How can pollution affect your skin?

As with all good skincare routines, first up you bet you’ll want to cleanse. Helping to remove grime, dirt and other nasties from your face, you can see why cleansing is pretty crucial – even the novices among us are likely to be advocates of a good face wash. In this anti-pollution skincare routine to help revive dull skin, we’re championing our Tea Tree Skin Clearing Facial Wash to help prep skin. Enriched with Community Fair Trade tea tree oil from Kenya, this vegan face wash helps to remove impurities and excess oil from the skin’s surface, leaving it feeling deeply cleansed and refreshed. Start off with a small dollop in the centre of your palm, rub your hands together and massage into your wet face, using circular motions upwards from neck to hairline to help cleanse the skin. It creates a rich lather that feels gentle and cooling. Rinse off with lukewarm water.

Now you’re ready for our best anti-pollution face mask to help liberate your face of everyday impurities. Who said taking care of your skin is all work and no play? With our Japanese Matcha Tea Pollution Clearing Mask you’ll feel like you’re painting your face in a pleasing ritual that recalls the relaxing sensation of raking sand through a zen garden. Use our Facial Mask Brush to apply the mask in circular motions, making a loop around your forehead, down your temple and back up around your nose, avoiding the eye area. Make figure-of-eight loops across the rest of your face until you have a smooth and even layer over your whole visage. This creamy, authentic-feeling vegan face mask is enriched with matcha green tea from Kakegawa, Japan, dandelion extract and Community Fair Trade organic aloe vera from Mexico. So it’s pretty worldly, just like you.

We don’t need to tell you twice, do we. This is your moment to relax and let the anti-pollution face mask set to work. It only needs 5-10 minutes, so it’s the perfect excuse to put your feet up and read a chapter of your current book or plug into a mini podcast episode without having to contend with commuters. And when’s the last time you got a chance to do that? You’ll be able to really feel it getting to work thanks to a pleasant cooling and tingling sensation, that’s still gentle on skin. Lie back and soak up the scent of the mask – it’s like a breath of utterly blissful fresh air for skin.

Wet one of our Muslin Cloths in lukewarm water and gently massage it into skin in small circular motions to help exfoliate and remove the face mask, ousting every trace of it from even the nooks and crannies of your complexion – pay particular attention to the nose and be careful around the delicate eye area. After removing this indulgent-feeling treat, your face will look rejuvenated and clarified, as if the dullness, impurities, pollution and grime that have built up during the day have been peeled off.

Before you do your fresh-feeling skin victory jig make sure to properly follow up your face mask by toning. Don’t roll the dice with your face – this step is important. Though often omitted, toning will help ensure that you’ve dislodged any lingering remnants of the face mask as well as remaining dirt and impurities from the skin that are too small for the naked eye to spot. And the product to use? Make it our Tea Tree Skin Clearing Mattifying Toner. Shake the bottle, then apply to one of our Organic Cotton Pads and pat it all over your face, avoiding the eye area, as ever. It helps skin to feel refreshed and clean without over-drying, with any excess oil on the skin's surface appearing vamoosed.

Gold star for you if you finish your skincare-reviving game with our serum. Our Drops of Youth™ Youth Concentrate will help skin’s tone look more even and your face feel soothed. Apply 2-3 drops into the palm of one hand, rub hands together and gently massage into your face. This serum has a fresh texture and absorbs quickly into skin without any greasiness. It’s non-comedogenic, meaning its formula is designed to reduce the chances of pores getting blocked. Ideal, then, if your skin is oily or blemish-prone, or even if it just comes up against all sorts of aggressors in your day-to-day. You’ll know you’re winning because it helps skin to feel moisturised and its overall appearance to be improved.