A patient came in last year having used retinol for six months with no visible results. She had faithfully applied it twice a week, as instructed, to her whole face. She had experienced some initial flakiness, which had settled. But the changes she’d hoped to see — better skin texture, reduced lines, improved tone — hadn’t materialised. When I looked at what she was using: a 0.025% retinol in a […]

A patient came in recently having replaced her entire skincare routine over six months. Not because the products weren’t working — they were. She replaced them because she’d read extensively about “toxic” ingredients and had become concerned that her retinoid and her SPF contained things that were harmful. Her new routine contained none of those things. It also contained nothing that was likely to produce the results she was looking […]

Every year or so, a new dietary framework arrives with complete confidence. For a while it’s intermittent fasting. Then it’s carnivore. Then it’s plant-based plus supplements. Then it’s some version of the Mediterranean diet, but specifically Mediterranean-from-before-industrialisation, and please mind the olive oil provenance. I read these things as they arrive. Professionally, I have to. And what I find, consistently, is that the confidence is always higher than the evidence […]