Ask Alice

Hi Cath, I don’t know if Zooki’s collagen supplement contains liposomes – the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that Zooki’s Vitamin C didn’t contain liposomes in November 2021, so they have been changing their claims since then, and the same may apply to their collagen. Totally Derma is fab and it’s all you need for collagen supplementation, though I back it up with Altrient C which has a proven liposomal delivery system and which boosts collagen production by a different mechanism.

Ah, sympathies. I’d start with your doctor, to consider hormone replacement, as this has such a huge and fundamental effect on everything from brain and heart health, to our skin (more oestrogen means more collagen in the skin, which means stronger, firmer, better hydrated skin that doesn’t look so old and tired). Then skincare! Take a look at the skincare advice on our downloadable factsheet about dry, rough skin, which you can grab on this page.  If you want more detail, I’ve written a whole book called Start with Skincare which you can find on Amazon. In terms of products, start with a gentle cleanser, a vitamin C serum, a moisturiser and a sunscreen every morning, then in the evenings, use the cleanser, some sort of night treatment product with retinol, and moisturiser. Give it a few months and your skin should be looking and feeling much better. Good luck.

Wow, congratulations! Start with your skincare – I’d suggest a gentle cleanser, a vitamin C serum, a moisturiser, and a sunscreen for the day, and for the evening, something with retinol or retinal (a bit stronger) in it, plus the moisturiser. Take a look at this collection to see the sort of products I prefer, and how I’d suggest using them. Then find a great practitioner – you can put your postcode into our practitioner finder – and book a consultation to see what they suggest to treat your other concerns.

You’re right, sebaceous hyperplasia, where you get lots of little bumps under the skin where oil has become trapped, is an absolute pain. I have lots of them on my face and when I went to see a dermatologist about this recently, he told me that they become more common with age, and to get rid of existing ones you need to tackle them directly with lasers. To reduce the rate at which they’re forming, he suggested sticking to skincare that would clean, hydrate and regenerate the skin without adding any extra oil, so that’s a glycolic or vitamin-C based wash-off cleanser, an L-ascorbic acid vitamin C serum in the mornings, plus a hyaluronic acid serum for hydration, then a mineral-based sunscreen, and at night, the same glycolic wash, plus a glycolic-acid night treatment product (or retinoid), or just the hydrating serum if you don’t want to use the treatment product every night.

Hi, oddly enough, microcurrent devices work really well on faces treated with toxin – because the microcurrent helps keep muscle tone in the muscles while they aren’t being worked by the usual facial expressions (toxin doesn’t do anything to the muscles; it disables the neurotransmitters that send messages to the muscles to contract. So, microcurrent is not directly counteracting the treatment). All the device manufacturers suggest you wait for two weeks before using microcurrent after toxin injections, and the same after filler injections (after two weeks, the filler will be properly settled).

Start with good, active skincare – a vitamin C serum, a moisturiser and a sunscreen in the morning, and a retinoid in the evening – and see what difference that makes. I’m not keen on home microneedling because most skincare products are not designed to be bombed deep into the skin through needled holes, and also most of us are not very careful about needling all areas of the skin equally, and gently. I’d prefer you stuck with skincare and when your skin is acclimatised to the retinol or retinoid that you’re using, moving up to a stronger product, to keep stimulating your skin to renew itself.

Hi, yes the NuFACE is a great device, as long as you commit to using it enough. It helps to tone the muscles in the skin and improve circulation but it won’t give you a facelift, nor will it get rid of deep upper lip lines. For those, I would suggest having a read of my factsheet all about barcode lip lines – which you can download on the associated tweakments page here. Recently, I have seen good results from both Belotero Revive (which is a type of injectable moisturiser) and the Halo laser. The deeper your practitioner is prepared to go with a laser like this, the better the improvements that you can see, but there’s a period of downtime and recovery afterwards.

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Ah, tricky! They’re all great. Why not start with the Elequra Eye Architecture cream and see what that does for you? If you have the budget, the Medik8 R-Retinoate eye cream is fab. It will give you results, but it’s gentle with it.

In terms of products, use any you like – you can find a selection of my favourite eye creams/ serums here.

Skincare can only do so much though. It won’t tighten eyelid skin significantly and a blepharoplasty may be necessary to get any real results, especially if the eyelids are very lax, as you say. The only way to know what’s best for you is to have a consultation with a surgeon. Look for an oculoplastic surgeon who specialises in eyes and is very experienced in blepharoplasties (search ‘oculoplastic’ on this site for the ones that are listed here).

Laser treatment around the eyes and across the eyelids will tighten the skin but again you want this done by someone who is highly experienced in treating the eye area. You need to have eye protectors, like metal or hard plastic contact lenses, inserted into the eyes for this sort of procedure, which puts some people off.

In between these options, Tixel (a heat-based skin tightening device) can help with eyelids and around the eye. Here’s a link to the page about this treatment

Hi, I’d suggest starting with some great skincare to address the quality of your skin and get it looking a bit fresher and livelier. Take a look at some of the products in the TTG shop eg this radiance-boosting bundle – there are videos explaining what the products do and why I rate them.

It’s worth considering hormone replacement treatment (start with your GP). Losing oestrogen as we go through the menopause wreaks havoc on the skin (as well as on our moods, joints, sleep etc) and replacing it helps the skin to function so much better and to regain a good deal of its strength, bounce and hydration.

Re dark hollows under your eyes and a lack of volume in your face… that’s perfectly normal and comes to us all with age, but if you’re up for tweakments, fillers are the answer – done with great care by an expert practitioner. Take a look at the practitioner finder to locate someone in your area.

These three on this link are all brilliant eye creams.

Also, wear sunscreen during the day, to protect the delicate skin around your eyes from damaging UV rays.

Cosmelan and its sister treatment Dermamelan are extremely effective professional programmes for treating all types of pigmentation, including stubborn melasma. Melasma can be particularly tricky to treat because it is hormonally driven, which means it can come back time and again. When it comes to melasma, treatment is more a question of managing it rather than fixing it. Cosmelan has been shown to give long-term clearance and can be repeated if necessary. It can be a slow and frustrating business, though. Find an expert practitioner and get them to assess you carefully before you get going on this. 

Read more about pigmentation issues and melasma

Hi, it sounds like you are taking great care of your skin. I’d always suggest a consistent skincare regime with active ingredients like vitamin C serum in the morning to brighten and strengthen the skin, plus a hydrating sunscreen, and retinol or another kind of retinoid at night to stimulate collagen boosting and improve skin texture.

CoolSculpting aka fat freezing or crylipolysis can be really helpful for shrinking fat below the jaw – you need an expert practitioner to assess your face and jawline and see if you would be a good candidate for this. They also need to explain the potential complications of the procedure, which is something lots of people are asking about since Linda Evangelista has talked about how CoolSculpting went wrong for her.

When it comes to finding a practitioner in your local area, have you taken a look at the practitioner finder on the site here?  These are all people whom I would trust with my face. You can put in your postcode and see who comes up.

We’re all usually short of vitamin D by mid-winter and the best thing to do is to use supplements as a matter of course – as they’re cheap and helpful. In the UK, the sun is only strong enough to create vitamin D in the skin between April and September, and then you have to weigh up whether you prefer to go with your face unprotected and take the damage that may cause to the skin. Using sunscreen doesn’t contribute much to low vitamin D as very few of us are scrupulous enough with our application of it to stop vitamin D synthesis altogether. I prefer to protect my face and, when it’s warm enough, expose my arms and legs to the sun, but whenever I’m tested, my vitamin D levels are always low.