Happy Lunar New Year everyone!! ^__^
As always, I cannot believe it is already February.
I finished my first week of the new school semester yesterday and felt so exhausted because I am still on my winter break sleeping schedule (which is completely out of whack). Getting lost on the inter-webs makes being productive extremely hard. (Procrastinator problems!)
I typically finish products very...very slowly. It takes me a good few months or a year sometimes to even accumulate handful of empties. (It doesn't help that I tend to start a whole bunch of new things while using other stuff.)
I had kept a bag of empties all year last year, like the hoarder that I am. Somehow I completely forgot about it until mid January. By then it was probably too late to put up a 2013 empties post. Right?
So here is to a new start! Even though I am still 2 days late, it isn't the end of the world yet.
My very small empties collection:
I haven't been using my masks much lately. But one day during the break I suddenly felt the urge to really cleanse (with my Clarisonic Mia), exfoliate, and enjoy a mask. Does that happen to anyone else?
Although there are so many masks out there that target different things, I find that they all are too short-term for me to see results for the said claims. Instead, I love to use them more for instant moisturization and relaxation.
My Scheming masks seem to fit my face well and the sheet mask comes pretty well soaked in the serums, it even is dripping in serum when you take it out of the packaging.
As for the PINK Sweet & Flirty Body Mist...I have had that since my senior year of high school! I only spray it onto my clothes before wearing them since body sprays scents don't last particularly long anyways. This way it isn't too overpowering. Plus, I can more generously spray this all over since body mists like these tend to be pretty affordable. I am not sure if PINK sells this particular scent anymore because it has been a while since I bought it.
I am not sure why, but ever since I started college my facial and body acne has gotten really bad. They were both under control for the last couple years in high school and I couldn't have been more excited to be finally through with the bad acne stage. But lo and behold, it came back!
There aren't that many products available in the drugstores that treat body acne specifically. The Neutrogena Body Clear Body Wash - Pink Grapefruit, I think, is one of the few. Unfortunately, either my body acne is really bad or this body wash just doesn't work too well. Until I find a better option, I may still repurchase more of this (if on sale) just to use them as a precautionary item. Better than nothing right? Do you have any suggestions?
How many products were you able to finish last month?
I mentioned a while back that I saw a dermatologist, who prescribed a tretinoin gel (generic brand of Retin-A) for me to use for my acne. I did diligently follow her instructions and slowly increased my usage until I reached a once every night application.
Doing so made my skin peel like never before. (When I first started to use the La Roche Pose Efflaclar Duo, my skin did peel but it I don't think it was as bad.) All the exfoliating and moisturizing I was doing did not seem to help either. After a follow-up visit to the derm, she told me to decrease the applications to every other day since daily was, obviously, too strong for me.
But I must admit, I didn't follow the doctor's orders. Instead I completely stopped using the treatment altogether. (I think) I saw her a month or two after the initial appointment and at the time I didn't see too many benefits, acne/break-outs wise, from the tretinoin gel. Pair that with the unsightly flaky skin (in the summer no-less), I wanted to 'run' as far away as possible from the treatment and the dermatologist. (I haven't made a follow-up appointment since that second/last visit.)
After a few months of taking myself off the gel, my skin seemed to regulate itself and there wasn't massive amounts of flakiness on my face. I was and am still breaking out quite often and a lot. But I didn't want to risk using the treatment and having to go out of the house all flaky and peeling. So I took the opportunity before the holidays and right after my Fall semester ended to put on a layer of the tretinoin gel and give it a second chance. "This time I know better!" is what I said to myself.
But I didn't. Either I was a little too heavy-handed or my skin really can't handle the tretinoin because my skin started to immediately peel, flake, dry-up, so on and so forth the day after. Even the trusty ol' Olay Beauty Fluid that I relied on for the past 2 winters didn't help the flakes (which lasted for over a week, not exaggerating).
I hadn't been thinking of getting any new skincare items, despite the skin condition. I even settled on the idea of just riding it out (even though I still sulked about it here and there). But a "quick" stop to a Sephora to check out eye creams got me curious about some new Dr. Jart+ items that I remembered the Muse spoke highly of for drier skin folks. After doing a bit of review searching, the Ceramidin line seems to be pretty effective for other dry-skin gals as well. So with the combination of the weather being all chilly now and having dry-ish/combo & flaky skin, I went from having an itty-bitty speck of curiosity to flown-blown desire to have the products. (Why does this happen?!...)
Here are the items that got:
L to R: Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin Cream, Bobbi Brown Hydrating Eye Cream, Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin Liquid
I can't wait to use them. Maybe with these in-hand, I'll give the tretinoin a third chance. Perhaps third time's the charm?
Has anyone tried any of these products before? How do you like it?
I actually finished this bottle of Skin79 Smart Clear Deep Cleansing Oil a few months back and had every intention to review it. But, unfortunately, it didn't happen. Here's a quick post before I really forgot everything about the product. Hopefully I got down as many details as I can remember.
This was one of those products that I bought because my cleansing oil at the time was running out. I bought it from a beauty store in Chinatown (in Manhattan) for ~$17 (if I remember correctly). However, I purchased this without reading any prior reviews and truly went in with experimentation in mind. Coming from a brand that is most known for their BB Creams, I was thinking that their cleansing oil shouldn't be too bad for makeup removal. So home it went with me!
Here are some of the packaging details for those who understand Korean. Luckily the ingredients list is in English, so don't fret for those who are conscious about what is in products.
As with most cleansing oils that come in pump bottles, the new bottles come sealed and with a stopper to prevent any leakage pre-purchase. The trouble came afterwards when the cleansing oil seemed to slightly burst through the pump with each use and leaves the bottle an oily mess. I wish I took a photo of it to more accurately show what I mean but my mom must have thrown out the bottle when she was doing a thorough cleaning. But compared to something else, this is a rather insignificant problem.
The main dislike I had was this formulation. It really stung my eyes! This was not even a result of me specifically use it to remove eye makeup. Even when I avoided rubbing my eye area with the product, the cleansing oil & residue eventually makes it way around my (closed) eyes when I go to rinse the product off. That milky-residue-water made my eyes really burn. Of the cleansing oils that I have used, some did make my vision a little, temporarily, cloudy. But none has ever stung my eyes like this one did.
Due to that reason, I actually dreaded going through this bottle the whole time I had it. This was also why I ended up trying Bioderma in late-spring through the summer, when I still had about half a bottle of the Skin79 Smart Clear Deep Cleansing Oil left.
Otherwise, the cleansing oil took off both light & heavy-ish face makeup pretty well. This product did leave my skin a bit tight afterwards. But all cleansing oils (that I have used thus far) pretty much have the same effect for me, so I am not going to nit-pick on that point.
I don't quite remember if this cleansing oil had a runnier or thicker consistency, but I do remember that I used around 2 pumps during each cleanse. I presume that a bottle would probably last a few months with consistent usage.
Even though it is on the less expensive side for a cleansing oil, this is something I would definitely not repurchase. Unless, who knows, maybe I got a dud? Any who, with the cleansing oil trend picking up in Western brands I think I may give those a try first before I have to consider this specific one again.
Have you tried any bad cleansing oils before?
Do share! That way we can know beforehand what items to cross off the "To try" list.
