Bodycare is booming. Online searches for ‘body skin care’ rocketed over 1,000% last year*, while Space NK say sales of body lotion rose by a whopping 847% in 2022**.
But while body products tapping into familiar skincare routine ingredients isn’t anything new, those standing out now are the serums, creams and washes that offer meaningful bang for your buck, rather than just paying lip service with a bit of hyaluronic acid here or some vitamin C there.
Welcome to the world of "beautility" – where beauty meets utility. You still get the basic benefits of bodycare, but now with the kind of noticeable improvements usually reserved for your face.
How skincare for the body can transform your routine
“As awareness grows regarding ingredients and the importance of a solid skincare routine, it's only natural to extend skincare and performance-driven ingredients beyond the face,” says renowned dermatologist Dr. Alexis Granite, founder of Joonbyrd. “We’re also more focused on the concepts of wellness and longevity, encompassing a whole-body approach. Improved texture, fine lines and wrinkles, reduced dryness and pigmentation, less blemishes – all of this can be achieved with ‘skinified’ body care products.”
These high-performance skincare for the body products are active rather than passive. “The ‘skinification’ of body care is because we want our money and time to work harder for us,” explains skin expert and SkinSense founder Abi Cleeve. “With the internet in our pocket, we’re more interested in what’s in our products. Bodycare has become an area where cosmetics companies want to invest in research and innovative uses of ingredients, as well as formulations to boost tautness and texture to smoothness and suppleness of the body’s skin.”
Here's how beautility bodycare can bolster your daily routine with a few smart shopping switches.
Body wash can be skincare, too
You’re rinsing it down the plughole, so a cleanser for the body isn’t going to make any lasting difference, right? Not so, says Dr. Granite. “You can absolutely achieve noticeable skin benefits from wash-off products,” she enthuses, citing her concept for creating bodycare as an example. “When developing [Joonbyrd's] body wash, I was inspired by prescription strength washes I use in my practice for conditions such as acne or dermatitis and the known benefits of their short-term contact with the skin.”
RRP: £16
Vitamin C is the go-to ingredient for making a lacklustre complexion look brighter, so it’s packed into this gentle gel-cream to improve the brightness of skin on the body that’s dull and uneven. A blend of moisturising ingredients including glycerin will also help improve the skin’s natural barrier function to fight irritation and dehydration. Leave it on for a few minutes to maximise results.
RRP: £48
It’s not just the yummy coffee caramel scent (part of the range’s self-care ethos) that will have you reaching for this foaming wash on repeat. The ingredients list is a menu of skin-enhancing must-haves, including a chicory root prebiotic to support the delicate microbiome that help keep skin healthy, plus a botanical blend to ease redness and inflammation while hyaluronic acid encourages plumpness.
RRP: £12
This new range from The Ordinary's creators puts hardworking, active ingredients into high-performance formulas. It includes three gel body washes that foam easily and leave skin satin-soft thanks to jojoba esters – similar to skin’s natural nourishing oils – and glycerin, which seal in moisture and boost skin condition. We like Chalk, with a bright, comforting scent from crushed mint, musk and sugary anise.
Body creams and serums with face ingredients
Lines, wrinkles and sagging: what happens to the face happens to the body, so it makes sense that powerhouse anti-ageing ingredients can be repurposed below the neck, working just as hard for the body, if not better. “Often the body can tolerate higher concentrations of active ingredients, so looking at potency is important in assessing if something is going to give good results,” recommends Cleave, who also notes that traditionally, bodycare has a lower price tag than equivalent formulas for the face, meaning you’re really getting your money’s worth of gold standard actives like retinol.
RRP: from £76
Devotees of the original face cream who wanted comparable firming, smoothing and plumping benefits in skincare for the body now have their wish. The body cream utilises Bader’s patented technology around pioneering research into tissue repair, improving tone and texture and targeting the look of things like redness and stretch marks, too. It’s thick but sinks in fast with a velvety finish and bouncy feel.
RRP: £49
Massage daily onto areas of the body that could benefit from the blend of “face-grade” active ingredients hydroxypinacolone retinoate and bakuchiol, proven to boost skin firmness, improve elasticity and even out patches of pigmentation. As it’s an oil, there’s plenty of slip when you apply it but no greasy finish and the green colour comes from chlorophyll, which helps calm inflammation and detoxify skin to help it look clearer.
RRP: £56
You won’t need much of this serum-in-balm retinol for the body, as a little goes a long way. Used at night where needed (just like face formulas) as it contains an intensive 0.1% pure retinol, the reparative treatment is combined with 10% alpha hydroxy acids and vitamin C to reduce wrinkling, bumpy texture and dark spots. For softening nourishment, hyaluronic acid and peptides are included, too.
Try targeted solutions
Skin on the body can still suffer from unique issues, be that ingrown hairs, keratosis pilaris bumps or age spots in places like the décolletage which are easily missed when applying pigmentation-preventing sunscreen. And while results may not be as fast as those on the face, patience is rewarded. “Body skin is generally thicker, so results may take longer to appreciate,” advises Dr. Granite. “But there are many benefits to be had from targeted, specific ingredients addressing a variety of concerns. For example, AHAs and BHAs can help with texture, while vitamin C, niacinamide and kojic acid can work to reduce pigmentation.”
RRP: £15
Something of a multitasking wonder, smooth this solid stick over areas of bumpy chicken skin, ingrown hairs, breakouts or cracked heels for results in less than a week. The chemical exfoliating ingredients doing the heavy lifting are 7% glycolic acid, which sloughs away dead surface cells for a smoother, more even texture while salicylic acid unclogs pores and eases inflamed blemishes.
RRP: £32
Lightweight but packing a punch with niacinamide, which has benefits ranging from tackling age spots and acne to improving wrinkles, as well as NAG, a compound found naturally in the body that prevents the process of pigmentation from occurring and has protective antioxidant benefits too. Used together, both ingredients work in synergy for even better results counteracting sun damage, dark patches and acne scarring.
RRP: £38
The AHA lactic acid is the effective chemical exfoliant used in this silky body serum as its intensive action will smooth out rough texture, dry patches and bumpy areas, like the backs of arms, but acts gently enough that it can even be used on more sensitive skin once or twice a week for noticeable improvements. As well as feeling softer and more nourished, the skin will also look less blotchy, fresher and more glowing, too.
Target hands with skin-saving tactics
It’s an old but accurate trope: often the hands are where a person reveals their real age. As Dr. Granite points out, our hands are exposed to the sun and the elements nearly as much as the face and so suffer from the skin-ageing havoc they can cause. But also like the face, reworking complexion-boosting formulas and technology to be applied to our hands can bring comparable brightening, smoothing and plumping benefits.
RRP: £39
Having pioneered a barley-derived epidermal growth factor protein to rejuvenate skin by reducing the depth of wrinkles, improving skin’s density and strengthening its ability to hold onto moisture, the same science is bringing anti-ageing properties and improvements to hands. One pump of this non-tacky serum also evens out tone and texture via niacinamide and plumps skin with hyaluronic acid.
RRP: £165
This system takes inspiration from volumising tweakments and draws on Orveda’s groundbreaking work around damage caused by dying skin cells that makes skin wrinkled, thinner and less firm. The cream is applied twice daily, while the mask is used weekly under silicone gloves designed to supercharge absorption. Expect lines to be impressively filled out, blue veins less apparent, irritation and dryness reduced and skin brighter.
RRP: £350
The anti-ageing beauty bump we love from at-home LED devices has been replicated for hands with this slip-on, professional-grade mittens. They combine red light to ramp up collagen production and reduce inflammation, green light for its calming and anti-pigmentation properties to even out skin tone, plus near-infrared light for the deepest penetration to encourage firmness, smoothness and tightness – all in a daily 10-minute session.
* ** Source: Cosmetics Design Europe
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