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I'm 36 and a photo of me at my brother's wedding made me completely rethink what I was doing to my skin. Not a bad photo by most standards. Normal angle, decent light. My wife thought it was fine. I looked at it and saw someone who looked 46. I don't say that dramatically. I mean I looked at the skin around my eyes, the lines across my forehead, the dullness of my complexion in daylight, and I didn't see 36. I saw someone older who hadn't been taking care of himself. The thing is — I had been taking care of myself. I'd had a skincare routine for three years. Cleanser, toner, moisturiser, SPF. I'd seen a dermatologist. I'd read the articles. Three years of a routine and my skin looked ten years older than my age in a photo taken in normal light. I started questioning the routine instead of blaming my genetics. Looked at every product I owned. Read every ingredient list. Looked up what each compound was and what it did. Most of what I'd been applying twice daily was water, held together with synthetic emulsifiers, preserved with compounds like phenoxyethanol and ethylhexylglycerin, and marketed with the name of one or two active ingredients that made up less than two percent of the formula. For three years, twelve times a week, I'd been applying synthetic preservatives to my face. I stripped everything back. Found the simplest thing I could: grass-fed beef tallow, raw honey, cold pressed olive oil, organic beeswax. A product built entirely from things the skin recognises as its own. Took a photo at eight weeks. Showed my wife. She thought it was the wedding photo for a second. It wasn't. It was me. Just without three years of the wrong products on my skin. → bare-ritual.com