Lengthiest post in the world alert. Do you remember when I recruited some skin care guinea pigs to test out the new Effaclar Anti-Blemish System*? Way back when the sun was shining and we weren’t being relentlessly pelted with hailstones and cold rain? Well the results are in. Overall, the response is great. I have to say that I was slightly apprehensive about the testers only being able to use the Effaclar system; in normal life, you probably wouldn’t use a treatment like this so exclusively. Or I wouldn’t, at any rate. I was terrified that I’d get reports of dried-up skin or signs of over-exfoliation and actually, I do think that the more negative experiences with the system are due to the fact that it’s very inflexible on the skin if you’re only able to use three things, all of them from the same range. Sometimes you need more moisture, or you need to swap in a creamier cleanser or a different acid exfoliant to change things up a bit. But, as I said, the general response was overwhelmingly positive. I’ll recap my own personal thoughts at the end (I tried it too) but for now, let’s get going with the testers’ feedback.

(Just a few preliminary notes: the set consisted of a cleaner, toner and blemish treatment “moisturiser”. I asked the testers to test until the products ran out, or for around 6-8 weeks, and I also asked that they try not to mix in any other products so that we could get a fair idea of the results.)

Reviews from my two seventeen year-old testers (one male, one female) and my thirty year-old female tester were positively glowing. Harry (17) said that he had seen a “huge improvement” to his skin and that he was totally converted to La Roche-Posay – he had previously been using an American system called ProActiv. In his detailed review, Harry said that the cleanser cleansed beautifully without being stripping, the toner was “just wonderful” and that the Duo+ “really does reduce the appearance of angry red spots and prevents future breakouts”. It was great to get a male perspective on the set – Harry said that it is “easy to apply and takes no longer than brushing your teeth would.” He found Effaclar to be “gentle to apply” in comparison to the ProActiv which he didn’t have a great experience with; “the skin felt raw after every use and it was really abrasive on the skin”.

Frances (also 17) wrote me a gorgeously detailed review with a great tip about decanting the toner into a little spray bottle – something that Harry mentioned too. I think that’s a brilliant idea – Frances said “I find it easier to apply toners that way and to be honest, it’s a lot more therapeutic to spray it on.” Frances had never had acne before, but for about three months before starting the Effaclar system her forehead and T-zone had been “irritated and covered in blemishes” – her forehead was “rather red and angry all the time, especially after cleansing.” Frances found the foaming gel cleanser to be “very gentle on the skin” and said that the toner was “soothing, hydrating and sort of tightening on the pores”. Her verdict on the Anti-Blemish System? “I haven’t had any active breakouts since using the Effaclar system throughout the past 2 months! I don’t have any redness on my T zone either and my blackheads and pores haven’t disappeared, but they’ve definitely reduced visibly. I would say my skin is now combination/normal, since my skin doesn’t become shiny after 3 hours anymore. (Now it’s more like 5-6 hours) which is such an improvement and I’m really happy at the result as it’s only been about 2 months.”

Diana (30) also had a great experience. She said “I found that using all three products in the kit over the six week period really improved the appearance of my skin to the point that it is calm and clear. Prior to using this kit, I had regular breakouts, especially in my oily T-zone area.” Diana has fairly sensitive skin, and she said that she was “initially sceptical of the foaming gel” due to previous bad experiences, but she felt that it worked well for her, saying “even after the first use, it had a very calming effect on my inflamed acne areas.” Diana also really rated the toner, but found the Effaclar Duo+ to be a little bit drying when she used it all over her face. She took matters into her own hands (excellent!) and only applied to the areas with breakouts and said that this worked “fantastically well” for her.

I must say that I do get occasional reports of people saying that they can’t use the Duo+ all over their skin; if you don’t need it all over, then don’t use it all over! I do, and I find that it works well for me, giving my skin a kind of all-over clarifying session. But what works for me might not necessarily work for others and I do think that – as with all skin care – you need to adapt products to suit your own face.

My twenty-two year-old tester, Beth, also found that the Duo+ didn’t provide her skin with enough moisture when used all over – she said “I figured it was almost the serum/anti-blemish step before locking down my moisturiser”. (Again, nothing wrong with applying moisturiser over the top, but we do have to note that I instructed the testers to use only the Effaclar system and nothing else. Silly me with my rules!) I had Beth’s report after two weeks of Effaclar use, and at the time of her initially writing to me she hadn’t fared quite so well; she saw no reduction in her spots and had a few “under the skin monsters” that had appeared. Because of this she was swapping in her Pixi Glow Tonic for the Effaclar toner, every now and then, as she felt she needed a tried-and-tested acid exfoliant she could rely on. I emailed Beth for an update and unfortunately she had been forced to end her trial early as the set just wasn’t working out for her at all. She liked the toner step, and continued with that, but didn’t want to risk making her skin worse if it wasn’t agreeing with the Effaclar routine and so stopped using the other products.

My final tester was Andrea, aged 40. Andrea used the set and nothing else for the whole of August. She said  “I found that the good parts of my skin looked in better condition and felt smoother. However it wasn’t enough to combat my hormonal and stress related acne which is mainly concentrated around my jawline.” Andrea actually saw the bad parts of her skin worsen slightly, but put that down to the fact that she wasn’t using any additional targeted spot creams. Andrea didn’t find the Effaclar set strong enough on its own to keep her acne at bay.

Interesting! Three excellent experiences, one reviewer who needed something more powerful and one who simply didn’t get on with the set at all. My own experience? I used the set over my “PMT days” for around a week and it worked very well. I couldn’t have really done much more time than that (which is why I recruited my testers in the first place) because I don’t have blemish-prone skin for most of the month. It’s a hormonal thing.

In terms of the individual products, it’s the toner and the Duo+ that I’m most taken with. I’m not the hugest fan of the type of foaming rinse-off cleanser that’s included in the set, preferring a cleansing balm that I can really work into the skin, but I didn’t particularly have any issues with the Effaclar one. It didn’t feel moisturising, but neither did it leave my skin feeling over-dried. I can totally understand why that’s included in the set, it works well with the other products, but perhaps my skin isn’t oily enough to really benefit! I loved the toner with salicylic acid. Lovely formula, it’s a great step to add in before your serum if you want to give your skin a little blemish-busting boost and it actually feels very soothing on angry skin. (Please note that this is NOT the same toner that gets a “poor” rating on popular website Paula’s Choice; this toner has a different ingredients list and is alcohol-free as well as containing lactic acid and zinc oxide. Altogether a nicer kettle of fish. I only add this note because quite a few people brought it up over the summer.)

If you’re a long-term reader of A Model Recommends you’ll already know my feelings on the Effaclar Duo+; I adored the original version and love this one too. For me, it was one of the only things that truly cleared my skin up in an emergency. I now use it sparingly when spots threaten and rarely get any actual blemish trouble. I think that it’s a beauty cupboard staple, really, and the feedback I’ve had from readers who’ve used it has been phenomenal. It’s actually the reason I agreed to feature a trial of the Effaclar set in the first place – I think that there’s a shortage of spot treatments that are properly effective without forming that drying protective film that you usually get with more targeted treatments. Duo+ seems to do the trick without resorting to extremely harsh, eye-watering methods.

And so the verdict? I suppose I should leave you to reach your own conclusions based on the tester findings; the toner does seem to be enormously popular and I think that there will be a few people rushing to the shelves when (if) it launches as a standalone product. (For me, it’s up there with Serozinc which is a soothing spray that helps to keep spots at bay. Not available in the UK, at present, but I’d imagine there would be stampedes for it – I really do think that there’s a real lack of good, uncomplicated spot things that don’t smell of tea tree and make your eyes cry. You can read about Serozinc over on Caroline Hirons’ blog.) As I said, the Duo has always been a winner in my books – you can browse through all of the mentions and rave posts here!

You can find the Effaclar Anti-Blemish System at Boots here (there’s 3 for 2 on across the La Roche-Posay brand at the moment) – and if you fancy just trying the Duo+ then Escentual.com have a third off all “pharmacy” skin care products this month. If you’re on the constant battle to fight down acne then it could be a nice one to try and at just over a tenner (with the discount) it won’t break the bank. Please do let me know your own feedback and comments below, I’d love to know how you’ve found the set if you purchased it last month!

*this post is the second half of a sponsored review project. For the first part please click here.

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Ah – nearly every single one of you answered correctly to my little giveaway question last week – I think I must have made the clues too easy! I asked which “city” (strictly speaking, it’s a principality) was represented by my brand new, glamorous-smelling Colab dry shampoo and most of you said Monaco. Well done. Winners have been notified by email so please do check your inboxes and spam filters and what have you.

I’m exceedingly proud of this particular Colab scent because it manages to smell rich and indulgent and heady, like some kind of holiday body oil, but it’s actually a light, sheer dry shampoo in a spray can! I’ve been skipping my perfume quite a lot since I received the final production samples of Colab Monaco – I find that a good dousing of the Sheer & Invisible in my roots leaves me perfumed enough for the day without any extra anointing of the pulse points. I do this pretty much every second day, actually, because during my last trimester of pregnancy my hair has been a little bit lanker at the roots and I’ve needed a little bit of oomph to stop it lying so flat. It never feels greasy so much as just…disappointing. So yes, a few big spritzes in the underneath layers and a nice little fingertip-massage and my hair starts to behave itself that bit better.

The Monaco scent, by the way, was inspired by some of my favourite summer fragrances; those heady, unisex ones with classic cologne notes. Think Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino, some of the lighter and fresher Acqua di Parma scents, the solid, original 4711 cologne… I wanted that absolute headiness that you get with neroli fragrances and then a lovely lightness from the citrus and a bit of sexy warmth from the amber – glamorous but completely wearable. And I must say, very moreish.

Monaco launches at Superdrug tomorrow, so keep an eye out here – and make sure you take a look at the Colab Instagram page, they are running the most amazing competition with Superdrug to win a luxury trip for two to Monaco. Swish hotel, helicopter rides and Michelin star restaurants…it is well worth giving this a shot!

Colab Instagram Competition 

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Spoiler alert: there are really not very many “cons” to be had when it comes to the concept of a home massage. Especially a home massage done as proficiently and effectively as the one I had from Jo at Home Spa London: she arrived at my house at ten to twelve, I was on the treatment table by noon and my pregnancy massage, (finished at one o’ clock on the dot) left me so floaty that I had to have a two hour nap!

And the nap thing brings me to the most important “pro”: the fact that, after a home massage, you can just relax and not think about anything at all. Take a bath, take a nap, curl up on the sofa with a book – anything that’s quiet and serene and that continues the whole zen-like vibe that a good massage gives you. Because there’s nothing worse than having an hour of blissful, head-in-the-clouds “me time” and then coming crashing back down to earth when you realise that you need to be at a meeting at half-past three and you’re running late and you’ll have to catch the tube and change four times to get there in time. The back-to-reality stink of the city and hot crush of public transport almost entirely negates the good that the treatment does in the first place!

If I’m even remotely normal (Im probably not, but let’s quickly move on) then there will be quite a few people for whom the very last part of a massage is the best; the bit when you’re just drifting off to sleep and you’ve become entirely unaware of your surroundings. If your brain is doing anything at all then it’s saying please, PLEASE tell me there’s another half an hour to go! All I want to do is sleep! How nice would it be if – after you’d been gently summoned back to semi-consciousness- you could just roll onto a waiting day-bed, nice and warm, cover yourself with a little quilt and get some quality sleep? I know that most good spas do have the bits and pieces to facilitate this – a quiet room with day beds or what have you – but quite often there are people chatting or there’s annoying music playing or therapists come and whisper at you to ask you if you’d like some water or herbal tea or whether you’d like a magazine to read, or to remind you that there’s a jacuzzi at your disposal or to ask you whether or not you enjoyed your treatment…

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No, there is nothing like a home nap. So it follows, I suppose, that there’s nothing like a home massage. Unless your house is particularly noisy or filled with children and animals or you get about twelve thousand delivery men ringing your doorbell every day. (Me.) That is the only “con”, really: you need to take measures to ensure that your home is as peaceful as possible, at least for an hour or two. I made Mr AMR take the dog for a very long walk and I put a massive notice on my front door forbidding any delivery drivers from ringing the bell; I made sure that there were at least two shut doors between me and the cat (he would most definitely have jumped on me) and I turned my mobile phone off and unplugged the house phone. God, it was bliss!

Jo from Home Spa London arrived with everything needed to recreate the spa experience; comfy massage table, floaty music, lovely soft towels. All I needed to provide was a suitable room – family AMR were mid-move at this point, so Jo and I set up in the spare room next to a propped up mattress and with Mr AMR’s power drill set in the corner! It was strange, though, how after about three minutes of blissful massage I completely forgot where I was. I hadn’t had any kind of massage or body treatment since becoming pregnant*, so at first it felt a bit strange to be touched, but Jo is a really experienced pregnancy masseur and I felt very safe and comfortable. (The bump and surrounding tissues were completely avoided; it was all about the back and shoulders and legs and hips!) I definitely want to do this again before the baby arrives – such a treat to be able to simply flop onto the couch afterwards. I thought that I would feel shortchanged, not being in a swishy spa environment, but the fact that I didn’t have to haul myself up and travel back home was just the best spa “perk” ever!

So, pros and cons of a home massage? Pros: you don’t have to travel to a spa, you can properly rest and relax afterwards and the time that you would have spent travelling back and forth can be spent (without any sense of guilt!) dozing and languishing in the lovely post-massage brain-fug. There’s also no changing room/locker allocation/talking to receptionist/being-shown-about-the-spa kind of faff; all of that stuff that can totally kill your relaxed mood. Cons: it’s often quite nice to go to a spa, for a change of scenery! And they are – usually – lovely and quiet, free from barking dogs and postmen and neighbours chatting about moles over the garden fence. But – as detailed above – it’s really quite simple to kill the noise in your home, if you give it a little thought and preparation. Overall, the pros most definitely outweigh the cons!

You can find out more about Home Spa London here – the pregnancy massage costs £60 for 60 minutes, incredibly reasonable.

*If you’d like to keep up with my pregnancy week-by-week diary, you can find it over on The Uphill. The eye mask shown in the photograph is by Wildfox.

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