From The MECCA Group Chat: All The Ways To Avoid Dry, Winter Skin
January 1 | 3 minute read
Words by Christie Sinclair
Originally published on | July 23
While winter can have its perks – hot baths, cashmere, the annual resurrection of food-inspired makeup (berry lips, anyone?) – there are some definite drawbacks. In beauty terms, it’s dry, flaky, just generally annoyed winter skin.
So this week, I turned to the MECCA HQ chat for solutions, and these are their best suggestions…
Are you a mister?
When I’m feeling a little off-kilter, I like to close my eyes, mist my face with the AMOREPACIFIC Moisture Plumping Dewy Mist and imagine I’m horizontal by a pool in an adult’s-only resort – and it’s one minute to happy hour. Apart from tugging you from reality for a millisecond, mists are the best hack for topping up hydration and glow (even over makeup) when the elements have sucked the life from your skin.
“I’m a mister!” declared MECCA’s Head of Content, Tara, on the first instalment of our new MECCA Talks: The Mini podcast. She wasn’t exaggerating, with at least five different varieties lined up in a row on her desk at any one point in time. You’ll always find the Omorovicza Queen of Hungary Mist among them, and I also spied a half-full bottle of Tammy Fender’s Bulgarian Rose Water and Chantecaille’s Pure Rosewater mist, made from hand-harvested rose petals and releasing the perfect ultra-fine mist, she tells me.
Body care for skincare lovers
The skin on our faces always gets to have all the fun – but are our bodies getting short-changed? I know mine is, and it’s a new kind of reptilian during the winter months when hot showers and parking myself on the couch in front of the heater are my preferred kind of extracurricular activity.
Thankfully, body care is not what it used to be; it’s now formulated like the skincare we use on our faces, with potent ingredients that do so much more than moisturising or manually exfoliating. For example, Nécessaire The Body Serum is a daily treatment formulated with hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and ceramides to help restore and protect the skin barrier, while Frank Body [BRAND PAGE] have spiked the humble shower gel with blemish-fighting acids in their Triple Acid Body Wash.
Finding an all-over moisturiser that leaves your skin incredibly soft and silky but still able to turn a door handle is not easy, but Sans [ceuticals] have done it in their fast-absorbing Activator 7 Body + Hair + Face Oil which literally covers every inch of you with a blend of omegas and vitamins A and E. Before you know it, the sun will be shining again and hems will be rising and you’ll be happy you put in the extra effort prior to legs-out season.
Join the A-League
Skincare has a new ‘It’ ingredient for 2024: retinal. Dermatologists and aestheticians have been using it for years, but although it works faster and is generally better tolerated than retinol, it was notoriously unstable. Now that skin scientists have discovered how to protect its potency, we’re privy to a new generation of age-defying skincare.
Kate Somerville cracked the code, recently releasing the Mega-A Skin Transforming Serum which marries the transformative benefits of retinal with dual-weight hyaluronic acid and squalane to deeply moisturise the skin as it works to reduce wrinkles, and firm and improve skin tone and texture. Go-To founder Zoë Foster Blake is also a big fan, recently adding two ‘very amazing’ retinal products to her uncomplicated skincare lineup (this is how she uses them in her routine).
Because it’s so strong, you’ll want to start using it just once a week in the evenings (always on clean, super dry skin) – by morning, your face will have a new kind of glow.
Pucker up
If winter flakiness is getting in the way of your statement lip, it might be time to add a lip treatment to your collection. Glossier’s Balm Dotcom may just be the most famous lip product, ever – it comes in too many flavours to name (some with a sheeny tint) and uses a cocktail of moisturising ingredients so you can slather it anywhere that needs it.
Technically a balm but also so much more, Summer Fridays Lip Butter Balm is perfection in a tube. It hydrates, conditions, lasts for hours, isn’t one bit sticky and smells like a cheat day dessert. I also like to keep a sizeable stock of Lanolips in every bag, vehicle and room. The gentle lanolin formula never disturbs my dermatitis and the fruity flavours take me on a trip back to year nine – in the best kind of way. Try the Lemonade Lip Treatment first.
Set the tone
Facial toners aren’t just another trend the algorithm has plucked from obscurity, they’ve long been a K-Beauty staple, used after cleansing to do a multitude of things to your skin (brighten, nourish, hydrate, exfoliate) – including helping to better absorb the next products in your routine.
If you’re after a smooth, bouncy, glass-like glow, this could be the step you’re missing – and the easiest to add. Like most skincare, there are toners to target different skin types and concerns. If your skin is dry, try a moisturising toner with ceramides and panthenol like the Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin™ Skin Barrier Serum Toner or the Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Toner with a gorgeous blend of apricot kernel and avocado oil. Congested skin will benefit from the gentle exfoliating ingredients in the Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow PHA+BHA Pore-Tight Toner. Or if you just want to look more glowy, sweep REN Clean Skincare’s Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Tonic across your face before applying makeup – the chemical exfoliants gently remove dull, dead skin cells creating the smoothest canvas.
Food for your face
Anogeissus bark, fermented chaga, cordyceps, tourmaline – it sounds more like an incantation than ingredients you’d find in your skincare. And in a way, Origins are in the business of skincare sorcery with their high-performance formulas powered by plant-based materials sourced from far and wide. The theory makes a lot of sense; we know that putting whole foods into our body is best, so why not take the same approach to our skin?
The Dr. Andrew Weil for Origins™ Mega-Mushroom Fortifying Emulsion is a cooling, watery solution, infused with two types of responsibly sourced mushrooms to help soothe and reduce redness and irritation. Meanwhile, the Plantscription Active Wrinkle Correction Serum employs a cocktail of retinoids, Laminaria digitata (a type of large brown algae) and Anogeissus bark extract to target stubborn wrinkles. Finally, the GinZing™ Brightening Eye Cream with Panax ginseng and caffeine has made it to the MECCA Beauty Election Hall of Fame because it perks up your under-eyes in the same way an espresso gives life every morning.
If you’re into purging and restocking your pantry every now and then, and your beauty stash is next, might I suggest starting with Origins?
