It’s hard to remember a time when we weren’t so in love with high street fashion; we almost take for granted that we have such an amazing choice of affordable yet high quality garments so readily available to us, and now it seems the beauty world is following suit. Hooray!
My next high street hero is Nivea. I’m pretty sure most people have tried a Nivea product at some point in their lives, whether it be the trusty sun-cream, dependable deodorant or the classic little pot of blue cream, but Nivea aren’t just your go-to reliable brand, they have some real hard hitters in their arsenal too! The newest members to the range are part of the Cellular Radiance collection; consisting of a Skin Evening Essence, Illuminating Day Cream and Skin-Perfecting Fluid all focussed on restoring inner radiance and cellular vitality! All 3 products are a pleasure to use; fresh scented, non-greasy and fast-absorbing and these too have been proven to achieve the promised results. Visibly reducing wrinkles, improving texture and evening skin tone, and thanks to the iridescent micro-pigments in the day cream and the skin-perfecting fluid, you achieve an instant youthful glow on application. In my opinion, Nivea are re-establishing themselves as a current, modern brand so the news of them collaborating with British Fashion Designer, Matthew Williamson, came as no surprise. Look out for his limited edition, floral patterned Nivea deodorants- another designer luxury at a high street price! One of the first high street beauty brands to really make an impact on us was the now iconic Protect and Perfect Serum by No.7. This serum was affordable, widely available and most importantly, it worked! People went crazy for it- memorably evident in the long queues outside Boots of people wanting to try this ‘wonder serum’. Well that was 10 years ago and the No.7 team certainly didn’t rest on their laurels, as their new serum is set to whip us up in a frenzy again! No.7 Restore & Renew Face & Neck Multi Action Serum has been 5 years in development and proudly boasts 5 clinically proven anti-ageing results, including; reducing the appearance of wrinkles, firmer feeling skin, improved skin tone, smoother skin and skin that is protected from the environment. Not only that, but you also start to see the beginnings of these cumulative results after just 2 weeks! In short, it’s a miracle worker! I don’t usually like to put an age bracket on who should or shouldn’t use a particular product but in this case, I would say post-menopausal women will hugely benefit from using this serum. After menopause, the calcium levels are lower in the skin and the lack of oestrogen slows down cell turnover, this results in poor healing of the skin and a feeling of crepiness and slackness (especially on the neck) Restore and Renew contains the highest concentration of calcium, amino acids and ceramides that can penetrate the skin for fast acting anti-ageing results and combat these menopausal issues. Don’t worry if your skin is not quite ready for Restore and Renew- all the No.7 serums are clinically proven to work and are absolutely worth trying! For my last high-street-pick, I’ve thrown in a bit of a weird one- Organic Snail Gel by Dr.Organic! And yes, it does contain actual snail mucus! The first thing I should say (before we talk about the eew factor) is that the snail mucus is collected from snails humanely farmed under certified organic conditions. The snails are free to roam over glass panels and the mucus is collected on their travels! As I said, it’s a bit of a weird one, but as is the case with many of these bizarre beauty ingredients the link to skin benefits was found by chance; it was discovered by Chilean snail farmers (exporting to the French food industry) who noticed that their skin healed rapidly without scarring.
Nivea Cellular Radiance range
No.7 Restore & Renew Multi Action Serum
Dr.Organic Organic Snail Gel
Now to address the eewy! This mucus contains proteins, glycolic acids, allantoin, hyaluronic acid and elastin to help with the regeneration and repair of snails’ shells and it has the same regenerating and repairing effect on our skin- it has even been proven to be effective on burns victims. The slime is filtered, before aloe vera, a blend of bioactive plant ingredients and a mild preservative is added to boost skincare benefits and maintain shelf life (and make it less snail-like!). Dr Organic has a bit of a cult following but has seen its popularity soar with its celebrity fans such as Pussycat Doll, Ashley Roberts and Hollywood A-Lister, Katie Holmes, and with this launch I expect the fanbase to grow even further. I don’t buy into fads and I definitely fall into the squeamish bracket but this gel has me convinced! It’s a perfect bathroom cabinet staple for skin emergencies and it will be coming on holiday with me, perhaps not to France though…