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I'm 50 and I'm back in a bikini. For most of my forties I had a whole story I told myself. That I was just past the bikini stage. The truth is my skin looked rough and dry every summer and I didn't know how to fix it so I just stopped putting myself in situations where I had to deal with it. Rough arms. Dry legs that looked worse in the sun. That flaky uneven texture that no amount of body lotion could sort out for longer than a few hours. I tried everything, nothing worked, and at some point I just decided the bikini was done and got on with my life. What I never once questioned was my body wash. Not for twenty years. You buy it, you use it, you don't think about it. That's what I thought. Harsh sulfates in regular body washes strip your skin barrier every single shower. Your skin barrier is what keeps moisture in and keeps everything soft. So every morning I was getting in the shower, stripping my barrier, getting out, putting lotion on skin that couldn't hold onto anything, and wondering why nothing was working. In summer when I was showering more, post-beach, post-garden, twice some days, the damage just piled up faster than my skin could deal with. The dry rough skin I thought was just aging or just my skin type was almost entirely down to a body wash I never thought to question. I was so annoyed when I worked that out. I switched to Besque Shower Oil after reading about skin barriers and I was skeptical, an oil that actually cleans? It does. It lathers, it rinses, it handles everything a full summer day throws at it, it just doesn't wreck your barrier in the process. Your skin comes out of the shower soft instead of immediately needing rescuing. Within a few weeks the rough texture on my arms was gone. The dry patches on my legs, gone. That tight feeling after every shower that I had accepted as just normal, gone. My skin looked even and felt soft in a way I genuinely couldn't remember. I went on a beach holiday in June. Wore the bikini every day. Didn't think about my skin once. If you've been telling yourself the bikini era is over, it's probably just your body wash.