A quick search on Google – the digital repository of all fast truths and fake news – tells me that Alexa Chung loves Weleda’s Skin Food. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley loves it. What about Victoria Beckham, Adele, Julia Roberts, Rihanna? Loves. It. And really, who am I to ignore the endorsements of famous women with nice complexions? They know things.

The thing is, Weleda’s Skin Food possesses an alarming viscosity, not dissimilar to liquid glue or the salves women use to soothe chafed nipples following hours of breastfeeding. And while it’s great for said nipples, as well as chapped lips, cuticles, hands and feet, it’s the last thing you’d ever think of putting near your face. But then comes the plot twist: the one where Kate Bosworth swears by using Skin Food as a face cream. The one where I watch on in horror as makeup artist, Lisa Eldridge, pats the ‘glue’ cream onto Kate’s face. Upon application, though, her skin transforms into a plump, glowing canvas and I just know I have to try it for myself.

Over the next week, I start warming a small amount between my fingers and pressing it into my skin before bed. The immediate and ongoing results are so good, I begin using it on mornings when nothing is going for me and find out that it hits all the high notes of a great makeup primer. Then, comes the second plot twist: the green tube begins edging its way into Holy Grail territory, bumping out my favourite face cream of all time, which, by the way, costs $300 – Weleda’s Skin Food is under $20. I rest my case.

So how exactly does it give you skin that is plump like a freshly filled car tyre and, to continue the car analogy, radiant like a two high beams on a highway at midnight? The formula is by no means high-tech and has remained mostly unchanged since it launched in almost a century ago. The secret is in the luxuriously emollient base of lanolin, sweet almond oil, beeswax and glycerine, which forms a moisture-rich, second-skin barrier. Calendula, wild pansy and chamomile soothes redness and inflammation. Rosemary leaf extract, a natural antiseptic, speeds up the skin’s healing process and promotes circulation. The bonus part is that it’s free from chemical fillers and made with fair trade, certified biodynamic ingredients, meaning it’s unlikely your skin (or your moral conscience) is going to get upset.

Following all of my droning on about this groundbreaking, money-saving discovery, my Editor, Carlie, became the most recent convert to the Weleda Skin Food cult where the sun is brighter and the skin more glow-y.

Join us. Drink the kool aid. Get it here

*Disclaimer: This review is not sponsored by Weleda. I’m just a die-hard fangirl.

Words, Rose Howard.