How to get your makeup to sit better

Ever find your makeup just isn’t sitting right? Is it a case that you haven’t changed your routine up, but all of a sudden your makeup has a mind of it’s own and just looks funny? I often get emails from readers asking for advice on this very problem and while I am the furtherest thing from a skincare expert, I always have two recommendations on how to get your makeup to sit better and more often than not, it seems to solve the problem.

First things first, is tackling the dreaded dehydration. Dehydrated skin , is skin that lacks water, but can still produce oil. So you can have oily skin, but your skin may still be dehydrated. A real sign of dehydrated skin, is very fine lines on the forehead. For years I thought this was premature ageing, until I visited the skin care guru that is Neelu and she explained to me that these fine lines can be very easily reduced or even eradicated through the use of hyaluronic acid! Adding a product with hyaluronic acid, or even pure hyaluronic acid itself,  helps your skin to retain up to 1000 times it’s weight in water and combats dehydration. I always notice when I am not using hyaluronic acid in my routine.  I personally love Mizon’s pure hydraluronic acid.

The second thing I recommend is regular exfoliation. There are so many benefits of adding exfoliation into your routine. It helps with texture, it does this by removing  dead skin cells and allow softer newer skin to come through. If you have any flaky dry patches, regular exfoliation will help with these too. It helps to slow down the signs of ageing. The older we get, the harder it is for our skin to shed the dead skin cells, so manual exfoliation will do this for us. Giving the skin a scrub unclogs pores and helps prevent breakouts and finally by removing dead skin cells we are giving our skincare products a chance to penetrate down to the deeper layers of skin. Have I sold you on the idea of regular exfoliation yet?

There are so many products on the market for exfoliating. Some are specifically for face, some for body and some work with both. One of my personal favourites is the Philosophy Micro delivery peel. As this is full of vitamin c, not only does it exfoliate the skin but it also helps with brightening. However, like with anything amazing, there is a downside and with the Philosophy Micro delivery peel it is the price. At €76, this is saucy!! I personally only use it for special occasions and due to the inclusion of salicylic acid, I actually can’t use it at the moment as I am pregnant.

Those of you that follow me on snapchat (@thebeauttruth) will know that I have had a few issues with my skin lately. Firstly I had a reaction to an eye cream that left my under eye area in an awful state and then just when I thought my confidence in how I looked couldn’t get any lower, my face decided to let my hormones take control and became a dry, yet oily mess!!! As I was hindered by the ingredients I could use due to pregnancy, I went shopping my stash. I knew exfoliation was key to allowing fresh skin shine through and I decided to give the Ziaja Olive leaf Micro Exfoliating gel scrub. This promised to exfoliate the skin while at the same time feeling soothing.

The Ziaja Olive leaf Micro Exfoliating gel scrub is a scrub for both face and body and while normally I tend to avoid products for the face that can also be used on the body, I actually found this to be really great. Granted I did have to have a much gentler touch when using it on my face, but it really did a great job of removing all the dead skin and reviving my skin. The micro beads are on the bigger side, but I found for the state my skin was in, this worked a treat, but be warned, this might not be for everyone and if you’re someone who isn’t use to exfoliating, maybe you might be wise to start with something a little gentler.

The only downside to this exfoliator for me was that the beads were a little hard to wash off. I found that it was a better product to use in the shower rather than at the sink, as I could just leave the water run over my face, as splashing water onto the face just didnt get rid of all the beads. Also I wouldn’t use it more than once or twice a week. This is a full on scrub and to do so more regularly wouldn’t be the best for your skin.

The Ziaja Olive leaf Micro Exfoliating gel scrub isn’t going to be for every one, but at €5.99 it is worth giving it a try. Just make sure to go lightly with it. You can pick it up here and in many pharmacies.