I don’t know whether you saw me mention on my Instagram page (you can follow me here if you would like to see pictures of my face, my cat, my dog and my house – it’s all going on!) but I’ve been appearing in a brilliant Mother’s Day campaign for L’Oreal Revitalift, with my own Mum! We had such a great time; we had an amazing portrait taken of us  – which I might well hang in my hallway in a huge gilt frame – and then filmed an advert together talking about what we love and admire about each other as well as our proudest moments.

Mum enjoyed being fussed over (and also, I think, loved her transformation into a suit-wearing, coiffed-haired power-lady) and I really enjoyed being able to take my Mum to work with me. After seventeen years of being on studio sets and sitting in makeup chairs and doing my thing in front of the camera this was the first time a member of my close family had ever really seen what I do.

(Although my little sister did come to a shoot with me in the early days, she arrived to find the twenty-two year-old me in a grubby East-End studio just at the point where I was being sprayed with cold water by a fashion student to make my hair look slicked-back. I was freezing and grumpy and it wasn’t a good representation of what I did on a daily basis. Actually, scrap that, it was quite an accurate representation, but things got more glamorous over the years and are most definitely different now. The L’Oreal film set was the kind of thing you’d want your parents to see, because it was impressive and there were dozens and dozens of crew and clients milling about and there were loads of lighting rigs and people calling out numbers and other people shouting at more people to remind them to stay to schedule and still more people hauling rails of clothes about and hanging up outfits and puffing steam from steamers to iron the shirts. It was all going on.)

Anyway, as part of the campaign with my Mum, we had to talk about beauty tips and secrets that we had passed on to each other as well as recommend some specific Revitalift products, and so as part of my preparation I had a good delve into my face cream box and decided to try something new. Or new-ish, because I’m already a convert to so many of the products in the Revitalift range, including the incredible Laser Renew Night Cream-Mask*, which is one of the most effective, affordable overnight masks you’ll find (it leaves my face positively pillow-like by the morning) and the Laser Renew Advanced Day Cream, which has a new, mega-plumping formula.

And there are so many other excellent choices from the Revitalift range, including serums and eye creams and moisturisers with retinol, but it was the Laser Renew Day Cream with SPF20 that sparked something off in my imagination. Imagine, I thought, if I could actually get my Mum to wear an SPF. Any sunscreen whatsoever. It would be nothing short of a miracle! She’s point-blank shunned it for most of her life and only succumbed to my nagging in recent years because I’ve physically placed the products in her hands. The problem is that she – like many people – doesn’t like the feel or finish of a lot of products containing sunscreen and so quickly stops using them. It’s also very rare that she will apply a separate sunscreen, and so the SPF, if it’s going on, needs to be in something else that she’s already applying. Like her face cream or a tinted moisturiser. (No, you’re never going to get the same level of protection applying your sunscreen like this as you would a dedicated sunscreen, but I’m of the opinion that something is infinitely better than nothing.)

So to cut to the chase, I’ve been testing out the Revitalift Laser Renew Advanced SPF20* prior to forcing a pot of it into her lovely, elegant hands. Luckily it meets her non-negotiable requirements – it doesn’t have a greasy finish (“I don’t like looking like an iced bun!”), it is multi-tasking (helps with firmness and plumpness as well as providing UVA/UVB protection) and it’s moisturising without being overly heavy. The Pro-Xylane helps the skin to feel firmer and reduce the appearance of wrinkles and there’s a touch of LHA (salicylic acid, a gentle exfoliant) to help skin to look brighter and smoother.

And so I think that the Laser Renew Advanced SPF20 will pass her picky skincare test with flying colours. It leaves a perfectly prepped base over which to apply makeup, with no greasiness, but skin still feels fully quenched. A brilliant springtime moisturiser actually – great for incidental sun exposure before it gets to the proper warm months. You can find it at Superdrug here* – it’s currently £14.99 instead of £22.49!

This post is a paid advertorial as part of my role with the L’Oreal Beauty Squad – you can find more info here.