Benjamin Vnuk for Harper’s Bazaar
Dermo-pharmacist Colette Haydon has probably already created products in your bathroom. Having formulated for the likes of Jo Malone, REN and Aromatherapy Associates, the skincare innovator has now poured this experience into her own beauty baby; Lixir. Bang on the money with advanced ingredients, millennial pink packaging, honest price points and a no-nonsense approach, the product edit is both results driven and oh-so ‘grammable.
From her London laboratory we asked Haydon to shed some light on the common skincare myths she hopes to bust with the truth. Over to the ultimate sk-insider.
Myth 1: Different areas of skin have different needs
Truth: “People think some active ingredients work on face wrinkles and others work on eye wrinkles, but there is no such thing as a cream which is good for a bit of your skin and not the other. An active ingredient which is good at reducing wrinkles does them all.”
Myth 2: Penetrating active ingredients into the deeper layers of the skin is very important
Truth: “This is not how it works. The skin is a barrier, only the top layer (the epidermis) is accessible. A good molecule is a biological messenger for the epidermal cells. The message received triggers a series of cascading events able to reach the targeted cells in the skin’s deeper layers.”
Myth 3: Products with multiple active ingredients deliver the best results
Truth: “Products with too many active ingredients confuse the skin; it works too hard, gets tired and gives up. It is better to ask the skin to do one thing at a time, but to do it well.”
Myth 4: The longer you use a product the more it will do for the skin
Truth: “Some active ingredients are universally essential to your skin and you can never overdo it. Others are for specific skin concerns and if used for too long they saturate the skin and no longer deliver results. It is good to switch products around to keep the skin stimulated and avoid the plateau effect.”
Myth 5: Synthetic is bad, natural is good
Truth: “There are simply good ingredients – safe, effective and formulated correctly – and there are bad ingredients, which can be harmful or ineffective.”
Myth 6: Natural products should contain many botanical extracts
Truth: “Cosmetic ingredients don’t grow on trees! Not all chemistry is bad, chemistry is needed to obtain the active molecule from a plant.”
