- Hello, lovely people.
In this video, I'll be coming to you
mainly from my bathroom.
Hello, and welcome to my bathroom.
Please don't judge it.
It is one of the rooms we will eventually get renovated.
So I'm a vintage lover.
I sleep in sponge rollers, I don't own a pair of jeans,
and my lipstick is always, always red,
to the extent that I now find my face without red lipstick
rather alarming.
(Gasps) What happened to my lips?
Where did they go?
Ah, my lips are back.
But when it comes to lady-like pampering,
I'm sorely lacking.
I'm lucky enough to have had eczema on my face as a child.
Wait for the luck bit.
Which means that I pretty much missed
all of the years of teenage spots.
Whilst my friends were complaining
about the annoying spot at the end of their nose,
I was busy trying to avoid perfumes, wool,
and the angry red rash that shows up on my neck
when I'm close to grass.
Yes, I'm allergic to grass, the type that grows
in your average British garden.
I get red welts on my legs if it hits my naked skin.
Do I still take aesthetically pleasing shots
in long grass?
Yes, yes, I do.
I was even born with angry red eczema
across my face and eyelids.
I was not, as my parents liked to say, a looker,
but one of the most common compliments I now receive
is that I have lovely skin.
Why, thank you.
Often followed by, "what's your skincare routine?"
And I'm like.
(crickets chirping)
I'm meant to have a skincare routine?
Yes, I have somehow reached the age of 31
without investing in a complicated 10 step process
of different tubes and oils,
and I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure what toner is.
I mean, I wash my face with water,
I put suntan lotion on, I remove my makeup
with makeup wipes before I go to sleep,
and I probably wear makeup every third day, maybe.
Is that a skincare routine?
You tell me.
But according to the internet, I should have a process
which I follow morning and night, every day.
It feels like a lot of work.
So I thought I'd start where I feel most comfortable,
living the life of my grandmother, but gay.
My grandmother, like most women in the 1950s,
followed a very simple two step routine
morning and evening.
Number one, violently wash your entire head with Pears soap.
Number two, smother yourself in cold cream,
and then, scrape it off.
But like, make it sound flowery and less violent.
To kickstart my new beginning into actually taking care
of my skin, sorry for largely ignoring you before,
I'm going to follow a 1950s skincare routine
for a whole week.
Step one is not just cleaning your skin, oh, no.
According to 1950s guides, this is the time
to give your skin a good, invigorating workout.
The advice is to have a daily bath or shower,
and then go to town, scrubbing your face
with a washcloth to carry away all soapy residue.
The aim is to stimulate the skin, and wake it up all over.
I should probably tell you, at this point,
I don't actually have a daily bath,
because that's really bad for my eczema,
so steamy sink will have to do.
We're going to stimulate my skin and wake it up.
Also, cover it in soap, but then, get rid of the soap.
Friction is apparently the most important thing here,
as is covering my neck and my ears,
and to be honest, I don't especially make a point
to clean behind ears, and now I realize I should.
I'm using Pears transparent soap,
which was available in the 1950s,
and still is available today.
I will leave a link in the description down below
because I actually care about my skin.
Most soaps in the 1950s had carbolic acid in, which,
I don't know whether I have a massive
yearning to put on my face.
Just stood for five minutes waiting for the tap to warm and,
it's not even that warm, so!
We really need a new boiler.
(smooth music)
Let's actually add some soap in here.
To my incredibly lukewarm water.
(smooth music)
I smell a bit like a grandmother, but, I love it.
Vigorous, vigorous.
(smooth music)
What a nice way just to start your day, I think.
Scraping your entire face off.
All right.
Once you have successfully rubbed all of the soap off,
it's time to watch your face with cold water
which clearly won't be a problem.
Okay, ooh.
That's cold.
Step two, cold cream, which is an emulsion of water and fat
designed to smooth your skin.
Apparently it also removes makeup
which we fill find out this evening.
So the breadth of my moisturizer knowledge
is that cold cream is a water in oil
which makes it stay on your skin,
whilst other moisturizers are an oil in water
which mean that they are absorbed into your skin.
I'm gonna leave the link to this in the description as well
and can I just say,
I'm really impressed by the color aesthetic.
I'm so pleased about this.
It suggests in the vintage instructions to pin your hair
out of the way, but I will be using my,
my lovely wife's hair wrap.
Claudia actually has a skincare routine because
she hit 30 and decided she had to research skincare.
And I was like, yeah, I'll continue using
water and makeup wipes, thanks.
But now look, see, I'm learning and growing.
Smother your face in cream, give a little massage
and delicately remove using tissue.
Apparently during this massage, you're supposed to pay
special attention to the bits of your face
where dirt collects.
So that's like the, what do you call this bit?
Bits where skin folds.
And I don't know.
But not your eyes, don't stick it in your eyes.
Let's get smothering.
(smooth music)
Okay.
All right, I think we've successfully
really rubbed this all over my face now.
Not really gone anywhere, so, start removing.
Use tissue and a fresh little section of tissue
to wipe away each bit.
I feel like I'm really just rubbing this into my hair.
Probably should've thought that true.
This is a harder job than first assumed.
The cream doesn't really appear to be going anywhere.
I mean it smells very pleasant but it's really up there.
How are you supposed to do this,
avoiding your hair and your eyes?
Clearly my skincare skills are not on point.
Okay.
Ooh, well, ha.
My hair's pretty oily now.
Feels very smooth but then also my hands
feel incredibly oily, so.
It's gonna work as the moisturizer
that I'm then gonna put makeup on.
I'm gonna go out to brunch with my gals.
And then we're spending the day doing,
today, catching up on work stuff.
Anyway.
Yes.
Gonna film some videos and then when I come back
this evening, you'll see me as I try and take my makeup off
using cold cream, which apparently is possible.
We'll see.
Hello, how do you do?
Hope you've had a good day.
It is only the end of day one and I have already somehow
managed to forget that I was meant to be doing this.
And now I left it late and it's 9:20
and I want to go to bed.
But no, we're gonna do a whole routine thing
in which I smother my face in cold cream
in an attempt to remove my makeup
and somehow magically not get it in my eyes.
Have you seen my eyes?
They are tiny.
Oh, and I just ran out of light battery.
Okay, I put another battery in.
I feel like I need to have tissues ready.
All right.
How am I using cream to remove eyeliner?
Remember again, massaging the face
is apparently very important.
Little circles.
Work upwards.
I guess the aim of that is to kind of defy gravity.
I'm gonna attempt to put less cream into my hair
than last time because I've been dealing with
oily hair all day.
I may have put too much cream on my face,
I realize this now.
Oh!
My lipstick's actually coming off.
Everything I touch is turning red right now.
(giggling)
- Hello. - Hello.
Do you need to brush your teeth?
- Yeah.
(Claudia mumbling through toothbrush)
- Huh?
- Use a cotton roll pad because this looks like
it's gonna end very badly.
- Go to bed.
I'll see you there.
- [Claudia] Yeah, no dirty faces allowed in the bed.
Only dirty minds.
(laughing loudly)
- End of day one, have to say.
My skin feels quite soft and smooth.
But now it feels really oily.
But like, in a good way.
(smooth music)
Good morning, good morning.
I feel very peppy today.
Right, I actually didn't leave too much eyeliner
on my pillow, which is good.
Let's go.
I think my skin feels a bit tighter, a bit dryer maybe.
Warm water.
Lovely.
Get my trusty Pears soap.
Claudia says that she loves the smell of this soap now
because it smells like her grandma.
Oh!
(smooth music)
Let's do some vigorous face wake ups with a towel.
There's that eyeliner I didn't manage
to get off last night.
Okay, cold cream time.
I learnt from yesterday, not too much, Jessica.
I've also got my tissues ready and standing by.
Oh my god, I should take my rings off.
(smooth music)
Now I have to put lots of makeup on top of this because
I've got a full day of filming.
(smooth music)
It is very early in the morning of Day Three because
I have to go to London today for my lovely work trip.
And so I'm gonna try and get ready really early
and then I can get some stuff done
and go where I have to go.
Now I've realized that I'm half asleep
but I hope that I do my makeup routine
before I put my makeup on.
No no no.
Gotta do my skincare routine before I put my makeup on.
That's where we're going.
Also I think I have a spot beginning right there.
Interesting.
Let's rub this off.
If you can see this line, it's my pillow.
Rinse with cold water.
Which is totally different to the water I was using.
You may notice a slight change in camera angle.
I dropped my phone on the floor.
There we go.
Interesting.
And wipe off with cotton pad.
Reusable cotton pads, who knew?
Done!
And it's still only, 6:20.
All right, cool.
We're staying in a fancy hotel for my big talk tomorrow.
And I'm really tired.
And I have to comb my hair, get some rest.
But now, continuing my skincare routine.
When I put my mind to something,
gotta be determined about it.
It looks kind of horrific, yeah, when I take
my lipstick off, I know.
(smooth music)
But it's also meant to be invigorating.
And I'm just tired.
And I want to do my hair and go to sleep.
(smooth music)
Good morning!
As you can tell, we are not in a fancy hotel.
Our event was canceled due to the coronavirus.
So, welcome back to my house!
I haven't done my skin yet this morning.
I have just had a bath.
Looking at my skin.
I have this really annoying dry patch right here.
It's actually going kind of weird.
It doesn't feel as soft as the rest of my face.
And also there's a dry bit here.
And I have this thing here that may or may not
become a spot in a couple of days.
I don't know.
Also, my eyes feel really sore and quite, like, sensitive.
I noticed when I was putting my makeup on yesterday.
Skincare routine's going well.
Let's continue with it.
(smooth music)
The cold cream really, really stings on the dry bit.
Oh.
Guess once you've started something,
you have to continue it.
(smooth music)
I am so tired.
I don't want to do this.
But, when I say I'm gonna do something, I stick with it.
And look.
I got out of bed.
I put a top on.
And pearls, obviously.
I'm putting this on my head even though
I'm already wearing a headband.
For reasons I haven't quite thought through.
I'm still iffy on the pros and cons
of putting soap on my face, but,
I'm just following instructions.
I do actually quite like scrubbing at my face,
it's strangely pleasant.
One thing I have realized about this skincare routine
is that normally when I use makeup wipes,
I'm lying down in bed and my head is against a pillow.
But now I have to hold my head up.
I didn't realize how annoying that was before.
I just got cream in my hair.
Wow!
So greasy.
Oh my god I put so much cold cream in my hair, oh.
(smooth music)
(vinyl scratch)
What the hell has happened to my face?
What is this?
How?
I have dry skin here, here.
What the hell is this?
And spots here, and here.
And weirdly blocked pores here.
This never normally happens to my face.
What the hell?
Is this because I've been rubbing soap on it twice a day?
Maybe.
Is it because I'm, I don't know,
am I allergic to something in Pond's cold cream?
Is that even possible?
Plus points, I'm really enjoying massaging
my face every day.
I think my face quite likes that.
It's really good at taking makeup off, so yay.
Um.
Do genuinely feel like my face is falling apart,
like I have eczema developing over here.
But also spots.
So I'm gonna end this early.
It hurts.
I put makeup on it and it stung.
I was like.
So we've realized that a 1950s skincare routine
is perhaps, not for me.
Please feel free to suggest another decade, any decade,
in the comments down below, and I'll try that for a week
and see if that perhaps works better.
I hope this video's been helpful for you if you, like me
are interested in going on a skincare journey
and learning how you're meant to take care of your skin.
Apparently, this isn't it.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you haven't already, please do subscribe.
You will be able to see more vintage skincare videos,
probably filmed in a few weeks
once my skin has calmed down from this mess.
Thank you once again.
Goodbye.
(smooth music)
(music abruptly stops)
(smooth music)