Like most other parents will attest, the evening is my time.

There is a phenomenon known as Revenge Bedtime Procrastination, which is best described as intentionally delaying bedtime when one has minimal control over their daytime life as an attempt to regain some sense of freedom, and claim back precious personal time late at night (despite knowing it is not good for them).

As a 32-year-old working mother to a beautiful, energetic toddler, I am 100% guilty of staying up late, mindlessly scrolling or binging Netflix’s latest series, Clickbait, until an ungodly hour.

You see, I KNOW I need to make more time for sleep but the evening is my time to unwind after the sun sets. When the house is quiet, it’s my time to stop, re-calibrate and take a breath. In my bathroom, I like to steal a few precious moments to myself because I also know my skin care will do hard work for me while I sleep.

While I reflect on the new word my son said that day or the inspiring interview I conducted with a formulating chemist, it dawns on me that time is luxury. And for me, luxury really does come in the form of my skincare regimen.

After I stopped breastfeeding, I was bursting with excitement to reintroduce Vitamin A back into my personal skincare routine. After more than two years of not having used retinol  – a group of compounds that derive from Vitamin A – I wanted to ease the powerful skincare ingredient back into my nightly skincare line up. 

Retinol is inarguably skincare’s most effective ingredient—and now, it comes in a new level of luxury: encapsulated in caviar. Of all the foods that have transitioned from tasty-on-your-plate to beautifying-ingredient-du-jour  – think honey, yoghurt, sugar, etc. – caviar is easily the most decadent. 

Six weeks ago, I introduced La Prairie Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil as the final gesture in my current skincare routine. Housed in the Swiss skincare brand’s signature cobalt blue packaging (an homage to artist Niki de Saint Phalle), the Nighttime Oil uses lipids and La Prairie’s elusive caviar-derived retinol, and it’s the ideal product to treat everything from fine lines, sagging skin, dehydration, and general lacklustre skin (also known as everything that had been plaguing me for most of Sydney’s latest lockdown).

I started using the Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil every night (after my serum and eye cream) as a desperate attempt to introduce a little glow and life to my skin. La Prairie’s caviar retinol is powerful yet gentle enough to use every night unlike other retinols; and the amber-tinted oil is a super fine consistency and sinks into the skin–allowing me to drift off without worrying that I’ll wake up to stains on my sheets. By morning, I feel fresher, brighter, and with a noticeable glow, which means I don’t have to put makeup on if I don’t want to. When the sun rises, my skin feels plumped–dare I say, younger–and the texture has become so much smoother.

The best part for me is that, unlike most facial oils, the Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil plays well with all the other products in my routine, rather than making them pill or layer uncomfortably. Also, now that I know I can wear it no matter what other products I’m testing out, it means I don’t ever have to skip a single night of using it. Because going a night without my Nighttime Oil? That would be a tragedy.