As you might have realised, I have something of an embarrassing weakness for self-help books. Hand me anything that promises to help me improve myself and I will probably grab it. This particular book had a positive review in the Financial Times, and so… I bought it.

When I was reading the review, I somehow managed to miss the fact that the book is about holistic ways of taking care of your skin. The word “holistic” usually rings alarm bells for me. However, I only noticed it after I bought the actual book… so it was too late. I decided to give it a go anyways.

I was surprised to spot quite a few typos and missing page numbers – hardly the author’s fault, I know, but I do feel the proof-reader and the publisher should have perhaps done better. A lot of the advice in the book is sound common sense: eat to feed your skin and not your sugar cravings, for example (I shouldn’t really talk as I’ve had a bar of chocolate today).

There are a few pieces of advice that sound quite practical. Soveral is an advocate of dry brushing your face and body and massaging your face with oil. I’ve tried the facial massage and I can testify they are very pleasant and don’t take that long: and most importantly I felt they made a noticeable difference to my skin (especially the creases on my forehead). My dermatologist, however, hearing that I used jojoba oil for the facial massage, said that it would make my acne worse. I wonder if I can use the same massage movements for applying face cream?

Here’s Soveral’s youtube video with the facial massage instructions, just in case you feel like trying it out for yourself.