Wake up with an old friend

Me and Olay go back a long way. All the way, in fact, to when it was 'Oil of Ulay', a pink liquid in a glass bottle.

I remember seeing an advert for it back then. A woman talking to her friend while their children played in the background. The friend complimented her on her skin which, naturally, was moisturised with Oil of Ulay. "Of course," said the woman wafting perfect skin past the camera and looking at her daughters, "I should have started using it when I was their age."

I remember that I immediately looked at my teenage skin in the mirror, thought 'Holy Cow!' and bought myself a bottle of this miracle stuff. Such is the power of advertising.

I've been hooked on it ever since.Moisturiser that is. I fell out of love with Ulay when it became Olay and changed to funky black urban packaging. I prefer my skincare to look a little more medicinal. Give me Clinique or No7 and I'm happy.

But when Olay offered me a trial bottle of their Total Effects wake up wonder who was I to turn down an old friend?

It came with seven promises:

1. To visibly reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles
2. Hydrates for a healthy radiant glow
3. Firmer skin appearance
4. Improves skin surface dullness
5. Smooths and evens skin texture
6. Minimises the appearance of pores
7. Helps to prevent damage to the skin's surface.

I decided it needed a proper trial, so I ceased use of all my other serums and lotions and devoted myself to the Olay. First I had a long scrutiny of the State of Things in the mirror in bright light. Not good but not too bad either.

The first thing I noticed about Olay was the smell. I hate perfume in cosmetics and this one was no exception. To me it smelled like perm lotion and ancient gone off perfume. It made my skin tingle too and after a few days my skin looked silvery and dried out. Not good, not good at all, but this was a trial so I decided to persevere.

Then things got better. Perhaps I got used to the new stuff. My skin smoothed out and I began to see the effects of numbers one to six of Olay's promises. In fact I began to quite like the stuff. My skin feels better and I think it looks better too. Olay isn't the pink liquid of days gone by. My old friend has grown up, gone all high-tech and it seems to work.

Sponsored post: Or, in other words, they gave me a bottle to test.