Essential measures #10 - Eve Lom cleanser

Not an original choice, but I credit this cleanser with transforming my skin after months of battling troublesome acne on my cheeks. Since I started using it in Jan 13, my skin has been fantastically clear, with only one or two minor breakouts. After use, my skin looks and feels healthy, glowing, clean and balanced.

 The cleanser comes in a round pot and has a thick, paste-like consistency, so needs 'scooping' out. I enjoy the ritual of applying this to my dry skin, and removing with a warm, wet muslin. And whilst it is breathtakingly expensive - for a cleanser, at £85 for a 200ml tub - a little goes a very long way. I use it once a day, in the morning, and occasionally in the evening unless I’ve worn a lot of make up in which case I prefer a cheap cream cleanser to remove that - with careful use, a 200ml tub could easily last a year, and while the product info advises it has a nine month shelf life the girls at the Eve Lom counter advised me it would be fine for a good deal longer than that.

I also have a tube of the Eve Lom Morning Time Cleanser, essentially a slightly less thick version of the tub cleanser. I find this gives similar results (super clean, healthy looking skin), but my tube developed a fishy smell a few months after opening, and its hard to get the product out when you're nearing the end of the tube. I was delighted in the recent Liberty beauty gwp to receive a compact travel sized version tub cleanser, which will more than suffice for weekends or weeks away and into which I can decant product from the larger tub when needed.

I use Eve Lom’s muslins, or my smaller Liz Earle or Boots versions. The Eve Lom ones are very generously sized, allowing you to blanket your entire face and neck with the muslin as recommended in the detailed instructions! I’ve more or less abandoned my former holy grail cleanser, Liz Earle’s Cleanse and Polish, in favour of Eve Lom. While I like Cleanse and Polish, Eve Lom’s cleanser has made a visible and long-term difference to my skin. I never want to be without this product.

I purchase my Eve Lom cleanser from online stores such as Beauty Expert, or Liberty of London. Liberty often has special beauty events for Eve Lom and other brands such as Sisley and Aromatherapy Associates, where you can enjoy a  facial or other treatment and the cost is redeemed against a minimum spend on products in the range. I tend to wait for these sorts of events before purchasing these more expensive products – if you’re going to splurge, why not treat yourself in the process at no extra cost!

£85/200ml

Essential measures #5 Olay Total Effects Make up Remover

Women can be very fussy about their cleansing routines.  Some like to pre-cleanse, for others just a splash of water will do. Some insist on a separate eye make up remover, for others, a simple cleansing wipe fulfils all their needs. And while for some, only oil cleansers give that deep down clean feeling, for others, cream or hot cloth cleansers are the way forward.

It's unsurprising women are so fussy about cleaning their skin - after all, clean skin means healthy skin and fewer of the breakouts that for many women plague them well into adulthood and beyond. Breakouts can then lead many women (myself included) to pile on the make up... leading of course, to more breakouts. Clean, glowing skin looks youthful, appealing, and is the perfect base for make up.


Now in my early 30s, I've found a cleansing routine that works for me. In the mornings, I usually just use a facial wash, sometimes with an exfoliator. I'm not too fussy about which, although at the moment I'm using a Murad one containing AHAs, as my skin has been acting up a bit, probably due to the hot weather conditions we've been having.

When it comes to make up removal however, I am firmly in the cream cleanser camp, and I've found what I believe to be the ultimate make up removing clean cleanser - Olay Total Effects Make up Remover.

pic: Google images

This cream is sooooo effective at removing make up, including eye make up and mascara - far more effective than any other eye make up removers I've tried. I've gone through quite a few tubes of this since I discovered it last Christmas and I now bulk buy it when it's on offer. I find it quite expensive for a 'drugstore' cleanser at £6.50 for 150mls, but you can often find it on offer in Boots and Superdrug for around the £4 mark, sometimes cheaper (in fact it's on offer in Superdrug at the mo).

To use, I apply this cleanser to a cotton pad or ball and wipe it across my face and neck. I'd say a tube lasts me about 3-4 weeks, depending on how much make up I'm using. Even if I'm not wearing make up, I usually use this as my evening cleanser as it leaves my face so clean, I feel it really gets rid of all the London grime that you can't see but know it's there! Especially great in the summer when it's so hot and sticky. I do follow with a toner however as I don't like feeling as though there is any cream residue left on my skin.

There are some other cleansers I like but none as effective at removing make up. I love Cleanse and Polish for example, as it gives such a lovely radiance to the skin afterwards, but I don't find it good enough for make up removal - more of a morning cleanser for me.

Overall I love this cleanser and think it's one of the best cream cleansers out there - I don't like to spend a lot on cleansers as essentially you just wash them off your skin (I feel the same about body wash). This is at the higher end of the range I'd normally spend on a cleanser but it is more than worth it. It leaves my skin super clean, soft and in great condition - what more can you ask for from a cleanser?

Would love to hear about your cleansing routines and favourite drugstore cleansers!