Beauty Clinic: Organic skin creams on a budget

Q. I’m 63 and love organic skin creams but, as I am now retired, I am looking for a simple effective product with a budget price label. What do you suggest? A. The choice is not huge but we would advise you to start by looking at Skin Food by Weleda. This rich, all-natural, cream-type balm is designed for dry complexions (you don't specify your skin type but it’s usually dry with women in your age group: forgive us if we presume wrong, however), and also for parched areas of the body.

Weleda is a long established British beauty and wellbeing company that uses botanicals grown using mainly biodynamic methods, which accord with the rhythms of the moon. Skin Food was launched in 1926 so has now celebrated 90 years as a beauty classic. It’s a favourite with make-up artists and models, and tucked into lots of bags of tricks for London Fashion Week.

You can use Skin Food as a moisturiser/primer, as an overnight mask to revitalise tired skin, to nourish chapped lips and also to soften cuticles, treat split ends and rehydrate hands, elbows, knees and heels. How’s that for multi-duty beauty?

Skin Food contains extracts of rosemary leaf, pansy, calendula and chamomile, all organic, in a base of oils and beeswax.

And the price? Well, it’s an amazing £9.95 for a generous 75ml tube or, if you want to try a smaller size first/£6.95 for 30 ml, from weleda.co.uk.

Another range we want to highlight is Sukin, Australia’s best selling natural brand that we are very impressed by and offers really affordable skincare (eg Sukin Facial Moisturiser/£7.95 for 125 ml at hollandandbarrett.com currently). Sukin also offer haircare among its 60 or so products. Sukin consistently does well in Beauty Bible testing but we should point out that although some products, eg their rosehip oil, are certified organic, most are not as far as we are aware.

However, Sukin products do not (we quote from the website sukinorganics.com) contain a myriad of harsh chemicals used in many products on the market today including sodium lauryl sulphate, sodium laureth sulphate, synthetic fragrances, animal derivatives, harsh detergents, propylene glycol, artificial colours, triethanolamine, mineral oils, EDTA or parabens.

The British brand Dr Organic, sold exclusively at Holland & Barrett (in store and online) comes into a similar bracket: brilliant value products that are based on natural, often organic, ingredients. But the products are not certified organic. However, for the price we think they are very good indeed.

You might also want to consider new SkinActive Naturals from Garnier, with cleansers and moisturisers made from 96 per cent ingredients of natural origin, free from parabens, silicone and synthetic colourants. Rose Water Botanical Day Cream for sensitive skin is priced at £5.99/50 ml (NB there are special offers at boots.com). Garnier has 100 per cent recyclable packaging.

Finally, a little suggestion. Making facial oils is simple and very inexpensive plus you control every drop that goes into your chosen combination. We give recipes for facial oils in The Ultimate Natural Beauty Bible, plus lots of other DIY beauty products.