What face cream? 40, dry skin, some wrinkles, budget of...

[Drizzlehair]

£10?
£30?
£60?
£100?

How much difference do the pricier ones make?

My skin if a bit flakey after being neglected in the cold so I need something to give me some nourishment now spring might be here. I'd like to look dewy and 28, but let's be realistic.

Why don't you take an hour and go into a large Boots or dept. store and try samples.

Lancome is quite luxurious, but you're talking £40 - £80 (depending on size you buy) of a moisturiser. It would be my preferred one.

My last one was Clinique Moisture Surge Intense.

If you get a very intensive overnight cream, you might get away with a very cheap Aldi/Lidl moisturiser for during the day under makeup.

If I were you, I'd try the Lancome counters and the Clinique ones. I find Estee Lauder a bit crap.

Do you work near a big Boots/live near one?

Beware that they will try to sell you the cleanser, toner, eye cream, day cream, night cream, face mask, face scrub, lip scrub, foundation , mascara, lipstick, blusher etc.

So you need nerves of steel with them!

But if you say that you want an intensive night cream and stick with that, then you might survive lol (they well tell you they have a promotion where if you buy two products you'll get their gift etc.). DO NOT BE MOVED!!!!

Skinceuticals serum. Neostrata eye cream. Skinceuticals anti redness cream at night.

John Lewis on Oxford St is good for trying samples as they have all the cosmetics counters - I used to try stuff on at lunchtime.
If you work near Liverpool St, the Boots in there has all the counters too.

What do you use on your skin at the minute? What's your routine like?

As a first step I would suggest Hyaluronic Acid serum, its absolutely amazing, and made the most difference of anything to my dry, flaky skin. Its so moisturising but doesn't clog your skin at all.
The Inkey List do an excellent, cheap HA serum, that's the one I use, but there are other cheap, good ones too.

No, with the gaining prevalence of brands like The Ordinary, The In key List etc, not to mention all of the Asian Beauty brands (Hado Labo, Missha etc) I really don't think expensive products are any better at all, quite the opposite in fact.

The Asian Beauty brands are light years ahead of many western products, and extremely reasonably priced.

*Inkey not In key, ffs autocorrect!

I bought the No7 hudraluminois day cream today for dry skin. Really nice so far. It was £9 with a voucher,£14 without.

The B. range from Superdrug is really great and often on offer www.superdrug.com/brandshop/B/skincare

I use this it’s lovely and not too pricey

www.odylique.co.uk/avocado-replenishing-cream.html

Anything will do as a moisturiser. As long as it moisturises.
Don't spend your money on that.
In the past I used to fall for the glossy ads, the nice boxes and reassuring expensive sounding clicks of the pot...I used Chanel, Dior, l'Occitane Divine, Elemis Marine. All lovely (except the latter which is a thin lotion cream and full of silicones which made my makeup pill) None any more effective than Nivea, Garnier and Superdrug own brand.

The only moisturiser which ever made a real difference was Neal's Yard Frankincense and that's because of the frankincense, not the carrier cream.

Look at your routine and add an acid toner, vitamin C serum etc. I use Vichy vit C and it's amazing.

Havent could you recommend a vit c serum from a cruelty free company? At the moment I’m using drunk elephant but I don’t like the feel of it.

I used Cetaphil intense night cream and Cetaphil day moisturiser with spf 50+, iv tried all the expensive brands but nothing touches my dry skin, you also need a good exfoliator to get rid of the dead skin first before you start trying to moisturise otherwise your just wasting your time and money, No7 exfoliator is great as the scrub is actually small enough to do something to the dead dry skin.

The ordinary hyaluronic acid is very good. Not expensive.

Have a look at the Avon reveralist or ultimate range (depending on where in your 40s you are). There is a full range but sometimes you only need 1 product. I'm in my early 30s and bought the reversalist night cream (it has 2 sides that you rotate to keep getting the best effect). I keep getting comments now that my makeup looks nice or I look glam. My makeup hasn't changed it's just my skin has less of an exhausted new mum look to it.

Through- I've only used the Ordinary one and the Vichy one myself. I know the Body Shop do one but of course they're owned now by someone else aren't they?
You could ask on the marvellous skincare thread- they are very knowledgeable and someone will be able to recommend one I'm sure.

Vitamin C has definitely been the game changer for me. I thought it was an acid toner (also brilliant) till I tried Vit C.

I typed a big reply but lost it

Thanks for recommendations, I'll think about how much effort I'm willing to go to to look nicer... Might trial an exfoliator and acid and cream routine and see if I start getting compliments

I'm actually only 39 but getting used to saying 40 so it's not such a shock when it happens in a couple of months

I really like Liz Earle face creams and they smell lovely.