We pride ourselves on being ahead of the loop but Alex Gazzola, who runs our FreeFrom Skincare Awards is so far ahead of the loop that he had already socially distanced the awards last year and taken them on line.
His 2019 virtual presentation was such a success that the COVID-induced lockdown caused him no issues. His 2020 presentation which ran from 9am to 7.30 pm last Tuesday, flowed as smoothly as silk which, given that he was not only posting and congratulating the super excited winners on Twitter but initiating a stream of Instagram posts as the same time, puts him up there with the super geeks!
This was the first year that Alex had opened entry up outside the UK and Ireland. Satisfyingly, not only did we have an excellent entry from around Europe but it was an European product – made in Lithuania, that was the overall winner: Uoga Uoga’s Intensive Care Day Cream. Runners up were Holos, Boo Cottage Botanicals, Antipodes, Hairy Jayne and Maison Meunier ; best brand was shared by Antipodes and Bloomtown. Details of all of the winners are here on the Skincare Awards site.
The initial testing of the products by our faithful testers around the country fitted well into the COVID calendar – most were either working from home or furloughed so had plenty of time to scrutinise each side of their faces over 4 weeks to monitor the effects of two different serums! However, our second round of judging when we get three or four skincare experts together to look at the products in the light of the testers’ comment, could have proved more of a problem. But fortunately, lockdown had lifted sufficiently for us to be able have three judges and Alex here in Highgate, suitably sanitised, masked and gloved, supervised by out two feline monitors, Boris and Arwen. Extra small categories were successfully judged via Zoom.
All things considered, and given that this could have been a very challenging year – a rave success!!
For all details of the winners, see here.
For Alex’s blog explaining a bit more about the background, the judging processes and the products, see here.
For lots of pretty pictures on Instagram, see here.
Excellent! Well done all. I never doubted it x