Beauty Clinic: Searching for a soft sleep mask

Q. Can you recommend a good sleep mask please?  I am looking for one that is soft and comfortable to wear around the head - and actually cuts out light. A Light ‘leakage’, as we discover it’s called, is such a common problem, particularly in towns where street lights seem able to penetrate even the thickest blinds.

We reckon we have tried pretty well every eye mask on the market. Our suggestion for comfort is to try a silk one. These are often lined with velvet and have velvet ribbon ties (elastic often feels too tight in our experience). In an ideal world, we like them scented with lavender too.

The best ones we have found are Holistic Silk Lavender Eye Masks, which come in a range of pretty colours and designs, £52 at amara.com. They are very comfy and seem to reduce most light intrusion to virtually nothing.

The lavender scent wears off but you could pop a couple of drops of lavender oil on to boost it. You might also want to try This Works Deep Sleep Pillow Spray (75 ml), which comes with Stress Less roll-on, in a Deep Sleep Pillow Talk combo/£22 from boots.com. Spray your pillow and perhaps a quick squirt on your eye mask – your nose has a superhighway directly to your brain.

Jo is also a massive fan of the Bucky 40 Blinks Sleep Mask (from around £46) which is made of fleece and has a Velcro closure so that it's really easy to get the correct fit; she also spritzes this with Deep Sleep.

Just one thing with eye masks that a colleague found when her teen daughter, a big fan, developed a weepy eye. Do wash them gently from time to time to remove any traces of left-over cosmetics.