Skincare Saturday: Aromatica Sea Daffodil Cleansing Mousse and Cremorlab Herb Tea Blemish Minus Calming Mask from Peach & Lily

This post contains press samples. (Squee!) All expressed opinions (of which there are many) are my own.

I've been interested in exploring more Asian skincare, but between the vast variety of products and the fact that most of the reviews for said products aren't in any of the languages I know, initial forays proved so overwhelming that I scurried off in fright. It was very serendipitous, then, when Peach & Lily's PR team reached out to me a few weeks ago.

Peach & Lily was founded by Alicia Yoon in 2012, with the goal of providing Korean skincare and beauty, known for being on the forefront of product development and technologies, to a Western audience. They're based in the US, which means faster shipping (free over $50, samples included) and no customs (assuming you are also based in the US, of course). They also have an extensive vetting process for all products, which contributes to the comparatively limited selection they offer––and this is honestly the part of the site that I was most impressed by: search for cult favorites in Japan and Korea, explore reviews, examine formulas, talk to brands' R&D teams (fun fact: they don't offer products from any brands that don't have internal R&D), and finally, do focus group testing. In their own words,

Only items that receive at least 8 out of 10 stars across the board (and cause no adverse reactions) make it through the final round.

Pretty neat, eh?

I'm terribly indecisive, so I made a list of all the things I was interested in trying and told them to pick; they sent along Aromatica Sea Daffodil Cleansing Mousse* and Cremorlab Herb Tea Blemish Minus Calming Mask*.

Aromatica Sea Daffodil Cleansing Mousse* and
Cremorlab Herb Tea Blemish Minus Calming Mask*

Skincare Saturday: Rainshadow Labs AEBG Eye Bright Gel

It's been an eon and a half since I've done a Skincare Saturday, though not for lack of options. Today's feature is another Rainshadow Labs product, their Eye Bright Gel.

squishy!

Skincare Saturday: Rainshadow Labs ABT Blemish Clearing Mask

I went off birth control a few months ago (and am now using the LadyComp Pearly, which I'll probably devote a post to someday), and while I'm overall pleased with the decision, it has had the unfortunate side effect of fucking up my skin. I need more data to know for sure, but it seems that there's a couple of weeks of every cycle, around ovulation, where my skin decides it's had it with anything resembling good behavior. I break out in small spots, big spots, cystic acne, the whole works. It's terrible. Seriously, skin, fuck you.

Benzoyl peroxide (I use Clean & Clear PersaGel 10) helps speed up the healing process, but it's also quite drying, so I can't use it all the time. I augment it with nightly application of Rainshadow Lab's ABT Blemish Clearing Mask. It's advertised as either a spot treatment or full-face mask, but I find it absorbs nicely and I can wear it as a sort of serum at night (it also works underneath makeup, but I tend to restrict my acne treatments to nighttime only so as not to overstress my skin). I'm not sure it has a big effect on preventing acne, but I do notice it helps speed up the healing process on blemishes that already exist, and works beautifully on bigger cystic acne as well––nightly application on spots makes them less noticeable, less painful, and heal faster.

similar thickness to honey, but without the stickiness.

Skincare Saturday: Rainshadow Labs ABR Bamboo Raspberry Antioxidant Scrub

I like using a manual exfoliator on my face every few days, and tend to rotate between my Clarisonic, Tosowoong, and muslin cloths most of the time, but sometimes I want something a little more...luxurious, I guess? So I picked up the RSL Bamboo Raspberry Antioxidant Scrub with Natural Açai Berry scent for those occasions.

It smells like blueberries and bell peppers, and while not a bad smell, I do wonder if I would prefer the unscented version. It looks like something Cthulhu puked up and feels like that same vomit was scooped up with some sand and put into a jar.

Delicious.

And yet, it works! I can see how you might have trouble believing me after that rather evocative description, but really, this stuff is great.

Skincare Saturday: Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence Sunscreen SPF 50+ PA+++ Review

I'm taking a break from the Rainshadow Labs coverage (but don't worry, it'll be back) to talk about my new HG BFF product: Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence Sunscreen SPF 50+ PA+++, henceforth referred to using pronouns and deictics, because that name is ridiculous.

"this" / "it"

I have pale skin that slightly tans, but mostly just burns and then freckles. I actually like my freckles (angel kisses!), but skin cancer and sunburns are pretty shitty, so sunscreen needs to be a daily staple for me. In spite of this, though, I've not always been as diligent about applying it as I should be (I know! Bad past Amy.) My skin is also really, really oily, and prone to freaking the fuck out at the introduction of any new product, but after reading the positive reviews at MUA, I decided to pick up a tube of this. My prior declaration of HG BFF status should tell you how that went for me! Here's why I love it:

Skincare Saturday: Rainshadow Labs HCLC Super Skin Rejuvenating Creme

We're currently in the midst of a freezing rain storm, which is awesome.

Skincare Saturday: Rainshadow Labs QVMT Moisture Treatment for Sensitive/Acne Skin

I have incredibly persnickety skin, and always tread lightly when it comes to introducing new things, as it often decides it is having none of that, thank you very much, and rewards me with a fresh batch of blemishes. But there comes a time in every girl's life that she realizes she is a) running out of her trusty Amber Cream, and b) wanting to try to actively help her (gradually showing signs of age, poo) skin, rather than just not piss it off. And so I started trying to inspire myself to do the natural diy skincare thing, to little avail––turns out I suffer from a severe case of laziness, who knew?.

However! I read a post from Liz about an anti-aging moisturizer from Rainshadow Labs, and was intrigued by the natural ingredients (long ingredient lists can be scary, but less so when they're all natural oils and extracts), ridiculously low price ($3.95 for an ounce), and fact that everything is produced here in Oregon. I spent some time browsing their extensive website, and finally settled on a few products to try. Shipping was around $11, but three samples were free (this isn't advertised anywhere on the site, so I'm not positive if this is a normal occurrence), so I ended up with 7 or 8 1-2 oz jars/bottles of various potions for around $30. 

I've spent time testing most of the products, but will focus on them one at a time, since to do otherwise would surely result in thousand-word-epics that no one would want to read. (On the upside, now that I've given the whole spiel about the company, I shan't need to repeat it!) Today's product: QVMT Moisture Treatment for Sensitive/Acne Skin.

seen here, after a few weeks' usage

Skincare Saturday: Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve Soap Bar Selection Reviews

Last week, I blabbed on and on about Chagrin Valley's shampoo bars. This week, I'll be talking about their soap bars!

I tend to prefer liquid shower gels over bar soap for cleansing myself, but I ordered several soap bars from the company in the hopes that they would help my face be less stupid, and as travel-friendly cleansing and shaving aids. I tried a couple of the complexion bars on my face, only to break out horribly, since almost all contain coconut oil, which hates my skin, even saponified. Fortunately, they make a few soaps that don't have coconut oil (in addition to the two discussed below, the Castile is also coconut-free), so I was able to test those on my face. My body is much less persnickety, so I was able to use them all and can now natter about them! A quick note: the complexion bars are designed for use on your face, but that's merely a suggestion––I find they work great on body, and at least one of the soaps that's not deemed a complexion bar would be lovely as a face wash (namely, Olive and Shea).

via Chagrin Valley

Grapeseed Tomato Complexion: This is one without coconut oil and designed for troubled complexions (that's such a nice way of putting it!), and it helps clear pores without irritating skin. The picture on the website (above as well) shows a bar significantly redder than mine, so I think I got part of the old batch that had less tomato; hopefully the new and improved version works just as well, because I really like this bar! It's nice and mild, doesn't strip my face, and doesn't contribute to breakouts. I like using it in the morning as it gives a nice soft, clean base for the day. It does remove makeup, but as it's traditional soap, you do not want to get it near your eyes (not that I speak from experience...), so I prefer to use it in the morning when I have nothing on my eyes, though I have also used it as my post-makeup-removal cleanser. I intend to buy a full size once I go through my current facial cleanser stash (namely, a 12 oz bottle of Purity, ha). $2.70 for 1.5 oz, $7.80 for 7 oz

Ingredients: Grapeseed Oil; Organic Sustainable Palm Oil; Babassu Oil; Virgin Shea Butter; Water; Sunflower Oil; Olive Oil; Sodium Hydroxide*; Canola Oil (Non-GMO); Organic Tomato Juice; Castor Oil; White China Clay; Organic Tomato Paste; Essential Oils of Lavender, Geranium, Palmarosa, Ylang Ylang. *Used during the Saponification Process to turn oil into soap. None remains in the finished product.  

Sunscreen Saturday: Boscia Self-Defense Vital Antioxidant Moisture SPF 30

The last of my little sunscreen samples that are here in Turkey with me! Also, hi, sorry I've been utterly lax at posting––I've been writing rather massive posts for my other blog and haven't wanted to write for this blog, too. But don't worry! I still love you guys! And I'll be back with semi-interesting content at some point. For now, here are my thoughts on this sunscreen.

via Sephora

It's good stuff. It's very lightweight and liquidy, though not quite runny, and it absorbs quickly. It doesn't break me out nor contribute to oiliness and it plays well under makeup. I wish it had higher SPF (at 30, it's the lowest of the ones I brought with me), but it supposedly has antioxidants that are good for...something, though I always take those claims with a big heap of salt.

It's not particularly cheap, at $36 for 1.4 oz, but I will gladly use up my sample and put this on my list of sunscreens I'd be willing to purchase (on sale, natch). Available from Sephora!

Have you tried any Boscia sunscreens? How do you feel about grandiose skincare claims?

Sunscreen Saturday: Shiseido Ultimate Sun Protection Cream+ Broad Spectrum SPF 50+ For Face Review

After my success with Josie Maran, I turned my attention to one I hadn't heard anything about, Lancôme Bienfait Multi-Vital SPF 30 Cream. Fast-absorbing, lightweight, but even the sample packaging is insanely bulky, so I decided not to find out if the increased blemishes were a fluke or not and instead testdrive one with sleeker packaging. And so, let me tell you about Shiseido's Ultimate Sun Protection Cream+ Broad Spectrum SPF 50+! Herewith called "this sunscreen", because that name is just absurd.

via Sephora

Skincare Saturday: Grapeseed Oil

I've been exploring diy skincare the last couple months, and after some overly-optimistic headlong dives using a ton of ingredients at once, I've scaled back and am gradually adding things one at a time. I'll be featuring one or two ingredients per week, talking about their properties, benefits, and my experience with them.

I am not a chemist, at all. I cannot overstate that. As such, I rely on internet sources for my information; I have neither the time nor the interest to read scholarly articles on the subject, but I will try to relay reliable information. For anyone who's interested, I highly recommend Points of Interest; Susan (Swift) is incredibly knowledgeable and there's a ton of information on her site, including several extremely helpful ingredient comparisons and oodles of recipes. Wikipedia, in spite of its faults, is still a good place to start, and if you're a science-minded person, you can go straight to the research articles themselves.

First, some very basic terminology: carrier oil means an oil that can be used at high ratios in skincare formulations; as such, they are usually more affordable. With my oily, acne-prone, sensitive skin, I prefer carrier oils that are lighter and drier (such as grapeseed or safflower), whereas those with mature or dry skin might prefer heavier, richer oils (like avocado). Carrier oils serve as the base for other ingredients, such as essential oils, which are extremely concentrated, usually fragrant, and need to be diluted like whoa, and exotic oils (following Garden of Wisdom and Points of Interest), which are more expensive, often richer or higher in healthy ingredients, and which can help skin more dramatically. I'll be talking about items from each type in this series, but today my focus is on a carrier oil, grapeseed (or grape seed) oil.

Sunscreen Saturday: Josie Maran Argan Daily Moisturizer SPF 40

I managed to snag one of Sephora's Sun Safety kits, as I knew I would be going abroad this summer and wanted portable sun protection. I'm wearing several of the included sunscreens (though not all, as I don't have time!) before I go so that I can make sure they behave well with my skin. The first one I tried was Josie Maran's Argan Daily Moisturizer SPF 40, which I shall tell you about today.

via Sephora

Skincare Saturday: Eczema

My skin has been oily and acne-ridden for more than a decade, and is prone to bouts of dryness from product sensitivity, but it's recently added a new grouchiness: eczema! Oh, joy. It first appeared when I used MAC Pro Longwear foundation back in November, developing dry, scaly, itchy, red, bumpy, rough, and flaking (all at once, at its worst) patches along the right side of my jawline and forehead. I tried antibiotic creams (no effect), neosporin (ditto), and hydrocortisone cream (helped somewhat, but not terribly quickly). It gradually went away, and until recently, I only had the occasional dry patch.

Until a couple weeks ago, that is, when some odd combination of factors as-yet not fully identified (but certainly including either Hourglass Mineral Veil or Clarins Smooth Touch primers––possibly both!) caused my skin to freak the eff out. Back came the bright red, itchy, dry patches, with special bonuses on part of my left jaw and my temples. Accompanying this was a terrible case of acne. This is an unfortunate place to be in: the things I would normally use to treat my acne were potentially contributing to my eczema, but the things I might use for the eczema could break me out worse. I ended up opting to treat the eczema and basically left my acne to its own devices for more than a week (it was not a pretty time). I tried various things on the eczema to try and fix it; argan oil wasn't moisturizing enough (I KNOW RIGHT?!), hydrocortisone disappeared quickly, not to mention I didn't want to use it for very long due to potential side effects, and my trusty Amber Cream was powerless in the face of such angry dry patches. Aquaphor just made it angrier, which makes me wonder if I possibly have a sensitivity to something in that.

Skincare Saturday: Eve Lom

Hi, guys! Here's a post I wrote awhile ago but never got around to posting. Hope you like! Now I must get back to my statsyntaxing (I love concatenations, hehe).

Back in September, I went to Barneys with L on a perfume sniffing mission. We accomplished that, I found my perfect lip gloss, and got a bunch of skincare samples from Eve Lom. I've already mentioned a couple of them on here, but I figured I should do a full "review" of them in one place.

image via Barneys

Eve Lom is a London-based skincare company best known for their cleanser, which is oil-based and is meant to be used with a muslin cloth. They also claim that it works as a makeup remover, cleanser, and toner in one. Now, I love oil cleansers, and am well familiar with how they work. Eve Lom's is thicker than true cleansing oils, more of a paste, but it becomes more liquidy as you rub it between your hands. They recommend applying a penny-sized dollop to your dry face, making sure to massage thoroughly and work the product in to break down your makeup, including heavy eye makeup. Then, you get the muslin cloth wet with hot water and lay it over your face, letting it sit for a few seconds before wiping away and repeating the process. I don't know if the muslin cloth that came with my sample was full size or not, but I sincerely hope it is not, because it's so weirdly shaped and sized that I find it to be somewhat of a hindrance in the actual face-washing process. It's much longer than it is wide, to the point where it's simultaneously too long and too narrow (looking at the Eve Lom website, though, it seems likely that this is one of the "travel size" cloths, so the full size ones are hopefully better). I tended to lay it over my face diagonally, since that covered the most real estate, but it was still less than ideal. I did think it was really cool how any makeup that got on the cloth just washed right off, like magic! But I didn't actually find it to be a terribly effective cleanser. Yes, it managed to get my face makeup off without issue (unless you consider the several minute process to be an issue, which I most certainly do when I'm tired and just want that shit gone), but it was much less successful with eye makeup, even the relatively light eye makeup I tend to wear. It never fully removed my non-waterproof mascara, so I can only imagine how less than stellar it would be at removing something waterproof! So, all in all, I found it to be much more trouble than it was worth, and gladly returned to my usual Shiseido oil-Philosophy Purity combo, which has never let me down. And which, together, are cheaper than the smaller size of Eve Lom, and last longer (I get 6 months from that combo, and the Eve Lom spokespersonn said the travel size tub would last about 2.5). If, however, you're the type who really loves thorough face cleansing pampering and don't wear much eye makeup and are fine with putting off bedtime to repeatedly wipe at your face with a weirdly shaped cloth, you may find Eve Lom's cleanser to be just the ticket! (Okay, that's not fair, because lots of people really love it. Google and go read their reviews, because I obviously am not one of them.) $50 for 1.7 oz, $80 for 3.4, $135 for 6.75, available from Barneys and Space NK (all purchasing information is valid for the US)

Skincare Saturday: Makeup Artist's Choice French Green Clay Mask

Clay masks are usually something I view favorably, even if they don't seem to make much of a difference in my skin. Makeup Artist's Choice offers one, and in my last order I decided to order a sample size. In the past, I've always slathered clay masks on really thick, but since the sample jar is super tiny, I decided to try spreading it on thinly––turns out that's just as effective! I got 3 uses out of the 3 gram jar, so the full 1.7 oz size should give about 50 uses.

image via MUAC

Skincare Saturday: Makeup Artist's Choice 100% Pure Virgin Argan Oil

I ordered a bunch of stuff from MUAC last month (as well as some stuff in May, which I still have yet to review...), and one of the things I've liked best is their Argan Oil.

image via MUAC

Skincare Saturday: Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment SPF 15 in Original and Rosé Review and Swatches

I think everyone was super psyched when this year's Sephora birthday gift was announced at the end of last year. I know I was, at least! I've heard pretty much nothing but good things about the Fresh lip balms, but at $22.50 apiece, they're just too expensive for me to want to purchase if I'm not sure they'll work out. Enter the birthday duo!

Fresh Sugar Rosé and Original Lip Treatments

Skincare Saturday: First Aid Beauty Face Cleanser

It's been ages since I've done an SS post! It's not that I haven't been using skincare stuff (including 2 as-yet unreviewed on the blog products), it's just that I'm trying to build a fully informed opinion before I share anything. My skin is very persnickety, and it takes awhile before I feel I can say something is making a difference, though I tend to cut out anything I think may be making me break out without fully testing it. This did not have that particular problem, shockingly, but...

First Aid Beauty Cleanser, image via Sephora

Skincare Saturday: Sunday Riley Cashmere SPF 30 Sun Defense Review

Yet another Sunday Riley product that I got from the generous SA at Bergdorf! Out of all the products from the line that I've tried, this is the one I like the best.

image via Sephora

Many sunscreens leave my skin feeling oily and slick with a heavy feeling that takes forever to soak in. Not so for this! It's pleasantly creamy, but not thick, so it spreads and absorbs really easily. I've taken to wearing it under my Cover FX primer, and I find it is plenty moisturizing for my oily skin, and as far as I can tell it hasn't made my skin worse, as if that's possible...It has a faint chemical smell, but it's really mild and fades quickly, and a little product goes a long way (though I do make sure to apply more than I think I need to try and ensure adequate sun protection!). It doesn't seem to increase my oiliness, and it does definitely work as a sunscreen––I know this because, after a bit of time in the sun, compared to my non-sunscreened chest my face looks very pale (as contrasted to the red that is my neck, whoops; I envy those people who can be in the sun for longer than 5 minutes without getting red, seriously). Unfortunately, like all Sunday Riley products, such loveliness comes at a price––$125 for 1.7 oz. I will gladly use up my samples, but I shan't be purchasing the full size. If you have the collateral, though, it's definitely worth checking out, especially if you find that sunscreen usually leaves you looking ashen or is overly heavy and oily.
$125 for 1.7 oz, available from Sephora, Barneys, and Sunday Riley

Cover FX Clearprep FX Matte Foundation Primer and Anti-Acne Treatment Review

I considered posting this on Skincare Saturday this weekend, but ultimately decided it would be disingenuous to do so, since I don't use it as a skincare product. Which is why this rant ended up happening instead. Whoops? The good news is, while Clearprep FX hasn't done anything for my skin, it has completely knocked my socks off as a primer. I feel stupid typing Clearprep, since it's not a word, lawdy, so I'm just going to refer to it as "the primer". Scratch that: The Primer. There we go.

Image via Sephora