Nivea Q10 My Skin My Way

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never used skin care from a pharmacy before (except for French pharmacies, which is a whole different category).  I’ve always been skeptical of the effectiveness of products at a drug store price point.  At 48, I need all the effectiveness I can get!  I always assumed I needed to spend department store or specialist skin care line kind of money to get something truly great.  After all, I have breakout-prone AND dry skin.   It sometimes feels like I need a village of experts and a shelf full of products to address all of my skin’s issues.  It turns out, all I need are a couple of steps.

When NIVEA invited me to meet with some of their skincare specialists, I kept an open mind about this ‘pharmacy’ brand.  Since June, I’ve used the following four products that they recommended to me: Micellar cleansing water for sensitive skin, Q10 serum pearls, Q10 anti-wrinkle day cream, Q10 anti-wrinkle night cream, and Q10 anti-wrinkle eye cream.  The only time I deviated from these products is on a handful of really hot humid days when I opted for the NIVEA lotion for oily skin instead of the Q10 day cream, which I thought might be too much in the heat.  Replacing my usual gentle soap and warm water with micellar cleansing water has worked wonders for my sensitive skin.  I do a double cleanse; once to remove makeup and once to clean my skin.  My face doesn’t feel tight or stripped, and I can definitely see a big difference in my skin’s hydration levels.  No more face soap and water for me!  Also, I’ve been thrilled with, and quite surprised by, the results of the Q10 line.  The night creams and day cream were especially surprising.  In almost any other brand, rich hydrating products like these would cause an instant breakout on my T-zone and cheekbones.  I even took the products with me on holiday to the Austrian Alps in July (where the altitude makes the air dry, the days are hot, and the nights are cold).  My skin almost always freaks out when I’m away from home when the water, food, and climate are so different.  This time it was fine.  My French mother in law borrowed my Q10 creams while we were together in Austria and liked them so well she bought them for herself after the holiday.  I can see why NIVEA’s Q10 night cream and day cream are are so popular… and so can my mother in law, apparently!  (I’ve never been a fan of the term ‘anti-age’ but this a beauty-industry-defined category, so I’m using it here for clarity).  My skin is super hydrated with these products, which is why I think it has been behaving so well, EVEN on holiday.

My skincare on holiday in Austria!

Instead of being sparing and precious about my skincare products, I now use the NIVEA ones liberally, both day and night, on my neck and décolleté as well as my face.  Quite honestly, I had been ignoring my neck and décolleté until now.  Sun damage and ageing happen in those areas as well, so I’m not quite sure why I haven’t been paying more attention to them.  This summer for the first time, I noticed that my chest and my face are a really different colour (see photo below).  My face is always protected with the high sun protection in my makeup, but I’ve been very slack about my neck and décolleté.  I suppose because I was spending a fortune on my skin care before, I was being quite parsimonious with them, and didn’t ‘waste’ it on anything besides my face.  Anyway, now I’m treating those areas at night with both the serum and night cream, and I’m making sure I use sunscreen and/or the Q10 day cream (which has SPF 15) there for daytime.  Perhaps next summer my face and chest will match!

As a brand, NIVEA (along with their flagship product, the blue tin of cream) has been around for over 100 years.  They invest a lot of money into research and development to create new effective products; this Q10 range is a good example of that.  Also, they’re always rated one of the most trusted brands in Europe.  Since I’ve been working with NIVEA and have been discussing the range with friends and family, I’m surprised that I had never tried it before. So many people are wildly enthusiastic about the products; even my husband had lots of NIVEA on his shelf that I hadn’t even noticed before!  I don’t know if you’re already a NIVEA fan or if you’ve never tried them, but if you haven’t, you may be as pleased as I’ve been with their Q10 range.  It doesn’t irritate my very reactive difficult skin, and I’m not having any breakouts.  I don’t expect miracles from ANY cream, but I do want my skin to look the best it possibly can, and the nourishing Q10 products are delivering that.

Thank you to NIVEA for sponsoring this post and for introducing me to your fantastic products.

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