In this video, I'll be coming to you

mainly from my bathroom.

Hello, and welcome to my bathroom.

Please don't judge it.

It is one of the rooms we will eventually get renovated.

So I'm a vintage lover.

I sleep in sponge rollers, I don't own a pair of jeans,

and my lipstick is always, always red,

to the extent that I now find my face without red lipstick

rather alarming.

(Gasps) What happened to my lips?

Where did they go?

Ah, my lips are back.

But when it comes to lady-like pampering,

I'm sorely lacking.

I'm lucky enough to have had eczema on my face as a child.

Wait for the luck bit.

Which means that I pretty much missed

all of the years of teenage spots.

Whilst my friends were complaining

about the annoying spot at the end of their nose,

I was busy trying to avoid perfumes, wool,

and the angry red rash that shows up on my neck

when I'm close to grass.

Yes, I'm allergic to grass, the type that grows

in your average British garden.

I get red welts on my legs if it hits my naked skin.

Do I still take aesthetically pleasing shots

in long grass?

Yes, yes, I do.

I was even born with angry red eczema

across my face and eyelids.

I was not, as my parents liked to say, a looker,

but one of the most common compliments I now receive

is that I have lovely skin.

Why, thank you.

Often followed by, "what's your skincare routine?"

And I'm like.

(crickets chirping)

I'm meant to have a skincare routine?

Yes, I have somehow reached the age of 31

without investing in a complicated 10 step process

of different tubes and oils,

and I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure what toner is.

I mean, I wash my face with water,

I put suntan lotion on, I remove my makeup

with makeup wipes before I go to sleep,

and I probably wear makeup every third day, maybe.

Is that a skincare routine?

You tell me.

But according to the internet, I should have a process

which I follow morning and night, every day.

It feels like a lot of work.

So I thought I'd start where I feel most comfortable,

living the life of my grandmother, but gay.

My grandmother, like most women in the 1950s,

followed a very simple two step routine

morning and evening.

Number one, violently wash your entire head with Pears soap.

Number two, smother yourself in cold cream,

and then, scrape it off.

But like, make it sound flowery and less violent.

To kickstart my new beginning into actually taking care

of my skin, sorry for largely ignoring you before,

I'm going to follow a 1950s skincare routine

for a whole week.

Step one is not just cleaning your skin, oh, no.

According to 1950s guides, this is the time

to give your skin a good, invigorating workout.

The advice is to have a daily bath or shower,

and then go to town, scrubbing your face

with a washcloth to carry away all soapy residue.

The aim is to stimulate the skin, and wake it up all over.

I should probably tell you, at this point,

I don't actually have a daily bath,

because that's really bad for my eczema,

so steamy sink will have to do.

We're going to stimulate my skin and wake it up.

Also, cover it in soap, but then, get rid of the soap.

Friction is apparently the most important thing here,

as is covering my neck and my ears,

and to be honest, I don't especially make a point

to clean behind ears, and now I realize I should.

I'm using Pears transparent soap,

which was available in the 1950s,

and still is available today.

I will leave a link in the description down below

because I actually care about my skin.

Most soaps in the 1950s had carbolic acid in, which,

I don't know whether I have a massive

yearning to put on my face.

Just stood for five minutes waiting for the tap to warm and,

it's not even that warm, so!

We really need a new boiler.

(smooth music)

Let's actually add some soap in here.

To my incredibly lukewarm water.

(smooth music)

I smell a bit like a grandmother, but, I love it.

Vigorous, vigorous.

(smooth music)

What a nice way just to start your day, I think.

Scraping your entire face off.

All right.

Once you have successfully rubbed all of the soap off,

it's time to watch your face with cold water

which clearly won't be a problem.

Okay, ooh.

That's cold.

Step two, cold cream, which is an emulsion of water and fat

designed to smooth your skin.

Apparently it also removes makeup

which we fill find out this evening.

So the breadth of my moisturizer knowledge

is that cold cream is a water in oil

which makes it stay on your skin,

whilst other moisturizers are an oil in water

which mean that they are absorbed into your skin.

I'm gonna leave the link to this in the description as well

and can I just say,

I'm really impressed by the color aesthetic.

I'm so pleased about this.

It suggests in the vintage instructions to pin your hair

out of the way, but I will be using my,

my lovely wife's hair wrap.

Claudia actually has a skincare routine because

she hit 30 and decided she had to research skincare.

And I was like, yeah, I'll continue using

water and makeup wipes, thanks.

But now look, see, I'm learning and growing.

Smother your face in cream, give a little massage

and delicately remove using tissue.

Apparently during this massage, you're supposed to pay

special attention to the bits of your face

where dirt collects.

So that's like the, what do you call this bit?

Bits where skin folds.

And I don't know.

But not your eyes, don't stick it in your eyes.

Let's get smothering.

(smooth music)

Okay.

All right, I think we've successfully

really rubbed this all over my face now.

Not really gone anywhere, so, start removing.

Use tissue and a fresh little section of tissue

to wipe away each bit.

I feel like I'm really just rubbing this into my hair.

Probably should've thought that true.

This is a harder job than first assumed.

The cream doesn't really appear to be going anywhere.

I mean it smells very pleasant but it's really up there.

How are you supposed to do this,

avoiding your hair and your eyes?

Clearly my skincare skills are not on point.

Okay.

Ooh, well, ha.

My hair's pretty oily now.

Feels very smooth but then also my hands

feel incredibly oily, so.

It's gonna work as the moisturizer

that I'm then gonna put makeup on.

I'm gonna go out to brunch with my gals.

And then we're spending the day doing,

today, catching up on work stuff.

Anyway.

Yes.

Gonna film some videos and then when I come back

this evening, you'll see me as I try and take my makeup off

using cold cream, which apparently is possible.

We'll see.

Hello, how do you do?

Hope you've had a good day.

It is only the end of day one and I have already somehow

managed to forget that I was meant to be doing this.

And now I left it late and it's 9:20

and I want to go to bed.

But no, we're gonna do a whole routine thing

in which I smother my face in cold cream

in an attempt to remove my makeup

and somehow magically not get it in my eyes.

Have you seen my eyes?

They are tiny.

Oh, and I just ran out of light battery.

Okay, I put another battery in.

I feel like I need to have tissues ready.

All right.

How am I using cream to remove eyeliner?

Remember again, massaging the face

is apparently very important.

Little circles.

Work upwards.

I guess the aim of that is to kind of defy gravity.

I'm gonna attempt to put less cream into my hair

than last time because I've been dealing with

oily hair all day.

I may have put too much cream on my face,

I realize this now.

Oh!

My lipstick's actually coming off.

Everything I touch is turning red right now.

(giggling)

- Hello. - Hello.

Do you need to brush your teeth?

- Yeah.

(Claudia mumbling through toothbrush)

- Huh?

- Use a cotton roll pad because this looks like

it's gonna end very badly.

- Go to bed.

I'll see you there.

- [Claudia] Yeah, no dirty faces allowed in the bed.

Only dirty minds.

(laughing loudly)

- End of day one, have to say.

My skin feels quite soft and smooth.

But now it feels really oily.

But like, in a good way.

(smooth music)

Good morning, good morning.

I feel very peppy today.

Right, I actually didn't leave too much eyeliner

on my pillow, which is good.

Let's go.

I think my skin feels a bit tighter, a bit dryer maybe.

Warm water.

Lovely.

Get my trusty Pears soap.

Claudia says that she loves the smell of this soap now

because it smells like her grandma.

Oh!

(smooth music)

Let's do some vigorous face wake ups with a towel.

There's that eyeliner I didn't manage

to get off last night.

Okay, cold cream time.

I learnt from yesterday, not too much, Jessica.

I've also got my tissues ready and standing by.

Oh my god, I should take my rings off.

(smooth music)

Now I have to put lots of makeup on top of this because

I've got a full day of filming.

(smooth music)

It is very early in the morning of Day Three because

I have to go to London today for my lovely work trip.

And so I'm gonna try and get ready really early

and then I can get some stuff done

and go where I have to go.

Now I've realized that I'm half asleep

but I hope that I do my makeup routine

before I put my makeup on.

No no no.

Gotta do my skincare routine before I put my makeup on.

That's where we're going.

Also I think I have a spot beginning right there.

Interesting.

Let's rub this off.

If you can see this line, it's my pillow.

Rinse with cold water.

Which is totally different to the water I was using.

You may notice a slight change in camera angle.