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11 best anti-ageing toners
It's time to put this oft-forgotten product back into your youth-boosting regime
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Your support makes all the difference.“Cleanse, tone and moisturise” feels like the skincare mantra of a bygone era. Now we’ve added serums, oils, vitamin C correctors and eye creams to a layering process that goes well beyond a three-step routine. And somewhere along the line, toners fell out of fashion.
Originally used to remove the residue of creamy cleansers and often quite astringent, they’ve come a long way since. Instead of a perfunctory residue remover, toners now can work wonders for your anti-ageing skincare regime. From gently exfoliating ageing, dulling and dry skin, to boosting the radiance of tired complexions and turbo-charging subsequent products you apply, the toner is now back in vogue.
Decleor Hydra Floral Anti-Pollution Hydrating Active Lotion, 100ml: £43, Decleor
City dwellers need extra help when it comes to anti-ageing, as pollution makes our skin look older than it is. Emotional stress also has a similar damaging impact on the skin. This toner not only hydrates but also protects, so make sure you’re using it in the morning and evening. It has the freshness of a toner, but the hydration power of a cream – the moringa oleifera extract actually leaves a film on the skin so pollution particles can’t get in. Hydrating neroli essential oil gives you a fresh zesty hit to kick start your morning. And the beauty ingredient of the moment, hyaluronic acid, plumps and smoothes. I found out of all the toners tested this gave the most impressive beautiful dewy glow, and using it straight after skiing meant all those fine dehydration lines from the sun were plumped out. It's the ideal choice for dry skin, too, as it boosts the nourishing impact of the moisturiser you use afterwards.
Beauty Pie Japanfusion Hydra Prep Lotion, 150ml: £25 or £5.78 for Beauty Pie Members, Beauty Pie
Ageing skin can feel tougher than young skin and getting your serum and moisturiser to work effectively can be half the battle of an anti-ageing skincare routine. This toner prides itself on softening the skin, so the actives in the rest of your skincare steps can really get to work. So if you’ve spent out on a pricey, high-performance moisturiser or serum and are not seeing the results you hoped for, this could transform those products. It preps the skin and acts like a magnet for the nourishment and moisture you put on after toning. Antioxidants also protect skin from pollution and it’s ultra moisture-infusing, which we noticed most when those annoying fine dehydration lines virtually disappeared.
Algenist Hydrating Essence Toner, 150ml: £18, Space.NK
If rough, dry skin is your issue, then this softening toner is the one for you. It’s fragrance-free and fairly watery, so doesn’t really feel like it’s doing very much. But a few days in and our skin looked more even in tone and the soothing camomile had worked wonders on our dry, slightly sensitive, easily irritated patches that can be prone to high colour. The witch hazel element has an energising and stimulating effect on the skin, so if your complexion takes a while to get going in the morning and you wake with puffy, tired-looking, sluggish skin, this will give it a super-charged boost to get it glowing.
Jurlique Rosewater Balancing Mist Intense, 200ml: £45, Jurlique
If you spent your childhood crushing rose petals in a jam jar to make "perfume", this toner will take you straight back to long, lazy summer holidays playing in the garden. Intensely fragrant, this is some serious sensory overload – not to be used if you like your beauty unscented. It’s a botanical blend of four roses and a hibiscus flower, harvested by hand from the brand's Australian organic farm in the Adelaide Hills, when the blooms are at their peak, for maximum hydration and fragrance. This best-selling toner is so popular, a bottle is sold every two minutes somewhere around the world. The refreshing and balancing properties make it perfect for combination skin, especially if you can see the first signs of ageing, but still suffer from the occasional breakout.
REN Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Tonic, 250ml: £25, REN Skincare
Ageing skin can look dull because the regeneration process slows down as we age – so the dead skin cells hang around waiting to be exfoliated. Once they’re buffed off, younger, more glowy skin is revealed. After 35, we should all be exfoliating twice a week – but in reality, who remembers to do that? If your exfoliator was in your toner, you’d be doing it without thinking. This new AHA toner is super low in skin resurfacers, so it’s gentle enough to be used daily without any risk of sensitising the skin. Less than a week’s use and my complexion was noticeably brighter, tone was improved and pores even seemed a shade smaller. Use a cotton pad to swipe over clean skin and then just follow with your usual serum and moisturiser.
The Organic Pharmacy Jasmine Night Conditioner, 50ml: £37, The Organic Pharmacy
Retinol fans will know the anti-ageing benefits of incorporating a retinoid or retinol into your skincare routine is unbeatable for slowing down the ageing process. This night time spray also contains hyaluronic acid (carries 1,000 times its weight in water, so boosts moisture and plumps up skin), glycolic acid (exfoliates to reveal fresh bright skin) and vitamin C (firms skin, boosts collagen and helps treat sun damage). All your anti-ageing power house ingredients in one quick spritz while you sleep. What’s not to love? It really does give you a glowing complexion the morning after and it only took a week or so to start seeing the effects of the retinol visibly reducing fine lines. Don’t forget that if you’re using a retinol based product overnight, always wear SPF the next day.
Mavala Skin Vitality Vitalising Alpine Micro-Mist, 125ml: £17.50, Look Fantastic
If tired skin is your bug-bear, then this wake-up call could be the anti-ager you’re looking for. Lacklustre, fatigued skin immediately makes you look older and more drawn, but this perky cocktail of toning Swiss apricot and decongesting cornflower water delivers anti-oxidants to brighten the complexion. It also works as a make-up fixer and you can spritz in the middle of the day if you need a pick-me-up. I used it during the recent hot week and it helped stop my makeup sliding by lunchtime.
Espa Hydrating Floral Spafresh Spritzer, 100ml: £20, Espa
This has a really luxurious, spa-like feel to it, thanks to the beautiful fragrance of rose damascena, rose geranium and neroli. The blend of these three ingredients soothes, protects, hydrates and nourishes dry and dehydrated skin. I found the tautness in my drier zones, felt much more supple after using this for a few days. It’s also a good choice if your skin is sensitive and prone to irritation as it calms high colour complexions.
Clarins Gentle Exfoliator Brightening Toner, 125ml: £26, Clarins
Blocked pores and oily skin isn’t just the preserve of teenagers, many adults suffer with acne and blemish-prone skin at the same time as noticing the first signs of ageing. So how to combat combination skin as it ages? Oily skin needs something a little more astringent than some simple rosewater after cleansing and this brightening toner not only brightens, but also balances and clears at the same time. It does a little gentle resurfacing with tamarind fruit acids and noticeably tightens pores too, thanks to white nettle extract. Its recommended use is once or twice a week, so use with caution the first few times until your skin is used to it. We found it very effective used in a particularly hormonal week, when my skin would usually feel more oily and often break out.
Estelle & Thild BioCleanse Multi-Action Facial Toner, 150ml: £19, Feel Unique
We definitely lose our glow as we age and anything that claims to put radiance back into our complexions is worth a try – there’s nothing that shouts youth like glowy, plumped up, dewy skin. And this really does deliver a radiant glow thanks to its blend of vitamins and active enzymes. Not only that, but this brand should be the first port of call for natural beauty fans – over 99 per cent of the total ingredients are from natural origin, almost 15 per cent are from organic farming, it’s certified natural and organic by Ecocert Greenlife and it’s suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
Dr Hauschka Facial Toner, 100ml: £25.50, Dr Hauschka
For morning-after-the-night-before skin, or if you’re up in the night with little people, or burning the candle at both ends, then an invigorating toner packed with stimulating witch hazel is probably just what you need to perk up tired skin. Hydrating and balancing, dry and sensitive skin will like this too. It’s another one for natural beauty fans too – 100% natural and organic, free from synthetic fragrances, dyes, preservatives, mineral oils and silicone. And suitable for vegans.
The Verdict: Anti-ageing toners
High-performance REN and The Organic Pharmacy deliver a whole lot more than just toning, Jurlique, Estelle & Thild and Dr Hauschka are for the natural beauty fans, and sluggish uneven skin tones will love Algenist. But for all round incredible results, combining natural oils and hi-tech ingredients, Decleor was the clear winner.