Review: SKII Facial Treatment Essence.
Product: SKII Facial Treatment Essence
Price: S$120-S$159 for 150ml (varies with stores)
RE: Texture/Scent/Application The SKII Facial Treatment Essence (FTE) is so popular and widely advertised that I don't think it's possible for ANY lady not to know what it is. First of all, this is fragrance free , or at least it is almost 95% scentless to me. However I am certain that it contains alcohol because there is a very very faint smell, but it is there. This looks just like water and applies like a toner even though it is named an essence. I pour this on my palms and pat the liquid on my face. I use this after toning with a hydrosol. There is no residue of any kind at all. It gets absorbed really nicely.
RE: EffectivenessI will divide my review into two parts in to " The first 3 mths" and " After" I could see an improvement on my skin right from the beginning that I used this. First of all, it hydrates my skin well enough on most days. I have dry to normal combination skin that is really sensitive and sometimes, dehydrated. After using this, I don't use a moisturiser most of the time.
This might be different if you are living in a dry climate. Singapore is an island surrounded by the sea so the humidity level is always very high.
After 1-2 weeks of usage , (at least once and at most twice a day) I noticed that the pores on my cheeks looked smaller. My skin does not feel so dehydrated anymore. It was amazing. My skin looked more radiant and supple after a month. That was when this became my Holy Grail product. However, we have to be practical here. There is a limit to how much a product can do for your skin.
So it basically maintained my skin condition during the 2nd month. It made my pores looked smaller, hydrated my skin, and my face looks more radiant. My Tzone does not oil up as much as well. Even though this is considered an expensive product. I though it was worth the price for all these benefits, especially since it does not break me out.
Now for the
"After"Sometime into the 3rd month of usage I began getting breakouts. Just a couple here and there sometimes which I dismissed as those time-of-the-month breakouts.
However, I soon realised that they weren't. I began getting cystic acne on my cheeks. One or two on each cheek. Normally those breakouts that came on the time of the month go away easily after a day or 2 of spot treatment using Benzoyl Peroxide gel (5%). These didn't go away for up to a week, and more before one heals.
I reduced the usage of my skin care products to try to find out which was causing the breakouts and I narrowed it down to the FTE. I looked up makeupalley.com for reviews because I though its really weird that a HG product can suddenly break me out. I wanted to be sure that it IS the FTE. It is after all S$150 a bottle and it worked so well I just didn't want believe it was the one causing the breakouts.
I found out from numerous reviews on makeupalley.com that states it broke out the user after a usage for a while ( varies from weeks to months) . I was so disappointed!. But I still wanted to test it out. So I stopped all the other products that I apply on my face and only used the FTE after my cleanser for 2 days. And VIOLA! two cystic acne started to form just after that two days.That was two weeks ago.
I have not touched the FTE since then and my skin is now free of new breakouts. I am still recovering from the acne marks that are left on my cheeks. I id some research about the FTE and read more reviews. It seems that the FTE will thin out the skin etc. Pitera seems to be a kind of bacteria or yeast (I really can't remember, it was weeks ago when i read about it). The product will work really well at first, but then some people's skin will react to it after a while depending on how sensitive the skin is.
So now, the FTE is no longer part of my skincare routine. I foudn out that natural products works best on my skin. The natural soaps I got from Chagrin Valley works wonderful and the moisturizers, hydrosols and what nots from Garden of Wisdom are doing my skin lots of good.
The only chemical product I have in my skincare routine that I use on an everyday basis now is just my cleansing oil and eye makeup remover and eye gel/essence.I still use the charcoal mask,Ginvera Marvel gel, SKII facial treatment cleanser now and then, but not more than 3 times a week.
I am beginning to think that it is because I am switching to mineral makeup and organic skin products that my skin seems to be unable to tolerate normal chemical products. I'm not sure now if that is a good thing or bad thing.Natural skincare is a lot cheaper than counter brands though. ;)
Labels: review, SKII, skincare
EVERYDAY MINERALS HAUL!There's the big discussion on everyday minerals forum that the Super custom kit will be dis continued due to this this and that that. However the items that I wanted the most, Pressed Blushes, were all not available because they were changing their
formulations. In the end, I only end up getting up getting 5 items from my supposed "last" everyday minerals super custom kit haul.
I got 1 eye kabuki brush, 2 Pressed Golden Medium Foundation, 1 Pressed
Bronzer and 1 Pressed sandcastle eyeshadow palette.
I was so BUMMED that I couldn't find anything else that interest me to order because
EDM wanted to discontinue the Super Custom kit, which is a great deal compared
to paying full price for the items. (not that they are not worth it of course)
Everything is well now, they've decided not to discontinue the kit because of his popularity. It was a good
deal at
USD50 for 12 full size items. Everyday Minerals have been my favourite favourite, Holy Grail foundation ever since I start using it. I'll do a better review between my foundations on a
separate post because I LOVE
everyday minerals so much, a couple of lines is not giving the product any justice.
All in all, I am glad that I decided not to be foolish enough to get backups of backups of backups....(you get the point) of my foundation and brushes when the news was out that
EDM will discontinue the kit. Now I am
just looking forward to their new website and new items, kits, re-release of the pressed blushes. To be honest,
EDMs foundation is way better, way way WAY better than any other (high end and drugstore brand) foundation I've tried. The finish is even better than BB creams. So even if I have to pay full price for the items, I will.
I love their new Sample container caps. They are much cuter in real because 5g jars are quite small.
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Skin care Haul from Best Buy Cosmetics. (
http://www.bbcosme.com/)
This is a Singapore based, online
skincare/makeup retailer. They sell samples and testers in bulk and loose. They do sell full size items too, at a much lower price than retail. However,
don't expect a full range of items, the collection is pretty random IMO. But most of the more popular items are there, though you might not find newly released items.
My
SKII Facial treatment Cleanser is finishing soon, so I thought I'll give them a try. I also needed another moisturiser,
because my
Garden of Wisdom
moisturising gel is finishing.
I bought :
6x 20g Facial Treatment Cleanser (
SGD30) - the same amt of product retails for at least
SGD70
6x 5g
Shu Uemura Depsea Moisture
Essence (
SGD36)
These are all samples, Sold in Packs.
Initial
thoughts on this
essence/moisturizer are great. I only got this because I wanted to qualify for the Free delivery with
SGD50 purchase. I've yet to do any research about this product, so I'm still
nto sure if I should use it as an
essence before moisturiser or as a moisturiser itself.
I used this after my Facial Treatment
Essence and
Garden Of Wisdom HA serum+
hydrosol. I
didn't moisturise anymore after that. My skin felt nice a supple. There's no sticky residue after the product sink in;
doesn't leave any nasty film or shine. I still
don't know how it does in the long run, so we'll see about that.
If you click on this picture the
manufacturing date should be visible. These were
manufactured in March 09. So the product is
considerable "fresh". I'm glad that they
dont sell old stock or to-be-expired products. Since these are for my own use, It
doesn't really matter if I
don't have a nice full size bottle as long as the products themselves are authentic. They are, like more around 50% off, who can resist?
Labels: Everyday Minerals, haul, skincare
My first order from Chagrin Valley came!. This was a pretty random haul. I saw a spree for it at
sgspree and decided to try it since i wanted to get
shea butter (or
something similar) to moisturize my legs and hands and dry areas on my face. This store is famous for their soap. They have all kinds of facial soap, body soap and even shampoo soaps. I only got 3 soap samples suitable for the face
because my cleanser is running out and i wanted to see if i can get a healthier replacement.
This is their Whipped Shea Butter. It's the first time i owned any whipped butter so it's very interesting!. I had it in the Lemon Almond scent. It's supposed to smell like chocolate / vanilla/ cake . But all i can smell is the
artificial almond scent. I'm not saying they are using
artificial ingredients,
I'm just describing how it smells like. Usually i cant stand the
artificial taste AND smell of almond, but this was fine. Compared to my Egyptian Magic cream, the EM was more easily absorbed, which really surprised me
seeing how EM appears more oily. I know this is the first time i am bringing up EM on my blog. I'll do a dedicated review of it next time because it deserves it :)
Item no. 2 is their Body Butter Balm. This one's called "
shea's So Fine" , which rhymes with " she's so fine". I though this name is really cute. made up of Shea butter , avocado butter, jojoba oil, organic coconut oil and Vita E. The
ingredients are all heavenly goodness! But the tin's really small. ( 1oz, 20g) . Just the size to carry around in the purse.
The texture, it looks like its made up of small beads. When i run my fingers across the surface i can still feel the beads, but they melt when i rub my fingers together. There's no funky smell, which is really what i look forward to when
buying these natural products because they
don't contain harmful ingredients and
aren't fragranced strongly. My nose can really be sensitive at times
Soap samples! Cost only
USD2.60 each. And
they are
sized generously. They appear just like 1 layer smaller than the normal body soaps that's sold in the supermarkets. And since
I'm using them for my face, one is going to last a really long time. This one is Carrot & honey. I saw
some good testimonials of this.
This is the
Cornsmeal & honey soap. Either this or the carrot honey has got wheatgerm as an ingredient. now wheatgerm is super
comedogenic despite its benefits. I'm kind of afraid that it will
break me out, so i am using this 3rd one first.
This is the Shea Rose Clay soap. Although described as a "scrubby soap" ,
nothing about it feels scrubby for me. It foams really well, so i
guess the other soaps should soap
well too.
This cleanses really well to, but unlike normal soaps this does not dry out my skin. I've been using it for a little over a week now and did not experience any negative effects. This a good sign.
I was using the SK2 cleanser previously. It contained rosehip oil and i got breakouts after using it for like a week. I'm not sure if it is because of the sk2 cleanser but i stopped it anyway.
So this took its place. I've not been getting enough rest recently and i guess that why i got some small break outs on my face. I don't think its the soap. Because they are painful, not like the kind i got from the cleanser previously.
Labels: haul, review, skincare
EVERYDAY MINERALS HAUL!
I love their new Sample container caps. They are much cuter in real because 5g jars are quite small.
I bought :
Initial thoughts on this essence/moisturizer are great. I only got this because I wanted to qualify for the Free delivery with SGD50 purchase. I've yet to do any research about this product, so I'm still nto sure if I should use it as an essence before moisturiser or as a moisturiser itself. 
This is their Whipped Shea Butter. It's the first time i owned any whipped butter so it's very interesting!. I had it in the Lemon Almond scent. It's supposed to smell like chocolate / vanilla/ cake . But all i can smell is the artificial almond scent. I'm not saying they are using artificial ingredients, I'm just describing how it smells like. Usually i cant stand the artificial taste AND smell of almond, but this was fine. Compared to my Egyptian Magic cream, the EM was more easily absorbed, which really surprised me seeing how EM appears more oily. I know this is the first time i am bringing up EM on my blog. I'll do a dedicated review of it next time because it deserves it :) 
Item no. 2 is their Body Butter Balm. This one's called "shea's So Fine" , which rhymes with " she's so fine". I though this name is really cute. made up of Shea butter , avocado butter, jojoba oil, organic coconut oil and Vita E. The ingredients are all heavenly goodness! But the tin's really small. ( 1oz, 20g) . Just the size to carry around in the purse. 
Soap samples! Cost only USD2.60 each. And they are sized generously. They appear just like 1 layer smaller than the normal body soaps that's sold in the supermarkets. And since I'm using them for my face, one is going to last a really long time. This one is Carrot & honey. I saw some good testimonials of this.
This is the Cornsmeal & honey soap. Either this or the carrot honey has got wheatgerm as an ingredient. now wheatgerm is super comedogenic despite its benefits. I'm kind of afraid that it will break me out, so i am using this 3rd one first.
This is the Shea Rose Clay soap. Although described as a "scrubby soap" , nothing about it feels scrubby for me. It foams really well, so i guess the other soaps should soap well too.