I have been obsessed with beauty products for as long as I can remember, most likely since I first read an issue of Dolly as an impressionable tween. I started off buying what I thought was 'the nicest' Vitamin E moisturiser from Franklins. It was only $1.99, which I thought was the best beauty bargain ever! I then progressed to spending my pocket money on the Ten-0-Six range or Avon's Clearskin line, before graduating to other Avon ranges as I got older. As my disposable income increased so did the amount I spent on beauty products. When I got the first payment from my PhD scholarship, did I spend it on textbooks or something equally studious? Of course not - I rewarded myself with my first ever high end beauty purchase, a mask that cost $50. For the life of me I can't remember the brand but the price has stuck with over the years as it was a truly decadent purchase for a student. Unfortunately, this was not a one off treat but the start of a pretty serious addiction to luxury beauty products. Soon dropping $60, $70, even $100 on a single beauty product had become the norm. When my sister went on her first European adventure, it was not souvenirs that I asked she bring me back but La Prairie's Skin Caviar. And when I got engaged? Well, that was the green light to exclusively use high end products - SKII, Priori, La Prairie - I mean my skin had to look its best, after all! But this lavish life of beauty was soon to come to a grinding halt. I got a mortgage, then fell pregnant. My income was no longer disposable.
For the last few years my beauty addiction had been causing me some guilt. I wasn't feeling guilty about the $$$ I was rubbing into my skin (or washing down the sink), but rather that I was letting my vanity overpower my scientific training. I have done a PhD in wound healing, so know the skin inside out, therefore should be skilled at picking out which marketing claims were a load of crap and which ones may be true. But I so desperately wanted them all to be true that I would block out the voice telling me not to buy this product or that. Inevitably, I would end up disappointed when my miracle potion didn't work. My new found lack of disposable income has come as a blessing, albeit in an excellent disguise, as it has forced me to really assess the claims made by beauty companies before investing in skincare.
So, the purpose of this blog is to discuss my thoughts on claims made by the beauty industry, translate the scientific studies into plain English, and review products that I have tried. I hope to update my blog weekly with a science related beauty article as it takes me a while to read through the research, but I may pop in more frequently to post my thoughts on other beauty issues.
I hope you enjoy reading what I have to say.
Sarah
