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: 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.  

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)

Tip Tuesday: Face Cleansing

Hey, look, Tip Tuesday's back! For at least today––don't count on it becoming a frequent feature. But this is just such a perfect Tip Tuesday topic that I couldn't resist!

image via Philosophy

I use oil cleanser at night to remove my makeup, then double cleanse with Philosophy Purity. Purity claims to be a makeup remover as well as cleanser, but I like to be extra sure that I'm getting rid of everything. However, when I went back east, I didn't have an oil cleanser, so I had to make do with just Purity. I'd read somewhere (don't remember where, my apologies!) that you should always massage cleanser onto dry skin before getting your hands wet and washing it off, much as you do with oil cleansing. Turns out, it works like a charm! I found I had to use about twice as much cleanser as usual to cover my face sufficiently before getting it wet, and I always double cleansed it with another dollop of Purity after rinsing the first batch off, but the end result was completely makeup-free skin. I don't know if that would work for all cleansers, as I've only tried it with Purity, but it's certainly worth giving a shot. It's cheaper to do oil cleansing followed by normal cleanser than to do this method ($7.50/month vs. $10/month), but if you use a cheaper cleanser than Purity that may not be the case, and it's certainly a good tip to have in your back pocket should you ever find yourself without your normal makeup removing products!

Do you apply cleanser to dry skin? How has it worked for you?

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: Nubian Heritage African Black Soap Review

The combination of Shiseido Ultimate Cleansing Oil, Philosophy Purity Made Simple, Juice Beauty Blemish Clearing Serum, and the occasional use of sulfur-based products has my skin generally pretty happy, but I am (of course) always wanting to make it even better. After reading Pink Sith's review of an African Black Soap-inspired cleanser, I did some research and decided it was the product for me. I found several options at one of the local health food stores (Capella, for those of you in the area), and after checking out the consensus (yay for smartphones), I decided to pick up the Nubian Heritage option, which was coincidentally the cheapest, score! It cost ~$3.50 for 5 oz, which is pretty awesome.

Background: African black soap is made with the ashes of plantain skins and cocoa pods mixed with shea butter, shea tree bark, and various other shea by-products mixed with palm (kernel) oil and cocoa butter. It's been used by West Africans for centuries (supposedly) for its skin-clearing properties, and is supposed to help with acne, eczema, and a multitude of other skin maladies.

So, my heart high with hopes, I started using the soap to wash my face at night after my oil cleanser. It lathers really nicely, though thanks to the ash, it looks grey and dirty, and it smells pleasant and faintly of shea butter. It's got pieces of oatmeal in it for exfoliation, but honestly, those do diddly-squat unless you use the bar directly on your face (which you really, definitely shouldn't do, because it's way too rough!). It takes awhile to get it fully rinsed off, but it left my skin feeling squeaky clean (literally) but not stripped or tight. So far so good. But I bet y'all can see where this is going...

Skincare Saturday: Clarins Gentle Foaming Cleanser with Cottonseed Review

This was another sample I got from Sephora in their Prep Kit. I'm happy to say I like it much better than the DDF Amplifying Elixir, though honestly, that's no great challenge.

image via Sephora

Skincare Saturday: Shiseido Ultimate Cleansing Oil

Okay, backstory: KarlaSugar did a post on cleansing oils a couple months ago. If you don't read her blog, what is wrong with you?! She is the queen of swatching, and as such, needs to have a quick and effective way of removing makeup from her arms, hence her extensive experience with cleansing oils. She said that Shiseido Ultimate Cleansing Oil is her absolute favorite, and since I was running low on the oil I was using before, Softymo Deep Cleansing Oil, I decided to try out the Shiseido.

image via Sephora

Skincare Saturday: Fresh Soy Face Cleanser Review

Fresh Soy Cleanser is a very popular product, but also very polarizing, and I wanted to see how it compared to Purity. I knew that no matter how well it worked for me, I wouldn't ever purchase the full size ($38 for 5.1 oz, ouch; even the travel size is $15 for 1.7 oz), but I wanted to see what the fuss was about nonetheless. Luckily, it was one of the choices for free samples at Sephora, and unlike other times I've ordered samples of products I actually wanted and received crappy substitutes (or, one memorable time, no samples at all), this was apparently still in stock when my order shipped. Yay!

image via Sephora

Skincare Saturday: Bare Escentuals bareMinerals Deep Cleansing Foam Review

I'd been wanting to try this cleanser since Christine reviewed it several months ago, but as my skin is only dry in the winter, I had no real reason to buy a new cleanser to try and treat that.  The past month or so, though, my skin has been feeling tight and I've had some dry patches (in large part from the acne treatments I'm using), so I figured Sephora's F&F sale was the perfect time to pick it up.  I've been using it for a month and a half now, on-and-off (more on that shortly), and feel equipped to review it now.

Bare Escentuals bareMinerals Deep Cleansing Foam

Recommendation Thursday: Winter Skincare, Facial Cleanser Edition

I realize I didn't do a Tip Tuesday on winter skincare, facial cleansing, but I hope you'll forgive my laziness (or, more accurately, busyness––I just didn't have the time!).

Recommendations all have ratings above 3.8, with buy agains of 65% or more on MUA.  I've bolded the products that have 4.0+ and 75%+, since if I'd restricted the products to those only, this list would be uninformatively short!  Cleansers are a very personal matter, and what works for some people may not work for you (this has been a problem of mine!), but I thought that the masses of MUAers would help make this recommendation list a good resource for you, regardless of personal skin type.  Some cleansers are conspicuously absent, including Cetaphil, Cerave Hydrating, and Fresh Soy Face Cleanser, because they didn't receive enough lippies/buy-agains.

While bar soaps are usually to be avoided, particularly in the winter (due to their inherently drying binding ingredients), there are a few that have received such good reviews that I couldn't not include them.  The Dove Beauty Bar is a staple that I've used in the past and liked a lot; it's gentle, moisturizing (25% lotion, in fact), and very no-fuss.  You can also use it as a body wash, and it travels really well (no need to fit it into your quart-sized ziplock!).  The Cetaphil Gentle Cleansing Bar has also received much praise, more so than the liquid cleanser version, as has the Aveeno Moisturizing Bar, which has colloidal oatmeal, known for its moisturizing properties.  The Dove is the cheapest option, and you can sometimes find it for $1/bar, but even not on sale it's only a couple of bucks; the Aveeno runs about $3, and the Cetaphil is around $5.

Skincare Saturday: Clarisonic Review and Pictures

If I actually had disposable income to speak of, buying a Clarisonic would have been a no-brainer.  Given my rather limited funds, however, I debated it for weeks.  I read all the testimonials on MUA and elsewhere about how well it worked, how much it improved people's skin, what a great decision it was, etc., etc.  For those who don't know, a Clarisonic is a facial cleansing brush.  It uses some kind of magical sonic pulses to rotate the brush head miniscule amounts, resulting in a deep clean without irritating the skin.  There are three models, the Pro, Plus, and the Mia; the former two have different vibration speeds and can be used on your body, and the latter is smaller (though the brush heads are the same size) and more portable, as well as being cheaper, though still very expensive: buying one new was, at the time of my purchase, $150 from Sephora, or ~$120 from Amazon--both of which were out of my price range.  They now range from $119 to $129 on Sephora (depending on whether you get solid color or print handles), and the same on Amazon.  I looked into other cheaper options, like one made by Olay, but ultimately decided that if I was going to drop a chunk of change on something, I wanted it to be the real deal.  On eBay I found a Mia brush handle for $45 and a brush head for $12, which I bought first.  The handle came fully charged, which, if used once a day, lasts about 2 weeks, so I figured I could fork out that money first and then buy the charger from Clarisonic for $25 after I got my next paycheck.  And so I did.  It totaled $80 for the whole shebang, which is something that still causes me some pain, but I will say it has made a difference...

Image from Clarisonic

Tip Tuesday: DIY Beauty Solutions H-Y (Plus a bonus C)

For a summary of Tip Tuesday, see here.  For part one of diy beauty tips, see here.  And for a video of bunnies wiggling their noses, see here.

Honey
Used as: Cleanser, mask, scrub
Good for: Everyone
Bad for: People who don't like stickiness
I've already done a couple of posts on the wonders of honey, so I'll keep this brief.  Honey is great.  You can use normal honey, raw honey (opaque and light yellow in color), or Manuka honey (full of super nutrients, with a price tag to match).  I've used normal and raw, and prefer the latter because it's less sticky, but both work well.  You can put it on dry skin as a mask or cleanser, or use it on wet skin as a quick cleansing treatment.  Honey combines well with yogurt and aspirin in masks, and with sugar as a scrub.  The possibilities are many, and the results are great––it's moisturizing, anti-bacterial, and it smells and tastes nommy!

Jojoba Oil
Used as: Moisturizer, hair treatment
Good for: Everyone
Bad for: No one
Jojoba (apparently pronounced hə'hoʊbə, who knew) oil is very similar in composition to the sebum and oil produced by your skin, so it can help convince oily skin to stop producing so much oil by making it think there's enough already (I have yet to try this, so cannot vouch for it, but am intrigued!), and its moisturizing properties make it good for normal and dry skin, too.  It's also great for moisturizing hair and reducing frizzies.  You only need a leetle beet, no more than a few drops, which is good because it can apparently be expensive.  It should be available at natural food and health stores, and if you've ever used it, I'd love your input!

Skincare Saturday: Philosophy Purity Made Simple Cleanser

Philosophy Purity Made Simple cleanser is one of the most popular cleansers, ever.  I'd never really had any desire to try it, in large part because it's so expensive, but going on a 10-day trip to DC gave me an excuse to buy one of the little 3 oz. travel sizes.  I tried it out the week before I left to make sure it wouldn't break me out or irritate me, and can happily report that it did not!

purity made simple

Noxzema Deep Cleansing Cream Review

Gather round, ye all, for a tale of woe.  A young lass, curly hair and glasses bedecked, was plagued by oily, acne-prone skin.  All she wanted was a cleanser, for use in the morning-time, that did not break her out.  She rashly decided to try a new cleanser from Neutrogena without researching, and came to rue that decision when she discovered it stank of hair dye, and irritated her skin like no other.  She learned from her mistakes, though, as young lasses must, and returned to try another potion, this one the well-recommended Basis Cleaner Clean.  Sadly, our young heroine soon realized she had been betrayed by the evil Cocamidopropyl Betaine, which had absconded from the Neutrogena and taken up residence is the Basis.  "Be gone!" she proclaimed, and with some luck and mild flirtation exchanged the Basis for the classic Deep Cleansing Cream from Noxzema.  But hark!  Although she had slain the coca-betaine, she came to realize she had other enemies, nearly as potent, that were waiting to inflame her skin given half the chance.

Image from noxzema.com

Basis Cleaner Clean Face Wash Review

After the debacle that was the Neutrogena Naturals facial cleanser, I decided to power forward and try a highly rated drugstore gel cleanser, Basis' Cleaner Clean face wash.  Did it work out better than the Neutrogena?

Image from drugstore.com

Neutrogena Naturals Purifying Facial Cleanser

My trusty Mark face wash is about to run out, so I decided to try and find something to replace it that was sulfate- and paraben-free.  Fred Meyer happened to have a coupon for $1.50 off any Neutrogena product, so I decided to take the plunge and try their new Neutrogena Naturals facial cleanser, which has no sulfates, parabens, and other such things, in spite of not having read any reviews for it.  We've all done it, so how did it work out this time?

Image from neutrogena.com

Olay Foaming Face Wash Sensitive Skin Review

Having now reviewed the cleansers I currently use, I thought it might be worthwhile to review at least one that I'm no longer using.  I'd read great things about the Olay Foaming Face Wash for Sensitive Skin on MUA and decided to give it a try.  The fact that I'm no longer using it should suggest some potential issues...

Image from olay.com

mark That's Deep Purifying Gel Cleanser Review

A friend asked me what I used as my cleanser(s), and I told her what I'm using now (oil cleanser, honey, and sea salt), but I realized I'd never done a review for my boring morning cleanser that I use with my Clarisonic (which I also haven't reviewed, but it's on my list!).  It's made by mark, a subsidiary of Avon, and I got it last fall with mark Shine Fighter Oil-Control mask and mark Save the Day Anti-Acne Concealer Stick (okay, seriously, I have so much shit to review).

mark That's Deep Purifying Gel Cleanser; Photo from shop.meetmark.com

Oil Cleansers

I'd read that MMU can clog pores if not properly removed, and being the super-paranoid acne-prone person I am, I decided to get an oil cleanser stat.  Cleansing oils are great because of the whole like-dissolves-like thing; you just rub a pump-ful on your dry, made-up face (including eyes, if you're wearing eye-makeup), rubbing it in, and then it rinses off like magic with warm water.  Follow with your normal cleanser, safe in the knowledge that no makeup, sunscreen, or oil is clogging your skin!