By Anna Power
The Midult years hit you less like a speeding train and more like a creeping vine that sneaks up on you – slowly, throttling you face and neck first. You may have bopped your way across the dance floor in your twenties and thirties; downed beers, puffed fags, all on about four hours sleep without it taking any toll on your skin, but once over the forty threshold those days are well and truly over.
Little by little changes to your skin are inevitable and natural. In midulthood a woman begins to notice that the creased puffy eyes staring back at her in the bathroom mirror every morning no longer fall away within an hour of waking; instead they’re here to stay and the puffiness is but one of a few new midult skin issues to deal with.
The key issue, as every woman knows is the much chimed about collagen degradation; resulting in a loss of tautness, plumpness and a lessening of that youthful moisture in the skin that causes it to glow. Sun is the key culprit along with gravity, stress, weight loss and gain, and those pesky fluctuating hormones as well as unavoidable natural ageing. But before you throw in the towel and let gravity take its toll, there are a lot of good anti-aging product ranges around which can work to fake that youthful glow and go along way in concealing the ageing process at least on the surface.
One such range is the consistently excellent anti-aging products from Origins. For the last few weeks I have been trying products from their Plantscription skincare range – the eye cream, powerful lifting concentrate, lifting cream, anti-aging face cream and face oil. The thing about Origins is I have yet to come across a product I didn’t like. I have found a few that weren’t right for me but the brand are consistently good and a bit of a lesser-known gem. As the green arm of Estee Lauder and one of the first companies to have a botanical basis for their products with a strict eco friendly philosophy, Origins as a brand has stood the test of time – now not long off its thirtieth birthday.
I tried the Plantscription products for a few weeks and pretty quickly saw a difference. Not only did I enjoy using the products, which were lovely to the touch with a pleasing redolence of spring and citrus but my skin looked better hydrated almost immediately. The skin on my face and my neck looked and felt a little tighter and smoother though I probably didn’t start to notice this till after a couple of weeks of use. My make up glided on easier over smooth, soft skin and looked better. The face oil in particular seemed to be lapped-up by my skin and has a day-long lasting effect. People noticed too and I started to get comments – “ you’re glowing ” “ you look great” – always a good sign that the products are working.
The lifting concentrate is an incredible product and works as a great skin primer and for my skin the anti-aging cream worked better than the lifting cream as it was a bit oilier (they have an oil free version too). Used together they made a real difference to my midult forty-something skin, making it look and feel much more vibrant.
Origins Plantscription range isn’t cheap but it out performs a lot of anti-ageing skincare ranges that are significantly more expensive. I couldn’t sing its praises more highly.
Planscription Lifting Concentrate £52
Planscription Powerful Lifting Cream £52
Plantscription Eye Cream £37
Planscription Power Anti-Aging Cream £49
Plantscription Face Oil £40