Summer Skin Ready with M&S

Last week I was kindly sent a lovely box of goodies to get my skin prepped and ready for sunshine from Marks and Spencers. Whilst the warmer weather seems to have dipped slightly in the past week and I’m not going on my holidays until the last week of August, I wanted to get this post up now as there will be lots of you going on your own trips soon.

Autograph Tan Self Tan (Medium/Dark)
Let’s start with the most likely product needed for the UK summers. Fake it to you make it. I’m not too much of a fake tan person, I think because of my lack of ability to bend because of my hip problem I can’t get the backs of my legs easily. I wore this to a wedding last week after my legs looked particularly pasty in a dress, I don’t know whether it was my lack of experience with fake tan or maybe I didn’t exfoliate or moisturise enough but it went patchy after day one. I’m not put off to try it again as the colour was nice.

Autograph Self Tan Facial Oil (Light/Medium)
I’ve never tried this type of product before so it was a nice surprise to try. I will proceed with caution on this maybe starting the process on a Friday night so I have enough time to react to attempting to remove if it’s not successful. Due to my nature of insisting I wear a minimum of SPF30 on the face, my face is a lot whiter than my body, so if this works it would be nice to be less of a ghost face!

Ultra Sun SPF 50 Face Tinted in Ivory
I think this was a product I put on my list to try but unfortunately this colour is way to pale for me. Like I said above I’m a bit of a ghost face at the moment and this just makes my skin tone either lighter so it’s one I’ll be passing on to my sister who is a lot paler than me. It is however a nice formula that adds a tinted moisturiser level of coverage to the skin. With the added SPF it’s a great summer product for no-makeup days but for evening out the skin tone.

Ultra Sun Glimmer SPF 50
This is a lovely idea for sun cream, it offers the high level protection that Ultrasun provides but with a slight shimmer that brings a subtle shimmer to the skin – it’s not a glitter to it but it just adds a fine glow to the skin which I imagine will get prettier as the tan deepens.

M&S Beauty Sun Smart SPF 30
This is such a huge bottle of suncream, if you were away hot and sunny for a week this would definitely last you most of the trip with a partner using it too! This has really good ratings on the M&S website and is accompanied with high levels of UVA & UVB Protection. It has a nice light texture and rubs in easily to the skin.

M&S Sun Smart After Sun
Even after a couple of hours at home in the garden After Sun is essential to me, I find when I neglect aftersun, my tan fades quicker, skin tends to look drier and of course more likely to see peeling. I tend to prefer after suns which are a gel like texture as they feel more cooling on the skin, but that can also come with a sticky feeling residue. This is the best of both worlds as it’s a gel cream so it sinks in well whilst also feeling cooling. I currently have another aftersun on my bedside table which is nearly empty and I can’t wait to try this out next.

I’m only off to Wales this year which always tends to go one of two waves so I’ll be starting to put these to the test on any warmer days we have at home spent in the garden.

Beauty Blender
This is a bit of a different one to the rest but I had a second package arrive just before this post was about to be photographed. M&S are now stocking the Beauty Blender line! They sent across some bubbling rose and percy pigs to celebrate alongside some golden and rose toned strobe creams from the Autograph line. Both of these I already have so I’ve popped them in my giveaway box for a prize in the not to distant future. But I thought it was worth mentioning that you can stock up on Beauty Blenders at a new location!

What are your summer skin essentials?

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