A jolly little day cream for you: Melvita’s Nectar de Roses Infusion. You might think “jolly” a slightly odd word to use to describe a moisturiser, but it’s highly appropriate in this case – the sugared rose smell of the Hydrating Day Cream is just so cheerful and uplifting.

Nothing too complicated going on here – I tend to bung this on when I’m going to be indoors for most of the day – but it’s nicely moisturising if your skin is on the slightly dry side. Not too greasy, but you definitely feel the effects (it has shea butter in the base, which I find tends to leave a comforting sort of residue) and it leaves my skin nice and plumpy.

I’ve also been slathering this on in between makeup changes if I’ve been trying out a lot of different foundations. It feels quite soothing and it actually sits very nicely beneath the face bases, counteracting the tightness that I can sometimes get when I do too many cleanses in quick succession. (I tend to use cleansing wipes or micellar waters when I’m testing makeup in my studio, due to lack of a sink, so that doesn’t help with my general sense of skin comfort!)

Read: soothing moisturisers for sensitive faces…

For ultra-soothing and balancing and general skin-sorting, I haven’t found anything to beat the MV Organic Skincare Rose Soothing Protective Moisturiser, but I appreciate that it’s a far steeper investment at £77. Though you do get a whopping 70ml. My sister-in-law has seen her hormonal skin quite transformed by stripping back her routine and using MV. If you want to give it a whirl (I used it all the way through pregnancy to try and keep my skin on an even keel) you can find the moisturiser here.

But back to the Melvita (post got a bit gatecrashed there, didn’t it?): plenty of rose going on in this little tube of day cream. Rose extract, rose water, rose oil, and taken from a few different types of rose, too. Jam-packed with rose you could say. Jolly, jolly nice.

An important message for email subscribers; you have a new-look Daily Fix coming your way. It should be in your inbox right now, as a matter of fact, alongside the usual one. I’m de-commissioning the old system because there were quite a few glitches; the new one will be much more reliable. (There were thousands of people who weren’t receiving the daily emails – I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to fix this!)

So please check your inbox; you should have two versions of today’s post. The new one is very neat and has my funky face banner along the top – looks something like the one above, though not with yesterday’s content in it:

And the old one looks like…well, the old one. Here’s yesterday’s post in the previous format:

You don’t need to do anything at all with regards to this email changeover, unless you can’t see the new one in which case please check your spam filter/junk mail for it and mark as NOT JUNK. You’ll then continue to receive your Daily Fix every morning, happy as Larry. I have automatically moved your email addresses over, so this should all be seamless, but if for some reason you can’t see the new email at all then you can sign up here. The old email system (pink title, weird formatting) will be turned off by the end of the week.

Thanks everyone!

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Oh, this little mask is all kinds of wonderful. I haven’t been getting much sleep recently (have I mentioned that? Oh, at least fifteen thousand times. Sorry) and my skin has been a bit dry and crappy and – I don’t know – kind of baggy feeling. As though there’s no plumpness or volume to it. A bit like a dusty, half-shrunken balloon.

The Pixi Nourishing Sleep Mask has been properly stepping up to the plate in terms of boosting moisture and re-inflating my face – a quick application last thing at night and in the morning my skin looks dewy and a hell of a lot fresher than it would do otherwise.

The idea behind the Nourishing Sleep Mask is that it “seals” in the products that you apply first – so serum and moisturiser, or serum and oil, or serum, oil, moisturiser if you’re going bat-sh*t-crazy with all of your skincare that night. Personally, I think that this works really well over serum, but it doesn’t feel too much at all if you want to do serum and moisturiser. That’s the lovely thing about it – it’s very hydrating, but nice and lightweight. It’s not like sleeping in lard. Neither is it so light and “fresh” that it simply disappears; it definitely forms a nice, non-sticky, non-greasy topcoat.

You can also use the Nourishing Sleep Mask alone, over cleansed skin, if you’re feeling lazy – it’s very hydrating even without layering it on top of other stuff – but I really feel that it sort of supercharges my other products when I take the time to whack it on last. (It works well over the Olay Regenerist 3 Point Serum (currently half price here) and my Time Bomb Powerball Moisturiser (here). Very plumptious!)

This Pixi mask is definitely a winner in the Overnight Masks category – more than just a “moisturiser you leave on”, it feels as though it has a specific function and one that it does very well. It’s a bit like when you stick on a disposable shower cap over your hair masque (try it, it’s excellent for fixing dry ends); it locks everything in and gets it all working that bit harder. As an in-flight mask, this would be brilliant; for anyone who is tired, going to too many parties or simply seeing the effects of the central-heating-inside-cold-air-outside situation it’s a beauty lifesaver.

And not one that will break the bank, either – £18 at Cult Beauty.

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