Simple Skincare Academy Event

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Simple Skincare Academy last week, and honestly had the best time ever.

  

My friend Zoe and I arrived at The Good Housekeeping Institute in London at 10:30am.We started the day with snacks and refreshments before we were led through to the presentation room. There were green notebooks & pens laid out for everyone to take notes throughout the day.

Michelle gave us a brief background to the Simple brand and a bit of company history before she introduced the advisory board and ran through the day’s schedule.

There were going to be four sessions, each taken by one of the Simple Experts Advisory Board members.

  

Psychologist Dr Christine Bundy, who talked about how our stress levels can have an impact on our skin, led the first session.

We started by played a ‘people bingo’ game where we had to find people who matched the statements on a piece of paper and the first person to cross them all off got a prize. Sadly I couldn’t find anyone who had a secret crush on Simon Cowell!

After this we did a bit of a psychology profile where were answered questions about the way we react to stressful situations and what impact our stress levels have on our health/skin. I found it quite interesting, but both Zoe and myself didn’t entirely agree with everything.

  

Simple Skincare Expert and celebrity makeup artist Caroline Frazer who talked about the importance of a good skincare routine led the next session. She demonstrated how to remove makeup and cleanse properly and walked us through the whole thing. We were told to bring our makeup bags with us so we could reapply after this session, as it was very hands on. Caroline was really lovely and answered all of my questions (and I had loads!).

All of the products we used were individually catered to us in our goody bags, which were honestly rammed full of Simple products. I’d filled out a skin profile a while before the event so all of the products in my bag were for oily, blemish prone skin.

Tip from Caroline: When removing eye makeup put some eye makeup remover onto a wipe and hold it against your eye for a few seconds. It helps loosen your mascara so you remove it with less drag. You should always remove your eye makeup first so you don’t spread it over your face. 

By the way, can you believe that a packet of Simple wipes is sold every three seconds?!

After Caroline’s skincare session we had a break for lunch and then went on to the Nutrition session, led by nutritionist Fiona Hunter.

  

This was another hands-on session as she put us into groups and set us a challenge. We were given a bag with 10 ingredients inside and asked to come up with a healthy main course, full of ‘skin-loving’ foods.

We had to think of a name for our meal and then present it to the rest of the group.

My group came up with this:

We made a mock tzatziki using avocado and Greek yoghurt. Sweet chilli salmon on a bed of watercress that we’d drizzled in lemon & olive oil. Then green lentils and cous cous with chilli and garlic. We called our dish Simple World as we had a few different ‘world foods’. We were lucky enough to win the challenge and were all given a bottle of red wine! :)

Here are some more dishes made by other groups.

It’s such as small world as I got talking to Kamarla (below left, second girl from the right) and her mum and it turns out she runs a blog with her sister called La Belle Adventure – which I read all the time!

  

We had a quick chance to taste everyone’s creations before our last session.

Personal trainer and Simple Fitness Expert Anna Reich led the last session on fitness, and ‘Skinfit’ – ‘a programme of exercises designed to have a positive impact on the skin as well as the body’. Anna was absolutely hilarious and everyone really enjoyed her session.

We were shown some different exercises and given some really great workout tips.

I even jumped up and took part, hula-hooping my way to victory – that hula-hop competition as a kid definitely paid off!

Anna also gave us some face yoga demonstrations. Granted, they make you look like a complete buffoon doing them but she said they’re really great for your facial muscles.

Some people trying out ‘Kiss the Sky’, which helps get rid of those extra chins! Think I’ll be doing some of these before bed every night!

As if they hadn’t been generous enough stuff already, before we left we were given a Simple Skincare Academy Booklet, which covered all of the sessions we had that day and so some magazines.

Zoe and I had an AMAZING day at the Simple Skincare Academy, and can’t thank everyone enough for such a great day. All of the simple staff and experts were so lovely and the day couldn’t have been better!

You can become a Simple VIP and find out about everything we learnt at the academy over on the Simple website. Check out their Facebook, Twitter & Youtube pages, which are run by the gorgeous Chyaz who we also met that day!

To top off a lovely day, here's a picture of the sunset I took on my way home.

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