Tag: skincare reviews

Site Updates

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Hello! Just me, checking in on my readers again. I hope you are all doing well and that you are all staying healthy!

I finally added a dedicated page for skincare routines for sufferers of cystic or severe acne. Don’t know what took me so long! That can be found by going to the top menu of my main page, or by clicking here.

For hopefully a large majority of my readers, the unintentional “good” thing that is coming out of COVID-19 is that you’re likely not wearing too much makeup while you’re stuck at home. What better time for a little bit of self-care? Here are a couple ideas:

  • Self-tanning! A lot of us are probably losing out on a lot of opportunities to do any real substantial springtime sunbathing — that’s where self-tanner comes in! My favorite self-tanner body lotion is Jergens; my favorite tanning drops are Tanwise!
  • Face masks! If you’re new to face masks, My Beauty Diary masks are inexpensive, and offer a variety of options for different skin needs. They’re also, weirdly, very relaxing!
  • Slug Life! Now’s your chance to lay around in emolliating and occlusive layers all day. If nothing else — your skin will be extremely bouncy after we’re let out of our houses! Try out Pixi H20 Skindrink for a pleasant-smelling slug life, and Elta MD Intense Moisture for the most extreme of occlusive layers.

But most important of all — eat well, Facetime your family, and wash your hands! 🙂

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Olay Foaming Whip Body Wash

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I wanted to sneak this quick review in of Olay Whips Body Wash before the cold season officially ends (although, where I live, that probably won’t be until May…). My mom picked this up for me for Christmas, and told me she had heard it was supposed to be “life-changing”. I decided to put that to the test.

This comes in a 10.3 fl oz bottle. I was scared it wouldn’t last a long time, since it’s foam and is essentially weightless — I figured I would always end up using too much product — but it’s been about two months now and the can still has a quarter of the product left. Not bad. The applicator sprays out, amazingly, close to the exact amount of soap needed to cover your whole body by the time it’s foamed up. Since you’re not going back to the canister to get more over and over again, it really does save a little time in the shower.

This acts a lot like shaving cream, so if you regularly use shaving cream in the shower, you can probably skip that step entirely when you’re using this product. The foam allows you to see what spots you’ve missed, and the soap itself is emolliating enough to not dry your skin out after you’ve shaved and pushed the product away. For some reason, most shaving creams really irritate my skin after I’ve gotten out of the shower — not so, for this soap.

I think what I like most about this product is, besides the fact it smells really nice and actually lingers well after you’ve showered, is that it’s actually hydrating longer-term. As I mentioned before it’s pretty cold where I live, so usually my skin starts to itch immediately after I’ve gotten out of the shower and before I’ve applied body lotion, but I didn’t feel like that was happening so much after I started to use this product. It didn’t seem to dry out as much during the day, either. I’m actually surprised by this because this product does not exclude sulfates.

Time-saving? Absolutely. Hydrating? Yep. Smells great? Yes! Cost effective? Err… well, I’ve seen this at Wal-Mart before for $5.97 and, I think for that price point, yes, it is cost effective. But I just looked on Amazon and a “pack of one” will run you $14.80 — insane! So, in-store, yes, online, no. I recommend sensitive skin and cold weather sufferers alike to pick this up if they can find it in a store for under $7. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 5/5

Longevity: 5/5

How much I actually like this product: 5/5

Recommended for sensitive skin: Yes

Bio-Oil Specialist Skin Care – Price Increase and Fakes, a 2020 Update

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There’s been a recent uptick in Bio-Oil’s popularity, and I can’t help but wonder if some of the hub-bub is also related to their remarkably sharp price increase! Bio-Oil has been on the market for a little over thirty years, and remains a well known and liked skincare product because the stuff actually works. I reviewed Bio-Oil previously, in fact (link to original review here); while I don’t think it’s a miracle product for scarring, it is a great introduction into oils you can apply to your skin. It was worth $9, for sure. A quick walk into Walgreens last week, however, revealed the new price tag was $17 for the same amount of product.

I was a little peeved at the $17 price tag, but realizing the price was roughly the same as Amazon’s current going rate, I threw in the towel and purchased it. I do really like the stuff, after all, and sometimes a girl is too lazy to drive across town to Target/wait three days for shipping!

Foolishly, I also believed that Walgreens would pick from a relatively reputable stock for their beauty products, but I suppose to only reputable retailer would be Bio-Oil themselves. I should have opened the box in the store to inspect the product. But I didn’t. I got home and sure enough, upon opening the bottle, discovered that I may have had a dupe on my hands.

Sign 1 Fake: Super thin, almost water-like consistency. The real Bio-Oil is more like… oil. It slips and slides around your skin, and doesn’t immediately absorb, but the fake is much more thin. Upon further Googling for signs of a fake, I realized the fakes will also “bubble” if you shook them. Yep. It did that too.

Sign 2 of Fake: the smell. This had a faint whiff of like… antiseptic, kind of. Like the stuff they use to sterilie everything at the doctor’s office. Definitely not the light, faintly floral smell of Bio-Oil.

Sign 3 of Fake: A little more Googling informed me that the color will appear more pink than orange. This was definitely pink.

I didn’t even want to try putting this on my face for the sake of “science” and seeing what it would do. The antiseptic smell convinced me that I would more or less be putting mouthwash on my face.

It’s tough to find a good source for Bio-Oil, since the regular consumer cannot buy directly from the manufacturer themselves. Bio-Oil is easy to find at almost any supermarket and drugstore, but again, even drugstores I view as reputable aren’t immune to buying bad stock. With that said, if you’re going to buy Bio-Oil, I highly recommend skipping Amazon altogether, since Amazon is the king of fake products. I’ve had more comfort and assurance of quality products from Ulta, Vitamin Shoppe and GNC.

I know the frustration of buying fake products, so I hope this will bring a level of awareness to new Bio-Oil converts! It’s a great product, so long as it’s the real product! ~A

(Don’t forget to check out my original review here!)

The Altruistic Face Site Updates!

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A brand new header image and avatar were added to blog this evening, and I’m absolutely in love with it! It looks amazing! The art and design were done by Cyan & Sepia. The shop owner is super sweet, and her work is amazing!

Second, I’ve had a huge uptick in visitors the past three months. I wanted to highlight some of my top posts, and my thoughts on why I think they’re trending.

Clinique Moisture Surge – I’m actually a little sad that this post is trending. I know it’s a popular product, but a lot of the search criteria that has come back are a long the lines of “clinique moisture surge fake”. I’m bummed out that these fakes can still be shipped out, and the resellers never seem to be caught!

Aquaphor – a lot of readers seem to be looking into “slug life”! While I don’t necessarily condone Aquaphor as your final emolliating layer for the night, I do think it’s the best lip protection available on the market.

Tanwise Tanning Drops – I really loved this product. I think they are the first– and only– tanning drops that didn’t break me out! They don’t really cause color build-up like others on the market, and it’s a nice additive in your regular body lotion as well. ~A

Canmake Mermaid Skin Gel UV SPF 50+ PA++++

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After trying an unsuccessful string of physical and chemical American sunscreens, I decided to start looking for sunscreens featured on the AsianBeauty subreddit, particularly those that did not contain benzoyl or isopropyl alcohol. It turns out, a ton of chemical sunscreens have those ingredients… but Canmake Mermaid’s Skin Gel did not, so I went ahead and made the $10 purchase to try it.

To start, 10/10 on the packaging, with the silvery blue beach decals scattered throughout and the pink label. So cute! The sunscreen itself is quite thin, and comes out of the bottle easily. So, despite the bottle’s small size, a little of this product goes a long way. The white coloration of the sunscreen will sink in pretty quickly. Despite the easy absorption, it does leave a little white cast, and might lighten your foundation shade half a step. This occurs even with the “clear” version, and the effect of this is intensified in the white version of Mermaid Gel. Fortunately, the product spreads consistently over the skin, so it’s easy to blend in with makeup.

Speaking of makeup, this plays very well with other products. For me, personally, this is imperative. The drawback to this product is that it does cause a little bit of skin irritation. It doesn’t make me itchy or break-out, necessarily, but any redness that may have been leftover from old acne scars will be noticeably more pronounced.

Besides the redness, there’s really no additional “side effects” with this sunscreens that many others tend to exhibit. This won’t dry out your skin over time, or have the whitecast become worse over the course over the day. The sunscreen is odorless. It also doesn’t pill. You can safely wear a layer of foundation over this for a full day with no issues. Oh, and, the important stuff: this has an extremely high SPF rating (50 spf, PA++++), so this is great to wear all year round.

If you are a sensitive skin user and you’ve been around the block with sunscreens, I would recommend you give Mermaid Gel a try (as well as Rohto Moisture Milk, which has relatively similar properties to this sunscreen). Finding a HG sunscreen is a difficult task for even clear skin users, since the sunscreen ingredients themselves, like zinc oxide, can be known irritants. But I think some trial and error for the sake of sun protection is worth it! ~A

Perceived efficacy: 5/5

Longevity: 5/5

How much I actually like this product: 3.75/5

Recommended for sensitive skin: Maybe

Mad Hippie Vitamin C Serum

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Once again, I fell victim to cute packaging, and a couple good reviews on Reddit. You can’t just print cute fractal flowers on the box and expect me not to be interested! I mean, it’s not to say that this product was awful: I suspect it might work better on some skin types, but certainly not mine, and I’m not convinced it was worth the $25 price tag.

I mean, come on…. just look at that cute packaging!

This is a no-frills, odorless serum that you apply on your face using the dropper. Unlike a few other serums I’ve tried, this product seems to start off faintly orange colored instead of clear, but I don’t think at that point it’s considered oxidized enough to lose it’s efficacy. Of course, it absorbs clear so there’s no issue with cast. So long as you’ve waited a few minutes to let it dry, this plays very well with anything you layer over it.

It seems like there’s a lot of good things going on in the ingredient listing. Vitamin C at 10% concentration, ferulic and hyaluronic acid, and a few other plant extracts like aloe, grapefruit, and chamomile. No drying alcohols, which is preferential for me personally, unlike the very well-known Timeless Vitamin C, which sports benzyl alcohol in the 2nd line of ingredients.

After a day of use, this serum will usually cause me to break out, and dries out my skin, causing my skin and/or makeup to flake off my face. To some degree, I would expect that, it is an exfoliant after all! But over two months of trial and every other day of use, it never really got better. I continued to break out, and my skin tone never became brighter.

I also felt like this product oxidized REALLY quickly, despite being in an air-tight, dark-colored bottle. The faintly orange cast became true orange in a little over a month, and also started to smell slightly iron-y. There’s a few outside factors that might have happened to cause this — maybe I had picked up a product that had been on the store shelves for a little bit too long — but most serums I’ve tried will stray away from oxidation for 3 to 4 months, at least.

The Mad Hippie Vitamin C serum definitely won’t be a rebuy of mine since it doesn’t play well with my skin. I also don’t think it’s worth the money for the short shelf life of the product. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 1.5/5

Longevity: 4/5

How much I actually like this product: 1.5/5

Recommended for sensitive skin: No

Physicians Formula 24-Karat Gold Collagen Serum

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I can imagine the Physican’s Formula marketing round-table at the Markwins Beauty Brands HQ for this serum, scrolling through Instagram, watching the myriad of videos of girls applying shimmery-colored serums out of droppers onto their face before they accomplish some glorious feat of makeup. “We’ll make a shiny serum with absolutely no benefit at all!”, said the marketers. “But we’ll say it boosts collagen and make them think it’s doing something.”

For $14, it’s a really cute and boujie-looking gold and glittery bottle, although the bottle itself is way too big for the amount of product it’s actually holding, 1 fl. oz. Points off for wasteful packaging. The pump itself is pretty efficient though, and gives you a consistent helping of the amount of product you’ll actually need to apply on your face. I’m not going to say “a little goes a long way” with this product, since it tends to dry up really quickly, but two full pumps should get you exactly what you’ll need.

Application of this is… smooth, but as I mentioned before, it dries up pretty fast. Ok, not dries up. It transfers immediately from your fingers to your face, and leaves a super tacky residue behind. But it doesn’t feel like you’ve delivered any moisture to your skin, so that’s… not great. And that tacky residue is uncomfortably long-lasting.

As you probably guessed, this contains gold. Not sure what I was expecting that to do — like, I’d apply it and it would make my skin like… automatic highlighter? Realistically, I’d get one giant chunk of a gold flake in the serum, and it would wind up somewhere inconvenient on my face.

Eh, ok, this has niacinamide in it, which is always good. Fine. That’s one redeeming quality. Collagen does make it’s way as well. But for short-term and long-term effects, this product doesn’t do much for me. My skin doesn’t feel hydrated — it just feels sticky. I don’t experience any collagen-boosting effect. Heck, I don’t even see any niacinamide pore-shrinking benefits, in fact, I’m pretty sure this serum breaks me out! Although I can’t pinpoint the exact ingredient that would cause that.

This is a lose for me, but a win for the Physicians Formula marketing team. I definitely judged a book by it’s cover in this case, and bought the sparkly thing instead of the plain-looking thing that actually worked. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 1/5

Longevity: 2/5

How much I actually like this product: 1/5

Recommended for sensitive skin: No

Rohto Melano CC Vitamin C

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I was really excited to start this product. I was convinced it would be a miracle in a tube. R/skincareaddiction and R/asianbeauty had more or less given this Vitamin C serum Holy Grail status, and this serum uses the most-effective Vit C delivery method of ascorbic acid. What’s not to like? But it just didn’t do anything for me at all.

I will say I love the packaging. The tube packaging won’t allow for any light to come in to break down the Vitamin C. Just the very fact that it’s in a tube is great, I personally feel like that’s way more convenient than a dropper. For some reason, my first usage sort of surprised me: the clear liquid comes out of the tube very slowly when you push it out, but it is a serum, and is watery to the touch. Normally you don’t picture any serum to be physically slow-moving!

You only need a finger tip or two’s worth of product to cover your whole face in a layer of this. It does take a minute to dry, but once it does, it dries fully. It’s easy to put extra layers on over this (just don’t use niacinamide! It lessens Vitamin C’s efficacy). There’s a very faint copper-y smell that’s typical of Vitamin C products, but it goes away almost immediately upon application. Just wash your hands after you use it, so that smell does not persist.

I’ve been using this product for about 3 months, every other day in the mornings. Short-term, once this product dries, my face does seem pretty bright, but that could just be the sheen from the serum in general. Long-term, I just really don’t see any results whatsoever in my skin quality — I don’t notice overall brightening, fine line decreases, or noticeable acne prevention. On the plus side, I didn’t experience any negative effects, like breakouts. There was just… nothing. Nothing happened.

The price point on this tube is awesome: $10. I didn’t find that I was getting to the bottom of the tube until month three, so the amount of product is pretty impressive, particularly because it hadn’t broken down and turned orange (which is a sign that the product is starting to go bad). This product doesn’t oxidize nearly as quick as other Vit C products I’ve used in the past, so that’s another plus.

Even though it didn’t work for me personally, I would still recommend it. I would even recommend it to sensitive skin users to try out, as well. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 1.5/5

Longevity: 2/5

How much I actually like this product: 3/5

Recommended for sensitive skin: Yes

Tanwise Self-Tanning Face Gel

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This stuff works, but at what cost? The cost of your beautiful, blemish-free skin! This self-tanner is king at clogging pores.

This is a cheap find at Sally’s for $7. I went in to Sally’s a few days ago and noticed that the packaging for all Tanwise products had changed since I bought my bottle, so I’m not sure if that infers an ingredient reformulation was done as well.

This comes out as a white gel-cream. The smell is a little tough to describe, and there’s nothing “flowery” or “fresh” covering it up: you know that smell you smell, when you walk into a hair salon…? That’s what this is. It’s easy to spread, you really only need two pea sized dollops to cover your whole face.

The gel will very quickly develop on your skin and turn your skin a reasonable shade of brown, I’d say about 2-3 levels darker than your base even after the first usage, which to me is a pretty good result. And, it’s not orange! I never had an issue with the color getting blotchy or streaky, even after layering other products over it. Which brings me to my next point, this lotion works very well with anything else you use before or after it, moisturizers or makeup. The staying power of this self-tanner is pretty good too, even if you wash your face frequently — two to three days will pass before you’ll need to go in with another application.

The bad news: this stuff makes me break out like crazy! I see benzyl alcohol has snuck in the second line of ingredients. So that might be the culprit (or it might not be, but I’m blaming it on that!). After a day of using this, I tend to wake up to find 4 or 5 brand new spots on my face. Not good.

It’s really too bad because this is a really nice facial tanner otherwise, and it lasts much longer than anything else I’ve tried before. Heck, it doesn’t even devolve into that infamous DHA stink after 12 hours! But it’s definitely not worth the breaking out for. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 5/5

Longevity: 4/5

How much I actually like this product: 2.5/5

Recommended for sensitive skin: No

CosRX Low pH Good Morning Gel Cleanser

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Throw out your Cerave cleansers, boys and girls, I have found the new cleanser holy grail! (Just kidding, don’t throw out the Cerave, it’s still fine). Seriously though, this $9, 5 fl oz bottle is awesome for sensitive skin.

It’s a cleanser, so I don’t think I’ll have too much to say in the review since the process is quick: you apply the clear gel from the bottle on your face with a little water, and rub it in. Then, you wash it off. However, there are a few things this product is capable of that, strangely, many cleansers cannot do:

1- You only need 1 dollop of gel for your face to cover your entire face (as opposed to like, four pumps out of a bottle, and even then, you still think to yourself “I probably need another”),

2- It removes makeup fully,

3- Doesn’t strip your skin: your face won’t feel dry after you wash the product off of your face, and…

4- Doesn’t cause break outs! I can’t say for certain if it’s because of the cleanser or not, but I feel that the condition of my skin has been better since I started using it a few weeks ago,

5- The price point is pretty good at $10 a bottle.

The smell of the gel is a bit sterile, but I can live with that. That’s the point of soap, after all, isn’t it? So there you have it! The perfect cleanser. I absolutely recommend this. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 5/5

Longevity: n/a

How much I actually like this product: 5/5

Recommended for sensitive skin: Yes