A simple routine that finally delivered the glow I wanted.

The serum and cleanser pairing cleared up my dry patches far faster than anything else I have ever tried before. I had been treating dryness as a moisturiser problem for years, and it turned out to be a cleansing problem.

Dry patches are usually a cleansing problem

A foaming cleanser removes oil without asking which oil it is removing. If your skin runs dry, the lipids it strips are the ones holding water in, so you finish the wash tight, reach for a heavier cream, and repeat the cycle the next morning.

Swapping to a low-foam gel broke that loop within days. The cream I was already using suddenly seemed to work better, because it finally had an intact barrier to sit on.

Where the serum comes in

Rosehip is not a dramatic ingredient. It will not resurface your face overnight and anything claiming otherwise is selling you an irritant. What it does do, applied to damp skin every day for a month, is even out tone and take the grey edge off winter skin.

Applied to damp skin is the part people skip. The serum has humectants in it, and a humectant with no water available will happily pull moisture out of your skin instead of into it.

Four weeks later

The patches around my nose and jaw have gone. I have not changed my moisturiser, my diet or my water intake, which I mention only because those are the three things people suggest first. It was the cleanser.