Mirror Mirror....my skincare journey

My name is Cassie and I am a beauty addict.......it feels good to admit it.  I certainly cannot ignore it with a dwindling bank balance and bulging bathroom cabinet.....

As with most women my age I was introduced to beauty via the Clinique 3 step programme.  Who can forget that yellow soap in the green soap tray, the (what felt like) pure ethanol toner, and the yellow paste (I mean moisturiser).  My face went through various shades of red during the three steps and ended in an oil slick but this did not deter me.  I knew "products" made my soul sing.

I, obviously, moved on quickly from the "3-step" and embraced new brands.  Now as a teenager my scope was limited growing up in a village in the Midlands and then going to University in St Andrews: shops were limited to say the least.  However, my early years introduced me to one of my long time loves: Aveda.  Ahhhhh, Aveda with its Pure-Fume goodness.  The Botanical Kinetics range is like the "3-step" on natural steroids.  

Then I moved to London and oh the beauty goodness that lay before me in the form of the department stores (this was before they opened SpaceNk!).  My first new foray was to Clarins which I used in the first 4 months of living in London.  That flat I lived in was dreadful.  My room was pokey and small with a single bed and a shelf (yet I somehow paid as much as the other girls who had lovely large rooms with bay windows, wardrobes, drawers and double beds) and the bathroom was far from clean (the girls I lived with had questionable attitudes to basic hygiene and I think believed that bathrooms were self cleansing....) and horror or horrors had a very old and discoloured carpet.  Whilst I loved my Clarins products I will always associate them with that flat and once they had ran out, and I had moved out, I never purchased again.

So onwards I went to West London and in a bid to save money (I had had to double up on rent) I switched to cheaper brands: Nivea and Simple.  Loved them both.  At this time SpaceNK opened near where I worked, though at this point my SpaceNK devotion it was all about the make-up and not skincare for me.

I then became a skin care tart and switched brands as regularly as my knickers (well sort of, you know what I mean).  I have a slight genetic flaw in as much as I cannot buy on product in a range, I have to get EVERYTHING so when I go through "the change" I really invest.  I flirted with  Eve Lom, Sisley, Chantecaille, Shiseido, Nude and the Organic Pharmacy.

I was ready to form a monogamous relationship with the Organic Pharmacy and then I discovered beauty blogs.  Oh dear!  2016 has been an expensive year and I have tried a landslide of serums, cleansers, you name it!  Emma Hardie, Zelens, Radical, Bakel, Kat Burki, Colbert MD, Tata Harper, Sunday Riley, Caudalie, VenEffect, Pixi, May Lindstrom...the list seems almost endless.....

Some of the above were very expensive mistakes and a couple of friends have been the beneficiaries of my offloading product. Most have been okay or good, though in some cases quite hard to justify the price tag.  I think I am going to write some "reviews" as it might be fun.

And the conclusion of all this, well I think I might be ready to go steady*.....I went back to the Organic Pharmacy for a facial in April and after coming out looking radiant I decided I needed to go back to natural and organic skincare.  No regrets, not one blemish have I had in months, my skin is hydrated and I don't look too bad for 41 plus.

*I say this but I may have just put in an order for some Aurelia Probiotic skincare, for when I am at home in the Midlands you understand, so technically this is not "cheating"....