Skincare

Abigail James talks skincare

Author and award-winning skincare and wellbeing expert Abigail James reveals her holistic toolkit for inner wellness and outer radiance

Glowing skin is not the result of just one thing. A quick route there can be face massage or ice-cold water, but for longer lasting results you need a good skincare routine and some amazing technology. But even then, if your diet is rubbish and your stress levels through the roof, no matter how many products you use, your skin isn’t going to glow!

How can we just look at treating the skin topically when it’s so intrinsically connected to our internal body and mind? I feel it and see in my own body and skin and I have seen how addressing all of these aspects with thousands of clients over the years makes a huge difference. For example, if I have a client presenting with adult acne, it’s important to understand what the triggers are and what’s fuelling this. I can help manage it externally but what’s going on inside is important.

There are many aspects to us looking and feeling good. If we feel good, we also feel we look good. We can look amazing and yet not feel we look amazing, so working on our mindset is so vitally important. Finding five minutes here and there throughout the day to find some quiet, not look at a screen, get outside, focus on your breathing and check in with your emotions are all so vital.

I’m much less about pushing myself to the max these days and instead I simply focus on the importance of movement. I try to do some sort of physical fitness three to four times a week – that might be weights, a barre class, spin or some form of aerobics.

I am a seasoned insomniac, I have been since a teen, but just because I go through fazes of not being able to sleep doesn’t mean I don’t make it a daily priority. If I can be in bed by 9.30pm I have more chance of getting enough sleep. I’ve found this time is more in line with what my mind and body want to do. Obviously, my skincare routine is a fundamental beginning and end of my day, and this always incorporates some sort of face massage.

I have hit menopause, and honestly, I’m not enjoying the fast changes going on, physically and emotionally, even though I know ageing is most definitely a gift not everyone has. Most of us want to feel good for our age rather than fake. If we can look good for our age, we generally feel more confident; if we feel more confident, we feel happier and happy is a great place for us all to be. There is immense pressure on women to be almost ageless; we’re still a very long way off true ageing positivity. As humans, not many of us honestly love looking at our ageing faces, and we only need to look at the efforts many women undergo to stay youthful as proof.

Skin confidence can be a bit chicken and egg. If our skin looks good, we feel good. However skin confidence is fundamentally a mindset, and you can have issues such as acne and still be skin confident. It’s about learning and knowing your self-worth goes way beyond your external shell.

My new book The Glow Plan has been in my head for many years, but Covid lockdowns allowed me the time and mental space to put pen to paper. I have years of experience in what really benefits us and how to incorporate these things into our lives. The first face massage video I posted on YouTube over four years ago has had so many amazing comments of people following these methods and seeing and feeling huge benefits. I wanted to take these skills outside of the treatment room and share this knowledge. Yes, this is a plan about ageing well, but it’s also a plan about feeling confident, adding in healthier habits and not being harsh on ourselves. There is a lot of information and misinformation out there on social media, and I want to give people knowledge and skills from a trained expert so they can make better informed decisions about their own ageing process.

The Glow Plan by Abigail James (£14.99, Watkins Publishing) is out now. To find out more visit abigailjames.com