Keraskin Has Arrived - be Still, my Beating Heart

Reading about Keraskin in the UK press this summer got me excited. A pro skincare brand from beaut.ie tress-dressing faves Kerastase, it was bound to be worth a try. Odd-sounding at first, I know - a skincare brand from a hair company? - but once you consider that it's coming from the L'Oreal stable, it starts to make a lot more sense. Traditionally, they're a company who buy excellent brands (they own Shu Uemura in Europe and the US, as well as Vichy, La Roche-Posay and Giorgio Armani, for example) but who didn't really create luxury ranges themselves - with the exception of Kerastase. So that goes some way to explaining the name they've given sister brand Keraskin.

Of course, they got to take advantage of the wealth of expertise, scientific know-how and knowledge that their other companies have built up over the years and some of that is evident in the line, like the use of their newest innovation, Pro-Xylane, a green-derived technology that plumps skin and which is the core of the L'Oreal DermaGenesis line.

But Keraskin is a bit different than yer bog-standard skincare. For starters, it's primarily a professional line that's available in  in only the very best places - this will never become a Dermalogica-type brand, available everywhere. Secondly, therapies form the core of it, with only selected products available for retail.

One of the at-home products I've been trialling is the Huile Nudite, (€55 for a whopper of a 400ml pump bottle) an emulsifying cleansing oil. Now, it's not as good as my beloved Shu Uemura balancing cleansing oil, but it's a damn good substitute. 3-4 pumps of this sweet-smelling stuff effectively clean skin of the days gunk, as well as makeup and waterproof mascara. It's only available for the moment at Mizu of Riverlane in Dundalk  - fast becoming a major beauty spot - but over the next few months we can expect to see more salons taking the brand in Dublin, Cork and beyond.