I… I think I’m in love. Move aside, It’s Skin 2pm, I think I found a new holy grail of sunscreens. This little bottle is totally worth the month long wait to ship from Japan. Why do I love it so much? Let me count the ways …
1- No drying alcohols. Which leads me to my next point:
2- Has never broken me out.
3- Dries clear. There’s absolutely NO whitecast.
4- Odorless. Well, there is the faint sunscreen-y smell, but nothing noticeable or overwhelming, and goes away after a minute or two.
5- No pilling. Easily spreadable. Just give it a couple of minutes to dry, then go ahead and dump your foundation, powders, other moisturizers, literally whatever, on top of it. It won’t roll up.
6- Dries quickly. Kind of the same as #5, but I wanted to mention more of the texture. The sunscreen is a watery white gel that absorbs extremely rapidly — and clear. You’ll still feel a bit of a “film” on your skin, but it’s not heavy or bothersome.
7- A little goes a long way. Don’t be scared of the tiny 40ml bottle – you really only need two or three drops of this to spread across your face. Which reminds me…
8- No burning on application.
9- Waterproof. You can still “feel” the film of this on your face even after working up a sweat.
10- SPF 50! Can’t get much better than that.
11- Bonus ingredient: hyaluronic acid.
This is everything I could want in a sunscreen. It’s too perfect. The only thing I hate is the ridiculously long ship time. I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop because I can’t find anything wrong with it. ~A
There’s a lot of talk in the skincare community about “slug life” — wherein a skincare aficionado ends their routine with the most occlusive product possible, and ceases any social activity for the remainder of the day (since drowning your face in Vaseline/oil/Aquaphor has the tendency to make you look a tad bit, well, slimy). Of course, by doing all of this, you run the risk of blocking your pores and causing more breakouts if you wind up picking the wrong product.
The ingredient listing in Aquaphor is relatively simple — mineral oil, lanolin alcohol, paraffin, panethenol and glycerin. But mineral oil is a tricky thing. It’s not inherantly evil — it’s in a ton of makeup products, and probably a lot of skincare products that don’t tout themselves as oil-free. Unfortunately, it absolutely has a tendency to clog pores.
I rotated between Cerave in a Tub, Aquaphor, and Vaseline when I first started using Epiduo — since Epiduo’s primary function is to turn over skin cells, my face was burning like crazy. The three aforementioned heavy-layers were intended to decrease the burning. Of the three, Vaseline was the best for this, and Cerave was the worst. Aquaphor landed squarely in the middle. However, of the three, Aquaphor lead to the highest tendency of me waking up in the morning and saying, “Ah, look, new break outs!” (Vaseline did this as well, but not to the same extent)
What I did find Aquaphor was best for was lips! I use the Aquaphor Healing Ointment in the smaller tube as my go-to chapstick. Most chapsticks have more drying components in their ingredient listing (like peppermint) that cancel out anything you’re trying to accomplish, which is generally to retain moisture in your lips. The paraffin and mineral oil, and otherwise short ingredient listing in Aquaphor will help to keep them hydrated.
If you’re not sensitive to mineral oil and you’re looking for a good “last step” in your routine — particularly if you have very dry, irritated skin (in fact, I think this is a holy grail for a lot of eczema sufferers) — I’d say give this a shot. It goes on easily and the gel is clear — you should start feeling some relief moments after you apply it. No, no one is going to win any beauty contents by slathering petroleum all over their face, but that’s the price you pay for being a believer in slug life! ~A
Perceived efficacy: 4/5
Longevity: 5/5
How much I actually like this product: 4/5 as chapstick; 2/5 for face
Recommended for sensitive skin: If sensitive to mineral oil, no.
This will be a confusing review because I’m going to list a lot of things that I think are “wrong” with this foundation. But — this is actually one of my favorite foundations that I’ve used!
Right off the bat, this is not a super accessible brand to find in my area. I have to order it from Ebay or Amazon, who ship it from the UK, which guarantees a good ol’ two to three week wait time. Likely because of the shipping involved, I’ve never paid less than $16 for this. Although I need about four pumps of this to fully cover my face, I don’t find myself burning through the product too quickly, so I fortunately don’t need to reorder too often.
My second issue is the shade range. Now — previously I’ve seen some reviews on this brand that the selection of shades wasn’t all that great to begin with, but I just hopped on Bourjois’s website, and it looks like they expanded their range for this foundation. Still, those shades are nearly impossible to find outside of this website — ie: Amazon doesn’t seem to have much in the way of offerings beyond no 58. Then, finding your actual shade seems to be a bit more arduous than other foundations I’ve used. Swatch tests online don’t seem to be anywhere close to what the real color is, and I ended up having to swim through shade 50 to shade 55 to actually determine what my actual shade was. I felt like 51 through 54 were completely the same shade! Final issue was that the colors do skew a bit yellow, or grey, on initial application, but it does oxidize after awhile and seems to fix itself.
Onto the actual application. I would say this is light-medium coverage, but it’s very buildable! I use about three pushes of the applicator for the first pass on my face and rub it in using my fingers. It’s very smooth, and easy to apply. I usually let it dry before applying one more light layer over top. This does have some noticeable settling into fine lines and creases, but nothing that can’t be fixed with a quick touch up, or powder. The dry time is a little bit longer than some other foundations I’ve used, I’ve noticed, but not too bad. And once dried, it’s absolutely smooth sailing for any other product you want to use over it — no pilling, or muddying the other product.
As I mentioned before, the color does skew weirdly yellow or grey at first. But after it’s reacted to the heat of your skin for a few minutes, it seems to dissipate, and matches the skin tone better without the usual orange tint that you tend to get with oxidation (powder also helps, in this case). Coverage, in general, seems to become better after the five minute mark – so if you feel like the color is too light after your first application, you may need to wait a few minutes to see the full effect.
The biggest selling point here is how beautiful the foundation still looks after 12 hours of wear (I know it says 16 hours on the bottle but hey, if it makes it to 8 hours, I’m impressed). REGARDLESS of any product you have underneath or over this foundation, you shouldn’t notice any substantial oil build up or foundation cracking around lines. This really has a phenomenal longevity. Oh, and — this is great for sensitive skin. It doesn’t cause any dryness, itchiness or irritation. No surprise break outs when you remove this, at the end of the day!
I think the only remaining issue I have with this foundation is that I sort of wish it had SPF in it, along with all the other goodies it seems to have (Vitamins B, C, E, and even hyaluronic acid), but I’m probably asking for too much. 😉 But this is really my go-to foundation these days. The coverage and longevity are so far unparalleled in this particular price range.
Now that the sun has made a guest appearance in my otherwise cold and snowy part of the world, I’m back on the hunt for a good face sunscreen. Here’s my criteria:
At least SPF 30
No whitecast
No drying alcohols
Not too crazy, right? Not even a chemical vs physical sunscreen stipulation! Unfortunately, the “no alcohol” clause rules out at least half, in both the US and Asian beauty markets! Goodbye, Biore UV Watery Gel! (too bad because I love that stuff).
Here’s a quick run down of sunblocks I’ve tried in the past, on a pass/fail basis:
Biore UV Watery Gel: Awesome. Dries fast and clear. Has alcohol. Fail.
Cerave Facial Moisturizing AM 30 SPF: No alcohol, but breaks down makeup, pills like mad, and makes my skin itchy, thus made me break out. Come on, Cerave… Fail.
Innisfree No Sebum SPF 35: No alcohol. Fruity smell might not be everyone’s taste, but I don’t mind it. Whitecast can be a little much and it will break your makeup down after it’s been on all day, but the longevity is certainly better than most! So actually… pass, but not on work days.
Avene Mineral Ultra-Light SPF 50: Absolutely not. Crazy amounts of white-cast, itchy, destroys makeup, pills with every single product, WAY too much money considering this has ZERO cosmetic elegance. Also made me break out. Fail times one million.
Hawaiian Tropic Silk Hydration Face SPF 30: I want to like this stuff so bad because I love Hawaiian Tropic brand for some reason (probably the beachy packaging…) but this basically burned my face off. Smells good, though… Fail. 😦
Neutrogena Sheer Zinc Dry-Touch SPF 50: Another “burned my face off and made me break out”. Fail.
Its Skin 2pm SPF 50: I’ve talked about this one a million times but it’s the only sunscreen that’s a 95% pass for me. Applies smoothly with very little whitecast, smells freakin’ amazing, doesn’t break down makeup or other product, and it’s 50 SPF. It DOES give me little tiny break outs, though. They’re tolerable, but ugh. Still, pass.
So there you have it, my quick review and rant of just some of the sunscreens I’ve tried in the past year. I’ve got Canmake Mermaid Skin on the way to my house right now, and I’m tempted to try Cetaphil’s 50 SPF. Readers, do you have any sensitive-skin friendly sunscreen options? I’d love to hear if you do!
Finally, a CosRX
product that is compliant with my skin, and one I’m in absolute
love with! If you’re looking for a heavy moisturizer, I very
heavily recommend this one.
My story about this moisturizer begins with another, the coveted Cerave-in- a-Tub. At the height of my cystic acne, I wanted so bad for Cerave to be my HG, second-to-last step moisturizer, convinced that the weight of it was locking in a supreme amount of moisture which would help my skin recover from all the retinol and benzoyl peroxide I was applying to it. Maybe this was the case, but it was SO difficult to work with. It never played well with any other products, and the whitecast was difficult to rid of. I woke up the next morning feeling sticky, moreso than hydrated.
A couple other heavy
creams came after this one, but this CosRX honey ceramide cream ended
up ticking off all of the boxes, and being everything Cerave was not
– the only gripe being the ridiculously small amount in the package
for the price ($17), and perhaps a slightly shorter listing of
ceramides in the ingredients.
This alcohol-free, odorless white cream spreads very easily into the skin, and you don’t need to go overboard on product – a few pea-sized amounts should do. It won’t pill with any other skincare product you have underneath, unless you apply it too soon in succession. I use this exclusively at night due to it’s weight, but I did try it once with makeup, and it didn’t make too much of a mess – obviously, the longer you wait between application, better. Immediately after application, I feel like my skin was bouncier. When I wake up in the morning, my skin STILL feels hydrated. This being my first honey cream, I was under the impression that the honey would make me feel sticky, but it didn’t.
As a bonus, this did not cause me to break out! I suppose I had pictured honey clogging every single pore in existence and causing a mess, but it absolutely did not. I felt, in fact, my pores had shrunk a bit overnight. All in all, this stuff is great. This is a new HG for me, and I’d recommend even those with sensitive skin give it a try. ~A
In the words of Jeffree Star, “I’m not living for this”. This is a more-or-less a BB cream, in which the point of using this product is more about the added benefits (sunscreen and retinol) and less about the coverage. Unfortunately, the added benefits ended up not being benefits to me at all.
This foundation comes in a push-top tube. The liqui-cream comes out in a thin line, and, honestly, what you can get out in one or two pumps won’t really seem like enough product. It didn’t spread very evenly, and I kept having to go back to get more of the product, after feeling as though it had stopped short while I was spreading it. This might have been because the color isn’t really intended to be coverage, but more of a tint, thus causing me to think I simply hadn’t used enough. Which leads me to my next gripe.
What tint? Although my skin undertone skews yellow, I have a lot of redness due to my various skin sensitivities, but otherwise I’m a hard NC-15 during a good half of the year. I figured picking this up in the “ivory to fair” shade would be satisfactory. And again, I get that this isn’t intended to provide coverage, but I didn’t see any color at all, not even enough to provide any smallest amount of correction. Then, after twenty minutes, the weirdest thing happened: it oxidized, turning my face slightly orange. Suddenly, my face no longer matched my neck! But at this point I was already out of the house, so I soldiered on and continued to wear it.
Now, fortunately, any color that was on my face was relatively imperceptible by noon, although I had quite a bit of oil breakthrough. But then my skin started to itch, and by the time I was home to remove my makeup, I had broke out in a few spots. Now, there’s nothing unheard of in this product’s ingredient list, nor anything that I would say is bad. But it does contain both retinol and sunscreen. Retinol, even at low percentages, invokes an initial purging period. And sunscreen… I don’t know. I don’t have a good time with American sunscreens, personally, but I can’t put my finger on why that’s the case.
I can see why some people would like this product though. If you can tolerate the ingredients that provide the benefits, it seems like it could be a great product. Retinol is great for anti-aging, as is SPF (and you would need the SPF anyway if you planned on going out in the sun after applying retinol). If your skin can mesh well with the oxidation-orange tint, you’d be in luck with this. Otherwise, this foundation is personally hard pass for me. ~A
Clean and Clear knows their target demographic very well: teens who are struggling with acne for the first time in their lives, and their parents who don’t know much about skin care. They have what seems to be an astronomical budget for their marketing campaigns (probably because their parent company is Johnson & Johnson), which make it seem like all you need to do is put the product on, dramatically splash some water over your face, and you’ll be out the door with clear skin in no time. That’s not to say Clean and Clear is pumping their products full of stuff that doesn’t work, but it seems like their preference is to hook the consumer with loud-colored product lines instead of having them focus on the ingredients in the products themselves.
That brings me to talking about this product. This is a white-cream cleanser that you mask your face with (or your problem areas), leave it on for 20-30 seconds, and then wash it off. The idea is that the 10%(!!!!!) benzoyl peroxide should eradicate active, or about-to-be active breakouts.
The reason I bolded 10% BP is because 10% is A LOT. That is the maximum percentage benzoyl peroxide can be sold at. For me personally, a 2.5% spot treatment is enough to make my skin peel. Now that I think about it, even the prescription-only Epiduo gel is only 2.5%! I use the Clean and Clear product MAYBE twice a year, and the way I view it is kind of like a nuclear bomb — if I’ve gotten to the point of using it, that means I’ve had a very terrible breakout, and I’m prepared to accept the consequences of my skin burning and peeling to help turn over the breakout faster.
Imagine you are a teenager who is embarrassed by their first onset of acne. You walk into Walgreens, and find a cleanser that promises clear skin. You don’t really know what the 10% truly implies, but Clean and Clear is a very popular brand, and it’s cheap ($6), so you should buy it too, right? Once you use it, you notice your skin is burning and peeling, but the adage is that “if it hurts, that means it’s working”, so you keep on cleansing your face with it, hoping to see clear skin the next day.
But it doesn’t work like that — with repeated usage of this product you’ll only experience more irritation, and the dryness of your skin will likely create even more breakouts. Just because you’re washing it off after 20 seconds doesn’t mean you’ve reduced your exposure to the BP. You’ve more or less entered into a never-ending cycle, because the product simultaneously causes the problem, and also cures it.
I know that Clean and Clear is not the only brand that sells 10% BP in this form, as a cleanser. Other brands yet sell this percentage as a spot treatment, which makes a little more sense since the idea is to “target” the problem area and not put it all over your face. The spot treatment idea I can get behind, as long as the user has education about the strength that they’re using. But as a cleanser — I can’t back that as a well-intended product.
My recommendation to someone new to skincare who is struggling with acne or possibly has a limited budget is to try to stick to a basic routine. Use a gentle cleanser like Cetaphil, an oil-free moisturizer like Cerave PM, and, if you must, sparingly use a spot treatment that isn’t more than 2.5% BP. Unless you already have a very high tolerance to benzoyl peroxide, slathering 10% of it on your face is only going to lend itself to trouble. ~A
Neutrogena must have had a pretty good run with the original hydro boost moisturizer, as they’ve rather substantially increased their product offerings under this namesake. As they should! This is an easily accessible (ie: found in most grocers or drug stores), good-smelling alcohol-free option for close to every single skin type there is.
For a lotion, this is a tad bit expensive ($9) and the amount of product for that price point won’t overwhelm you — that’s probably my only gripe with this product. The lotion comes out of the pump white, and very quickly sinks into your skin with no residue. The lotion thins out quickly and becomes easily spreadable, so you won’t feel like you’re wasting product as you’re using it.
What I consider to be a good lotion is one that doesn’t make you feel like you need to re-apply every 5 minutes, or make you feel like your skin is extremely tacky. This is neither of them. I never have the feeling that I need to reapply this.
The smell is the same as the others in the Hydroboost line — light, fresh, almost like a … bubble bath? I personally love it, but there is a fragrance free option available as well.
Overall, this is definitely worth a bit of a splurge. You wouldn’t think it would be so tough to find a lotion that actually, you know, puts moisture into your skin and retains it, but it is. Fortunately, this is that lotion!
Since I think all of my readers are amazing and I want you all to have perfect skin, I wanted to write a quick little post about some self-care items, regarding starting your skincare routine when it becomes a little too much.
Your skin changes — over seasons, months, and years. Sensitivities change. And sometimes that means the products you’re using, no matter how well they were working before, simply will not comply. Or sometimes, you’re just plain ol’ doing too much!
Product overload: I personally tend to go a little crazy when I’ve ordered a bunch of new skincare products. Somehow convinced that every single one of them is a miracle item and that they’re all 100% going to play well with one another and that…. well, that just doesn’t happen. Recently I did this with Derma E Vitamin C (acids usually induce an initial breakout) and CosRX Galactomyces (clogs my pores, personally). Bad idea. Solution: Slow down. Go back to basics with your skincare routine, and add the products in slowly, one at a time!
Skin Sensitivities Changing Naturally: There doesn’t even need to be a trigger, or even a “known sensitive ingredient” that causes sensitivities in a very large population. Currently, I’m having the weirdest problem with Neutrogena’s Hydroboost. This is normally my go-to HG moisturizer. But lately? It’s not hydrating enough, in fact, my skin’s been itching a bit after application. Weird, right? Am I allergic to dimethicone now, or something? I have no idea what’s going on. Maybe it’s just winter, and my skin needs something a little thicker. But I’m not ready to give up on it just yet. Solution: if you were using a product before with success, shelf it for awhile (or throw it out and buy another one later). See if it works after 3-4 months. If it’s still not working, it might be time to find another product.
Acid or Antiseptic Overload: Be wary of your acid, retinoid and benzoyl peroxide usage. These are all great and the exfoliation can give you visible results quickly, but it can turn on you just as fast. Your skin can become dried out, irritated, burn, or break out. I have a tough time with BP, because I think it works the best for reducing or preventing breakouts entirely, but I’ve discovered that my skin really isn’t interested in tolerating it more than “every other night”. Solution: Build up your acid usage slowly. If your skin becomes irritated, decrease usage, and add in extra emulsifiers/heavy moisturizers to add moisture back into your skin.
Epiduo or 2% BP (every other night only!) — sadly Epiduo is prescription only where I live, but I also use Neutrogena’s Spot Treatment, on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2I5bRMw
This is a weird one. During my cystic acne phase, I used this as an occlusive, and continued to use it for the first five months of treatment. I didn’t have any issues breaking out “more” than I already was. Using it now, though, now that I’m back to combination skin, I’ve noticed it’s congestive to my pores. This seems weird to me as the ingredient list is simplistic — petroleum, and paraffin — both of which are in other products I currently use. So, for all you sensitive skin/acne sufferers: I would actually suggest giving this a try firstand see how you react. I really liked this in the beginning and thought it worked great. I’m guessing as my skin recovered, my sensitivities changed.
Onto the review! There is quite a lot of product in this tube, and you don’t need very much at all. The only smell is really the mineral-y, waxy smell of the petroleum. This moisturizer does, as they advertise, “melt” — it comes out as a thick line of waxy product, but starts to disintegrate into water when it makes contact with the heat of your skin. That makes this product best as a last step/occlusive, after you’ve put all your other products on for the night (just be careful not to sleep with your face on the pillow…). It’s awesome particularly in the winter when you feel like you honestly could never get enough moisture in your skin — this moisturizer will provide it!
A full eight hours is about the time it takes for this product to fully break down, but the end result is that you wake up feeling that your skin is bouncy and soft. As I mentioned before, I used to not really find that I had any “new” breakouts (that were caused by this, anyway).
I’m kind of bummed out that I don’t have great results with this anymore like I used to. I think it’s the most moisturized I’ve been from using one product, and the price point of $10 is great for the amount of product and overall effect. I’ll give it the review I would have given it when I had bad acne though, because I think it could definitely be a holy grail for acne sufferers, so long as they don’t have any sensitivities to petroleum. ~A
The Altruistic Face 