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I’ve weirdly only reviewed one NuBo product before, the NuBo Perfectionist pore concealer, but they’re a brand that’s always been on my radar. Founded by Russian-born Marina Shcherbinina, NuBo is a London-gone-global luxury and efficacy driven skincare brand. When I first wrote about NuBo back in 2013, there were very few male-dedicated skincare brands outside of Clarins or Clinique. I feel their voice and greatly advanced offering has become lost in a sea of poorly formulated, trend-pandering garbage. So I reached out to them and the Cell Dynamic Cooling Aftershave Moisturiser is one of their latest launches.
Looking past the name, this is a lightweight, daily moisturising lotion with SPF20 UVA/UVB. Although a lotion, Cell Dynamic has a really light texture, almost watery yet still providing the same level of hydration (but not grease or ‘weight’) of a much thicker texture.
There’s Vitamin E and Pro-Vitamin C to delivery antioxidant protection; these are kept stable as the moisturiser is in an airtight pump bottle that pushes up from the bottom. Brown Algae calms, cleansers and repairs whilst Rhodiola reportedly helps increase the oxygen content of surface skin cells. The propitiatory Moisture Magnet formulation addition helps boost intercellular lipid content and helps to repair the moisture barrier.
Boiling down the ingredients list, the SPF comes from Homosalate and Oxybenzone which I’m not wildly thrilled about but it’s widely used and does the job. There is then a blend of essential oils that have proven skincare benefits including: juniper, lime, bergamot, petitgrain, lemon, vetivert.
Cell Dynamic is also formulated with no parabens, no SLS, no irritating petro-chemicals and no synthetic colours or synthetic fragrances. That being said, it smells beautiful; like hopefulness and holidays.
I’ve been wearing this a good week or so and really like it. It takes a touch longer to work in, which in a product with SPF is very common; as it works into the skin, it splits and filters ingredients into the skin based on weight, usually SPF being heaviest and sitting on the top where it’s needed. In slightly warmer/humid weather, this is the perfect texture and comfort level for my normal/combination skin.
The dimethicone-based Skin Camouflage formulation leaves skin with a natural, blurred smoothness that reduces pore and wrinkle appearance. If you’re acne-prone, I’d avoid this product as dimethicone can be a bit of a no-no, but otherwise I don’t have much of a problem with this as it’s in most makeup, BB and concealer products; it’s how they work. Needless to say, it leaves me looking, feeling and smelling fab!
NuBo Cell Dynamic Cooling Aftershave Moisturiser SPF20 is a great spring/summer buy and you can pick a bottle up for yourself for £80/30ml here at Mankind.
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I also wanted to mention something daft, but important to me. This is probably the first post in a long time where you’ve seen a good chunk more than just the back of my hand, but instead almost my whole hand. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been dealing with horrendous dermatitis that has spread over both of my hands and in this industry and doing what I do, it’s really not a good look. It has left scarring and if not kept up to, can still split and become extremely painful. A lot of this was exacerbated by my recently diagnosed Asthma, which I’m getting treatment for but it’s been a lot of work and perseverance. It has finally almost cleared up.
I will be doing a product post soon, as was using Aveeno for almost 2 years which did OK; however it was Palmer’s Hand Cream over the last 6 weeks that has made the most unbelievable difference and I’m still gobsmacked to say it now. I picked it up because I’d left my hand cream at home whilst out and it was all I could get at such short notice where I was. Anyway, totally not important to this piece, but it’s taken a lot of hard work and just wanted to mention it; also in case anyone else suffers with the same.
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