Soothe #winterface With Rhode Glazing Milk

Exploring Iceland, Feb. 2015. Rhode Glazing Milk would have come in handy. (Photo: Janine Falcon.)

Loving a celebrity skincare line feels unseemly when the celeb is 27-year-old Hailey Bieber and I am older than her mother. But Bieber, wife of Justin and creator of the ‘glazed donut’ glow, launched Rhode in 2022 and has the best new skincare product for menopausal women and I am as shocked as you are.

The Rhode line (Hailey’s middle name) has three core products: a serum, a rich moisturizer and the ‘must have been created for menopausal women’ Rhode Glazing Milk, a hydrating essence loaded with skin barrier repairing and strengthening ceramides that provides instant calming moisture so you can look into mirrors in the dead of February without recoiling. #winterfaceisreal

It makes Hailey (above) practically shiny, but if you are starting from a moisture deficit (aka ‘if desiccated is your baseline’) you will look more naturally glowy and less like a hot glazed Krispy Kreme.

Why it’s targeted to teens and tiktokers is beyond me. Just look at the ingredients list (below). It’s basically made for my cohort. And a daily concentrated application of those skin barrier-loving ingredients is all the more critical in these ‘low ambient moisture’ winter months. So thank you, Hailey.

Some of her young fans have complained on social media that Rhode products break them out, which further proves that these products were meant for us, not them. When you’re a teen, your body is diligently pumping out oil and moisture and you do not need a ceramide and glycerin rich milk to rebuild your skin barrier and protect you from central heating.

But thanks to TikTok, there is a new tranche of consumers, young girls, the ‘Sephora kids’, spending their generous allowances on retinol and other anti-aging skincare. This is puzzling and humorous in equal measure. Wouldn’t tweens want perfume and lipsticks and bras before they need them instead of retinol? But then I don’t get their obsession with Stanley cups either.

Ingredients and benefits:

The Rhode Glazing Milk ingredients rundown is basically a checklist of menopausal skin-nourishing ingredients. There’s ceramides and cholesterol to help skin barrier recovery, humectant-rich beta glucan to soothe skin and calm itch, phytosphingasine, another barrier function booster that we produce less of as we age, zinc gluconate and copper gluconate which have anti-inflammatory properties, gluconolactone, a hydrating polyhydroxy acid to maintain moisture in the top layers of the skin and gently exfoliate.

It’s not at all greasy. You can pat it on like an essence to hydrate skin and prep it for skincare. Or just put some on if your skin is feeling dry or tight. It improves the whole crepey skin situation pretty much instantly. To that end, I am waiting for a spray version. A blast of Rhode Glazing Mist would be great during the day when you’re flagging and need a little something to bring you back to life.

I would like this sized bottle to drench my whole self with..

Good (Coconut) Things Come In Large Packages

Marketing has convinced us that the smaller the container, the pricier the contents. Think eye creams in wee jars accompanied by doll-sized spatulas or caviar in diminutive, shallow tins. (I’m so glad I never developed a taste for caviar.)

But if a bottle is huge like Renpure’s Coconut Milk & Vitamin E body wash, you might dismiss it as being somehow less than. And you’d be wrong, because Renpure’s coconut body wash is the ideal shower companion as Canadian winter approaches (insert portentous organ music here.)

Sulphate-free with coconut oil and hydrolyzed milk proteins, it is a gentle cleanser that won’t strip away your precious skin oils. This is especially crucial in the winter when central heating and low humidity conspire to turn your skin into crinkly tissue paper.

And more important to us picky fragrance people, in addition to its ‘clean beauty’ ingredients and post consumer recycled plastic bottle, Renpure absolutely nails the fragrance.

The creamy, light coconut scent is a dead ringer for Skin Trip, the luxe hippie cult favourite body lotion sold in posh health food stores like LA’s Erewhon Market.

But unlike Skin Trip, you can get Renpure in Canada. Its generously-sized bottle, all 710 ml (24 ounces in old money) is only $8.79 at Shoppers Drug Mart and $7.97 at Walmart. Be still my penny-pinching little heart.

REN Plumping Essence: Your Skin Barrier’s New Best Friend

Every Laura Ingalls Wilder fan knows that Farmer Boy is the superior book in every way (The ice cream scene! The endless pies!) but The Long Winter is more appropriate right now. We made it through February, yet here we have March to contend with.

Winter storms are back, and as much as I want to bury myself in books and tea (what a friend calls ‘the Jane Austen cure’) we all have to leave the house eventually. So before heading out, it is prudent (such a good Jane Austen word) to use a an essence to protect your skin from the wind and ice demons lurking just outside your door.

Essence can seem like a superfluous skincare step until you try it. A super hydrator with a ‘water, but thicker’ texture, REN Smooth, Prep & Plump Essence, ($70, Sephora) applied right after you wash your face, gives your skin much-needed moisture while cannily sneaking in skin barrier-protecting ingredients like hyaluronic acid and polyglutamic acid that will help your skin’s top layers retain moisture. It also helps your skin better absorb the active ingredients in serums you use afterwards.

And it makes your skin feel like actual skin, not crêpe paper. That alone should be all the motivation you need to try it.

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And how old is my copy of The Long Winter? Not only did it cost a mere $2.10, but WH Smith hasn’t existed in Canada since 1989.

Weleda Skin Food Face Conquers #winterface

The air is so dry right now that my skin feels like I’ve been tumbling for days in a dryer set on high.

Into the teeth of this low-ambient-moisture, gloomy time of year, Weleda has mercifully launched a trio of new Skin Food face products that are both lanolin-free (ergo, vegan) and lighter-weight than the original Skin Food Ultra Rich Cream. Loaded with soothing ingredients like plant-based squalane, skin-calming tiger grass and fatty-acid rich sacha inch oil, they will help your poor, weather-beaten skin recover from seasonal moisture suck. Angry and red or ashy and drawn, #winterface is real.

There’s also a new cleanser that drew raves at the launch event: a Neosporin thick, oil-to-milk cleanser that transforms into a light milk when you add water. With sunflower seed oil that is high in unsaturated fatty acids, it leaves skin clean and hydrated, not taut and drawn. The face you see in the mirror will be your old, non-wintery face: a happy augury of spring.

Skin Food, which launched 97 years ago and now sells one tube every 11 seconds, inspires crazy devotion. I have sung its praises here. Celebrity makeup artist Pati Dubroff, who has kept a tube in her kit for 30 years, uses it on her makeup clients as pre-makeup skincare and ad hoc highlighter. She also applies it liberally on her own face when she flies. “For some it may be too heavy,” she says, laughing, “but for me, no way.” If you do fall into that other camp, the day cream is just what you’ll want to protect your skin on flights.

And I have a message for Weleda HQ: a dear friend fervently wishes that Skin Food lotion was available in a giant pump bottle for both maximum ease and the comfort of having an extravagant amount of Skin Food at one’s disposal. For real fans, a solitary tube or jar is never enough.

Bioderma Atoderm Cleansing Oil is Your Winter Skin Saviour

Bioderma Atoderm Ultra Nourishing Cleansing Oil will save your skin this winter.

Dermatologists must get so weary, telling us every year that hot showers are terribly drying to our skin. It’s advice we mostly ignore because, come winter, is there anything better than a quarter hour spent blissfully thawing out under a scalding spray?

Bioderma Atoderm Ultra Nourishing, Anti Irritation Cleansing Oil (Shoppers Drug Mart, $22.99) will save you from yourself when you decide to take up permanent residence in the shower. Its light fragrance is a faint echo of 1970s pearlized bath oil beads, while the coconut oil/glycerin formula gently cleanses without stripping skin or leaving you feeling overly greased up.

Atoderm helps your skin barrier stay strong to protect you from TEWL (trans-epidermal water loss) because dried out skin is itchy, uncomfortable and may be vulnerable to irritation which can lead to redness, cracking and inflammation.

When I’ve posted seasonal Atoderm reminders on Instagram in the past, in-the-know friends and colleagues unfailingly tell me that they have their requisite ‘one bottle on the go and one bottle on deck’. We’re a not-so-secret society of well-moisturized women who can now fearlessly face the dry air and winds that the coming season has to offer. Atoderm is that good. Ignore this edict at your own peril.

Lockdown Skincare: Strong But Gentle Glycolic Acid Peels For Over-50 Skin

LaSpa Intensive Anti-Aging Glycolic Peel and Omorovicza Acid Solution are a glow-giving pair for winter-dull skin.

If you’re restless during the stay-at-home order and looking for a change, try doing a glycolic acid facial peel instead of giving yourself a stick and poke tattoo or bangs that you will probably regret.

A glycolic acid peel speeds up skin cell turnover by dissolving the bonds between skin cells to reveal the clearer, smoother, younger-looking skin underneath. The best part? Glycolic acid also helps thicken skin. The irony here is that once you’re over 50, your skin has begun to thin, leaving it vulnerable to irritation from things like the glycolic acid peel you want to do to thicken your skin.

You can find a solution in LaSpa Intensive Anti-Aging Glycolic Peel, $130, lapsanaturals.com or Clementinefields.ca. Used every night over the course of a week (each jar contains 14 doses, enough for two one-week rounds) it is loaded with hyaluronic acid in addition to the glycolic acid, so your delicate skin is protected while the glycolic acid diligently does its dead-skin-cell munching thing. After the first two nights, you’ll glance into the mirror to see a glow that says you’ve been taking sunrise mountain hikes and doing beach yoga, as opposed to staying indoors eating Pringles and watching third tier Netflix choices.

After you’ve completed the one week peel, a once nightly swipe of Omorovicza Acid Solution, $145, Nordstrom.ca, will help maintain the glow. Acid Solution contains your now best friend, glycolic acid, as well as lactic acid which exfoliates but also moisturizes. It even has lipophilic (oil loving) salicylic acid to dissolve any errant blackheads that have recently colonized your nose and chin (a surprise gift you may have noticed when your pores get larger after menopause.)

And if after all this you are still intent on getting a stick and poke tattoo, how about these whimsical, wee trees?

Heavenly-Smelling Weleda Sheer Hydration Moisture Mist Fights Inescapable January

I love Tiktoks of men showing off the beer fridges built into the sides of their man-cave couches. I want tricked-out seating too, but I’d prefer a Montauk 'Scarlett' armchair, with a hidden fridge stash of Weleda Sheer Hydration Moisture Mist, bottled water and some cubed watermelon.

New from Weleda (and perfect timed to counteract January’s moisture-free air and general awfulness) Sheer Hydration Moisture Mist, $19.99, contains prickly pear cactus extract which helps winter-ravaged skin retain water. Prickly pear cactus leaves are full of mucilage, (the same ingredient in kindergarten glue), which is loaded with water-bonding polysaccharides. Add aloe vera juice, skin-plumping betaine and water-attracting glycerine and you have a near-perfect moisture delivery system.

It smells wonderful, its green mandarin and palmarosa scent providing an olfactory jolt of happy along with the moisture surge. Palmarosa smells like a field of roses took a beach vacation: lightly rosy, sunny and energizing.

The range also includes moisturizing lotion, cream and unscented eye gel that could live in your couchfridge™ to soothe Zoom-weary eyes. But for instant gratification, the hydrating mist is it. When you are too lethargic to open tubes and moisturize, you can always manage to lift an arm and spritz.