Ross Pollard1 product: ESPA Optimal Skin ProDefence,
100,000 + steps,
42 designers,
5 days at London Fashion Week,
4 seasons of weather,
1 face
Candid Magazine Ross Pollard ESPA
At London Fashion Week, photograph by Rowben Lantion.
I always like to give any product I’m sent to try the toughest possible test. How does it really perform in the real world rather than a one-day try out? Well those tests for products don’t get much tougher than how a skin-defender will cope against the sun, wind, rain, cold days, hot rooms and pollution of London over the five days of London Fashion Week (LFW).
For me this was the first time I had used a skin defence product over my usual moisturiser, so I was interested to see how it would go. After years of doing LFW, I know my skin takes a beating. No matter how much I try to protect it, I’m left with a face that’s drier than a particularly salty put-down and rougher than sandpaper.
Having a natural product was also great. So how did it go?
Quite frankly it was stunning how well it worked. I’m left with my skin looking and feeling like a youthful boy on his way to his first date (though these days I would not go to a fast food outlet covered in about seven cans of Lynx Voodoo; lads, not a great smell looking back on it). It felt great to put on. No greasy feel (unlike my teen face on the aforementioned date) and it lasted all day. When I say all day, I MEAN ALL DAY. People think LFW is a bit of a giggle, but my average day is fourteen to sixteen hours out on the fashion beat, so any product that works in my routine to deal with that wins a lot of brownie points.
London is a filthy, dirty yet magnificent city, and having a product I can trust to help cope with the fumes and debris in the air is worth its weight in gold. The layer of protection ESPA Optimal Skin ProDefence offered was invaluable, and alongside that protection is the fact that it worked with my moisturiser to keep that working all day, doubles it’s value. I always think there is a very simple test for any grooming product: would I buy it? In this case it’s an emphatic YES. In fact, I’ve added it to my daily routine.