Face Matters

It was a scorching hot day in August when I had the pleasure of working for Sally Curson who is the founder and creator of skincare range; Face Matters

Until August of this year I knew nothing of Sally, her inspirational story or revolutionary skincare range. I was introduced to Sally by my amazing mentor, celebrity makeup artist SJ Froom . The idea was that Sally wanted 8 ladies from teens to eighties, photographed in natural makeup to show that her products work across all ages and skin types. By the end of the day I had made up eight fabulous ladies and learnt about Sally's amazing journey from the bereavement of losing her daughter, to an abusive marriage resulting in Sally and her two children residing in a Refuge. I also learnt that Sally now supports Refuge through charity events and the sale of her products.

Fast forward to the end of November and I am thrilled to be attending a charity event at The Long Barn in Sally's home town of Alresford. Sally talked about her story in more detail and also demonstrated her new facial treatments. Apparently this award winning skincare range was never planned. It came about when Sally (who worked as a beauty therapist) ran out of a skincare product and in a last ditched attempt to be able to offer her client their regular prescriptive facial, she used organic silicone, mixed with her usual blend of botanical oils. When her client called to say how amazing her skin was, Sally realised that this mineral may be worth researching further.

At the same time the stress that Sally was under resulted in her developing the skin condition rosacia. Unfortunately standard treatments such as steroid cream did not work, so Sally started researching products and ingredients and discovered that expensive skincare brands, were spending much of the consumer's money on advertising and marketing. Sally learnt that pure organic silicon helps increase epidermal thickness and skin elasticity. By stimulating the production of Collagen, a protein in our skin which is mainly made of silicon the collagen makes us look younger.

Unfortunately, you can’t just apply some collagen cream and expect it to go deep enough into your skin and work magic because the molecule itself is too big, plus it degrades easily making it incredibly difficult to work with. So Sally used a blend of high levels of organic silicon, rich in collagen, and super active botanical oils specially chosen for their anti ageing properties. The reason that Face Matters is successful is that the organic silicon in each of the products has been modified, here comes the science bit!...the hydroxide group of molecules is replaced by a methyl group and this provides the silicon molecule with properties that allow it to be absorbed into cells and it is this deep absorption which stimulates the production of collagen. To help treat her own skin, Sally carefully chose oils to blend with the mineral silicon to create a luxurious Elixir all of which have substantial healing and nourishing effects on the skin. They are all of the purest quality, with no bulking agents.

So do the products actually work? I started using the Morning Moisture, Anytime Cleanser and All Day Spritz (which is basically a Toner, and is amazing for cooling you down during a hot flush!) in September and in just 3 months, the change in my skin is amazing. Wrinkles have decreased and I have not been tempted to have any cosmetic enhancements such as Botox. Additionally the products smell amazing with a heady scent of natural oils including Rose, Jasmine, Geranium, Mandarin and Lemon. It's the zesty lemony smell in the Morning Moisture, that genuinely makes me feel refreshed and helps my skin glow. I have very bravely put some before and afters below, and yes I am wearing makeup in both (exactly the same products in both) as I did not want to scare small children! The results are subtle, but you can definitely see a reduction in the wrinkles around my eyes, what do you think?