Value-for-money skincare: face and body

I recently read some independent research conducted by Superdrug among 2,000 UK women, saying 63% of us will cut down the amount of money we spend on ourselves this year. The company's sales of budget body lotions has apparently rocketed by 77%.

If there's one area where you can save pounds and barely notice, it's body products. Reasonably priced lotions may not come in showcase packaging or smell quite so wonderful, but they do the job. I add a drop of Tisserand 100% pure essential oils (Rosewood or May Chang, from £6.45) to unscented body lotion (Waitrose Pure body lotion, £2.40) to make it smell of money.

Body-beautiful basics

Aveeno cream, £6.99 (which I use on my daughter's skin, too); Dove Intensive Body Butter, £4.99; The Body Shop Shea Body Butter, £4.75; and Elle MacPherson Ultimate Moisture Body Butter with honey and vitamin E, £8.95, available at Boots.

www.boots.com

For a ready-made boost, I reach for Good Works Good Balance Good Looking Body Lotion, £8, from Boots. Created by the founder of luxury aromatherapy brand This Works, it offers a top-quality formula at an affordable price, thanks to mass-market distribution.

The same applies to Tisserand Essential Oil Rich Body Lotion, £8.40, which keeps skin moisturised for 24 hours and contains rose oil, giving it a divine, up-market, pampering scent.

Lavish skincare without the high price tag

If I had £1 for every time someone asked me to tell them the best anti-wrinkle cream under £30, I'd be a wealthy woman - even richer if I had the definitive answer! What works for one woman doesn't for the next. Texture, smell and even colour affect our preferences - never mind our skincare needs - and one cream does not fit all.

Our expectations have been so pumped up by ‘botox-in-a-bottle' hype from manufacturers, makeover shows (whose main aim, incidentally, is to make compelling TV rather than carry out good clinical tests) and - dare I say it - the beauty press, that it's easy to become unrealistic about what a face cream can do. Let me put the record straight: in my years of researching and testing anti-ageing creams, I've never come across one - at any price - that gets rid of wrinkles to the naked eye. Only surgery or injections will do this.

That said, advancements in technology, science, and medicine - many of which are handed down to the beauty world - have resulted in excellent, affordable creams that moisturise, soften fine lines and give skin a healthy glow. Olay Regenerist Daily 3 Point Treatment Cream, dubbed ‘Olay's first super-cream', out-moisturised some of the most expensive creams in clinical trials - even one costing £150 - despite its £29.99 price tag. And it's selling like hot cakes.

I asked top dermatologist Nick Lowe why, in spite of the loyal, wealthy clientele at his London clinic, nothing in his own skincare range is over £25. ‘That's all I think you need to spend,' he says. ‘More often than not, it's the extra hype needed to sell fancy creams that makes them expensive - not the ingredients or testing.'

For good, personal advice, Nick suggests a visit to a larger branch of Boots. Its knowledgeable in-store skin specialists have been trained on all its brands, rather than working for commission on one range alone. ‘Boots looks carefully at the claims made by the products it stocks. They need to do what they say they do,' he adds.

Value-for-money skin cream

The Body Shop Wise Woman Regenerating Day Cream, £17.60

www.thebodyshop.co.uk

Garnier Vital Restore Night Cream, £9.99

www.boots.com

Nivea DNAge Night Cream/ Expert Lift Night Cream, £17.61

www.nivea.co.uk

Dr Nick Lowe The Secret Is Out SPF 15 Day Cream, £24.95, available from Boots nationwide

www.boots.com

RoC Retin-Ox Wrinkle Filler, £29.95

www.boots.com, 0845 600 4477

See Suzanne's recommendations for ‘designer' make-up at bargain basement prices