My Year In Beauty

What have the past 12 months of product trials, hardcore treatments and expert insights taught Cosmopolitan’s glam squad? Quite a lot, it turns out…

Beauty Director INGEBORG VAN LOTRINGEN found 2018 brought a skincare revolution

This was the year when near-professional strength skincare became available to the masses. Never before have we been confronted with so many new products, procedures and ingredients we can actually afford. Breathless online tutorials have us slapping on way too many super-strength actives in no particular order. In Superdrug a bottle of hair glitter now comes with a side of £99 lip filler, while 10% AHA peels and 30% vitamin-C serums (once the preserve of clinics) are a dime a dozen. It’s a world where no one could be blamed for thinking you can’t overdose on beauty. But, dear reader, I’m afraid you can.

Reactive of skin as I am, I’ve spent my 20-year career in beauty dodging most of the treatments brands beg me to review not because I’m an ungrateful cow, but because unexpected reactions to mystery ingredients have been all too frequent. Also, I’m Calvinistically suspicious of non-surgical treatments like Botox and lasers, figuring that if you feck with nature too much, there’s probably going to be a backlash.

But I do need to write with authority about whatever’s big in beauty. Plus, to be honest, I’m increasingly desperate to delay encroaching face decay. And so I succumbed to the lure of cosmetic doctors and double-digit percentage serums.