I traded my regular skincare routine for honey for a week

Gold-plated facials, avocado face masks, coconut oil, green tea serums, placenta facials- just a few popular skin care crazes meant to work wonders for skin troubles.

As a stereotypical student (binge-drinker and takeaway lover) I’m prone to regular breakouts and dry skin. Whilst sticking to a regular routine of washing my face twice a day, applying moisturiser in the morning and using some form of witch-hazel or tea tree spot stick when I’m breaking out, I still can’t seem to keep my spots at bay.

Kim Kardashian’s blood ‘Vampire facial’

The most recent skin care craze is supposedly honey, with magazines and beauty bloggers raving that its antibacterial properties, enzymes and antioxidants leave you with softer skin, clearer pores and less acne. Not even specialist forms of honey. Just Organic Manuka honey that could be bought in any organic health foods shop.

I couldn’t resist. This sounded too good to be true. Someone had to call bullshit. Having sceptically read these gushing reviews and fully expecting my face to become one giant spot, I decided to switch my face wash routine for a week with Aldi-bought Manuka-style honey (it was close-enough).

I wont lie, I was doubtful from the first wash. Standing around the wash basin having splashed hot water on my face (to make the honey easily spreadable) I apprehensively took out a glob of honey and started smearing it onto my face.

It somehow feels counterproductive to rub sticky sugar gloop on your face in an attempt to make said face cleaner. The smell however was a nice change to my usual antibacterial face washes, just be sure to have your hair well tied back from your face and leave it on for the same length of time as you would you with normal face washes.

Praying this works

Waking up on the second day, my face actually did feel softer and once you got over the initial weirdness of using something usually regarded as an addition to your porridge on your face it didn’t seem that different to applying face wash.

As the week went on, my face felt much softer and I was (annoyingly) being proved wrong. However, I did notice that spots that had previously been developing under my skin broke out on the surface. I actually liked this as it meant that I could target them sooner rather than wait until they were already there.

Another drawback was that (as it is only honey) it’s terrible for removing makeup. But considering I’d expected my face to erupt into chaos, I was actually refreshingly surprised with the results, and still use it on days when my skin is feeling dry.