My 2016 Skincare Favourites

* This post contains PR samples and not all products mentioned are featured in this picture!

For the most part, I don’t like my skin to be laden with an overabundance of product, and I very much follow the ‘less is more’ mantra when it comes to skincare. I naturally have very good skin, and so I think that having a million and one products on rotation in my skincare stash would be redundant, and so I like to take a very minimalist approach and simply focus on maintaining my skin. For reference, I sit somewhere within the normal-to-dehydrated category, and I’m an avid liquid exfoliant, cleansing balm and rich moisturiser-goer! Also worthy of note here, is that because I’m often frequently, and very kindly, sent a lot of skincare products and releases as PR samples, it does take me quite a while to feature and review them; which is virtue of the fact that I only like to introduce one new skincare product at a time into my long-standing and established routine, for the purpose of ensuring a fair trial of new-in products.

My aforementioned love of cleansing balms knows no bounds, but The Body Shop’s cleansing butter is, by far, the best cleansing balm/butter I’ve tried thus far. This is the richest, most buttery cleanser of them all, and breaks down any makeup so effortlessly. I really and truly look forward to using this in the evenings and I absolutely adore it.

I’m a huge advocate of double cleansing, and so if I’ve been wearing any sort of foundation or base, I will remove my makeup with the aforementioned cleansing butter, and then cleanse my skin with a separate cleanser. Although I’m not a lover of Liz Earle’s Cleanse & Polish for makeup removal, I do love it for cleansing the skin, and if I feel that my skin is lacking in terms of hydration, I love to use my Grown Alchemist olive leaf cream cleanser, which is almost balm-esque in consistency.

Last year was the year in which I finally purchased Pixi’s glow tonic, and I’ve been in love ever since. I tend to favour acid exfoliators over their physical counterparts, and I absolutely adore this AHA-based exfoliant. My skin seemingly pairs so well with glycolic acid and, although this has a mild percentage of said acid, I find it to effectively rid my skin of any dry patches and dullness. I have a video on my YouTube channel all about this product, how it works and a very in-depth review of it which has proved to be popular, so feel free to watch that if you’re interested in this product!

As with all years before it, 2016 played host to a lot of different skincare releases, but the one that really captured my attention, and heart in the end, was Roger & Gallet’s Aura Mirabilis range. The double extract and legendary cream have become staples within my collection, and in lieu of repeating myself, I’ll leave a link to my review of them here.

A good dry facial oil is something that’s hard to come by in my opinion, and so I have all the more reason to love Trilogy’s CoQ10 booster oil. I love this for offering an intense boost of hydration and all of the wonderful ingredients it features.

I take great pleasure in using facial masks and actually, I use them every couple of days. And although I have many that I love, Sukin’s detoxifying super greens mask and Vichy’s double glow peel mask are ones that I’ve reached for the most throughout the latter part of 2016, at least. Although the Sukin mask is clay-based, it works beautifully with parched skin and after leaving this on for around 50 minutes (they recommend 15, but I always leave clay masks on for longer than recommended), I find that this clears my complexion like nothing else. The Vichy mask is AHA-based and it really is great for brightening the skin, imparting glow and ridding the skin of any dryness.

Lastly, and a product that I couldn’t be without for longer than a few hours; The Body Shop’s argan oil solid oil lip balm is the best lip balm I have ever used. It also just so happens to smell rather delicious and affordable too!

What skincare products did you love throughout 2016? Let me know! P.S. If I’ve not yet written in-depth reviews of any of these products yet, I will be doing throughout the next few months! Jess x