Skincare. It’s always been something that I’ve assumed I was fairly au fait with. It wasn’t until a recent conversation with my Mum, and her horrified reaction to my confession that I hadn’t used toner in ‘sometime’, that I thought it was perhaps time for me to review my skincare regime. As a busy working Mum, it’s easy to let your self-care slip, and when I reviewed my skincare it revealed that this was one area that I had certainly, let slip! Thank goodness that there are good skin genetics in my family, but I couldn’t coast along on that bit of serendipity for much longer. It’s not that I’ve never looked after my skin, I most definitely have, and have enjoyed dalliances with some higher end brands including Decleor, Estee Lauder and Lancome. My skin has never been problematic, but the lack of attention I’ve been paying to it in recent years had definitely started to show in a dull and tired looking complexion.

I set about doing some research, deciding that actually I would like to find a brand that I can be loyal to this time around. My criteria were that it should be clean and not full of nasty chemicals, mid-range (i.e. not something I can readily pick up on the high street for a few quid, but not something that I have sacrifice a month’s worth of mortgage payments to afford either), and finally, most definitely not tested on animals. I decided then to give REN a try.

My first step was to book an online skincare consultation, which was done over video call. My consultant was absolutely lovely, and so helpful. I was a bit anxious about how a video skincare consultation would work, but having now experienced one, I think I prefer it to the in store variety. A full half an hour, no interruptions, no other customers hovering to try to get your consultant to cash up their bottle of eyemakeup remover and the privacy to discuss your skincare concerns without an audience. What’s not to like?

I’d asked for a full list of recommendations, and told the consultant my concerns about lacklustre skin, and after the call my recommendations were all emailed to me with no obligation to buy. I needed a night cream quite urgently, so decided to opt for that as my main purchase and as luck would have it, there was a promotion on at REN at the time which meant I was able to bag trial sizes of the majority of the other products that the consultant had recommended.

Since 19th May, I have been religiously using the Ready steady glow AHA tonic, and the Evercalm overnight recovery balm and I am so pleased with the results. I was a bit sceptical about the tonic, especially as my skin can be somewhat sensitive, but actually what it has done has totally brightened up and smoothed out my skin, which is exactly what I feel was lacking. The night balm is just lush, calming very moisture rich and thankfully, none of the items seems to be overly fragranced.

I will definitely be purchasing a full size bottle of the AHA tonic at the end of the month, and feel that as each of my other products runs out that I would like to replace them with REN. The range feels nice to use, I can see results, and it’s ethical too so really, it’s a winner on all fronts for me.