Bihada Aqua Gel Cream (美肌一族) Moisturiser/ Makeup base

Bihada (also full name is Bihadaichizoku) which means the "beautiful skin clan" or something, has became a more regular popular Japanese drugstore brand, it was probably released about 5 years ago? It was a huge hit because it featured the drawings of Japanese comic character on the packaging. (the blonde girl). Which was sort of unusual for drugstore brands back then.

The main hit from the series were actually the face sheet masks- which I'm yet to try. Hrrmm maybe that's where I should started instead of with this moisturiser.

See the packaging above...it's a bit ...too cute for my liking anyway...I never really followed the comics in similar genre so they don't mean a whole lot to me!

To my surprise the drawing is on the plastic cover over the tube, i.e. once you un-shrinkwrap the tube, you get the following!

I got mine from Taiwan a while ago, hence the back label has added Chinese text with ingredient list and all.  In Chinese it's roughly translated to  mean "pearl egg-shell coating moisturiser" which is trying to say it gives you skin as smooth as a peeled egg and luminous like pearl I guess.

Here's the full Japanese label on the tube. It retails for 2100Yen, tube contains 130g which is fairly generous.

Basically, all it is is a gel-creme to liquid moisturiser. Supposedly also doubles as a makeup base.

Here's the consistency, straight from the squeeze tube.

Once spreaded out, it turns into liquid- like picture below, then dries down to a reasonably non-sticky consistency. A bit different to usual gel-cream moisturisers.

Does it work as a moisturiser to give me supple, peeled boiled egg like skin? No. It barely does anything on my combination, sensitive and acne prone skin. I tried using this in summer, in winter, makes no difference. The whole gel-creme to liquid is quite gimmicky at best.

As the also advertised makeup primer, it doesn't do anything either- does not prepare my skin for a moisturised base before makeup, does not help makeup stay longer.

Overall 1/5.

For 2100 Yen prize (which is like over 20USD?) I expected more. Especially when there are lot of Japanese drugstore brands out there that does nice products for even cheaper prices.

Might use the rest as body moisturiser in summer, it does feel refreshing on application I guess... (then again on that front, it does very little for my dry skin too).