it there!
