Do you need a skincare hero? Are you not sure where to start with skincare? We have the answers here.
Start simple and with the basics: cleanse, moisturise, and protect.
This article is a round-up of some of our advice from our article about the Anatomy of a Good Skincare Routine.
Here we break down cleansers, actives, moisturisers, retinol, and sunscreen.
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Let's start with a phrase you've said a hundred times without thinking about it: "mad as a hatter."
It isn't just a bit of whimsy from Alice in Wonderland. For centuries, hat-makers used mercury to turn animal fur into felt — and breathing its fumes, day after day, in poorly-ventilated workshops slowly poisoned them. The result was a syndrome doctors called erethism: tremors (the "hatter's shakes"), crippling anxiety and irritability, memory loss, personality change. An entire trade was, quite literally, being driven mad by a heavy metal. Mercury is a spectacular poison — it wrecks the kidneys and the nervous system — and we have known this for a very, very long time.
Which makes what I'm about to tell you all the more depressing. Because mercury didn't just disappear when the hat factories shut down. Today, it's in skin-lightening creams — and it's still poisoning people, right now, in 2026.