ust in case no one’s reminded you in a while, your skin is your largest organ, why wouldn’t you give it more attention?

Hi everyone! We’re back with the latest edition of local products we love! Are you surprised? Do you think we talk about locally produced fashion and beauty enough? We don’t!

(Please leave a note with our manager on our use of punctuation in the above sentence.)

So the deal is, everyone has skin, and everyone has to take care of it. This is an absolute non-negotiable.

Even if you are on the strictest budget, we would ask you to clean your skin with something that lathers up, and moisturize at night with something as basic as almond oil, and protect in the a.m. with something as accessible as Glow & Lovely. JIC you’re thinking that ‘glowing’ or ‘being fair’ isn’t your one goal in life, we would like to tell you that good old Fair & Lovely was basically a mineral sunscreen. What it did was protect skin from sun damage, and long-term use evened skintone out, thus the ‘glow’ or, you know, ‘fairness’.

If you have a little more change to spare, invest in the things that will make your skin better. Somewhere on this very page, we read about how important mental health is, and to be very honest, sometimes looking good boosts a good mood too. And sometimes, taking five extra minutes to pat on a serum after washing your face and then sealing in with moisturizer is the difference between feeling burnt out and wretched and feeling just slightly more soothed after a long day in a long week.

Now that we have written a novel about why you need skincare, we want to tell you why we think local skincare has its place:

South Asian skin has needs that products made for caucasian skin cannot fulfill. We need makeup without yellow undertones and more olive and peachy undertones. We need skincare that caters to our brown skin, which holds multiple shades in just one area. What can we say guys, like everything else South Asian, our skin is super complicated too.

So when there is a local product, boasting active ingredients that are popular around the world for the benefits they impart, we trust that if not fully, these products will be made with some understanding of our skin tone and type.

The second reason is, if it’s made locally, chances are that it will be available more consistently than the imported products that are sold by local digital retailers. There is nothing sadder than a routine you have to abandon because someone stopped stocking the one toner that works for you, or the one moisturizer that doesn’t break you out.

Lastly, in this economy, if you’re giving your business to someone, overall it might be healthier for the local economy if you give it to a local operation. Sounds like a drop in the ocean, but really, all these tiny steps will hopefully someday lead to a more sustainable economic model for Pakistan.

If we now have a moisturizer made locally with something referred to as ‘5D hyaluronic acid’ as an ingredient, surely a sustainable economy can’t be too impossible?

Without any more ado than has been made, the 3 local products we cannot wait to try!

– Amina Baig

Her Beauty Skin Drink

Active ingredients: 5D Hyaluronic Acid, Niacinamide, Squalene and Rose Damascene Flower water

Her Beauty promises to be “clean” and “kind”, and their products look nothing short of yummy. The Skin Drink moisturizer tones and moisturizes, and sounds perfect for slightly more mature skin throughout the year, and as a winter moisturizer for younger skin.

Cleo Clinical Care Peel Me 10

Active ingredients: 10% Glycolic Acid cream

Cleo Clinical Care looks upmarket, and is a line of skincare created by dermatologist Dr Amna Ahmar. The Peel Me 10 cream contains Glycolic Acid, which unclogs pores and gently exfoliates skin. There are very specific directions for using all Cleo products, and this one cautions building up to overnight use as well.

Jenpharm Epceama
Anti-aging Serum

Active ingredients: 5% Epceama, 2% GABA, 0.5% Vitamin C

In the many, many years of trial-and-erroring skincare, the one thing that stands out is that often, price of a product is decided by how fancy it looks and smells, not the ingredients. So you may be paying top dollar for how pretty the packaging is on a cream that also feels luxurious and smells great, not the actives it contains. While we’re unsure what ‘Epceama’ is exactly, Jenpharm claims it is extracted from “Korean seaweed”. Seaweed helps with irritable skin conditions such as rosacea and eczema, and GABA has a massive impact on fine lines and wrinkles. Vitamin C is, as we all know, a skin brightener.