What I used up this August - Vichy Rehydrating Thermal mask/ Peter Thomas Roth botanical buffing beads/ Ren Jojoba Micro Bead Purifying Facial Scrub/ La Cure dead sea mineral salt soap reviews

Still on my quest of reducing amount of skincare in my bathroom cupboards. Here's my effort for this August.

First Vichy Rehydratin Thermal Mask. It's meant to be a light creamy mask that is applied for cleansed skin, leave for 10 min then rinse off. It's supposed to be lightly warming when on the skin.

Comes in a no-fuss squeeze tube, flip open cap, and a pretty small size of 50ml. 

It looks like this...almost like a light moisturising cream. It's easily spreadable and rather light, does not leave an oily residue so doesn't really require a super through rinse off. It does go on lukewarm, has a very typical skincare scent which smells a bit artificial for my liking. 

Honestly, it's a very boring mask- after rinsing off it hardly does anything for the skin. There is no visible hydration. I've tried to leave it on overnight but it seemed to be slightly pore clogging and left my face shiny the next morning (while not intensely hydrating either). Definitely a pass and will not be repurchasing.

Rating is 1/5.

Next item is La Cure Dead Sea Mineral Salt Soap, which is a Jordon company. No idea whether it's a big brand or not, but it's stocked in a few tourist shops and hotels during my trip in Jordon. (and given we stayed in quite nice hotels and western resorts, I expect the brand to be at least up to the standard of those hotels).

It's meant to be consisted of palm oil, palm kernel oil, dead sea salt, glycerin, and some perfume. 

(Sorry, again blogger flipped my image)

Inside it's just shrinkwrapped like below.

Add water - you can see it's slightly foaming.

Overall I think it's clearly a body soap, not for the face. While it says recommended for dry skin, I think that's definitely a climate thing. Yes if you have dry skin while living in Jordon this might be hydrating enough. However when used in the winter cold Sydney, it's very clear there's enough salt in this to be a bit drying. That being said, it's good as a body soap for the back and chest area where you get some congestions or zits ocassionally, and that's what I've been using this soap for. 

It's especially good after I use a hair masque, and the masque residue leaves a slippery feeling on my back (which cannot be good for the skin), I double cleanse with this soap quickly and my back has been congestion free this season and generally smoother to touch.

The soap is a smooth soap, no granules or anything. It's quite nice for what I'm using it for, but I'm sure  a lot of soap brands out there can do similar things as I usually find soap to be a bit more drying than body washes for me.

Rating is 3.5/5. Nice product for my purposes, but entirely replaceable by probably a dozen brands out there.

Next is Peter Thomas Roth Botanical Buffing beads. It's for face and body , supposedly with sebum emulsifying jojoba beads, whole leaf aloe vera  and botanical nutrients.

When I first got really interested in makeup and skincare a few years ago, this was one of the highest rated products on www.makeupalley.com for a scrub (mainly for face).

I used a very small travel sized bottle and decided to buy a full sized bottle. Which is 250ml and comes in a really no-frills looking plastic bottle.

It comes in a click open cap like this- which is always clogged when product dries inside. Not the best mechanism- they need something with a bigger opening.

Product looks like below. It's a lot of super smooth, small jojoba beads suspended in a light blue gel. The scent is light, slightly cucumbery sort of scent. It's a pretty neutral scent so I'm sure guys won't have problem using it either.

Add a bit of water: you can see it spreads really easily, it's non foaming.

Massaged in and rinsed off:

It leaves the skin polished and not overly drying. It really was a staple for quite a few years for me, not too abrasive on my thin skin, yet sloughes off dead skin lightly and gently. However it's very similar to other products such as Ren Jojoba Micro Bead Purifying Facial Scrub or the Laneige Multiberry Yoghurt peeling gel which I reviewed before. In fact out of all 3, Laneige Multiberry Yoghurt peeling gel may be the better of it all, because the Ren Jojoba Micro Bead purifying facial scrub is similar to Peter Thomas Roth, while there's jojoba beads inside, the base is a usual cleanser base. The laneige base is an enzyme cleanser so not only do you get a light physical exfoliation with the jojoba beads, you also get a mild exfoliation overall with the enzyme in the Laneige cleanser.

Rating for Peter Thomas Roth is 4/5. It does the job, comes in an extremely generous size (honestly I had it for 2 years and used at most about 60% of it, even after using it as a body scrub occasionally). Personally I think it's too mild as a body scrub.

While I'm at it, here's the Ren Jojoba Micro Bead Purifying Facial Scrub. I quite like the Ren product concept and range in general, so this was a quick purchase on a whim.

It comes in a 150ml squeeze bottle. You may notice the bottom of the bottle seem a bit odd- basically most of Ren products come in these pump bottles which are refillable, the product itself is actually in like a plastic bag, which you pop into the bottle. While I think the whole refillable idea is nice, but honestly this isn't something like handwash where you would go through bottles constantly, so the refill idea isn't exactly super practical. (in addition it's inevitable that the bottle gets damaged or the pump gets blocked at some point, so it's hard to see the bottle lasting more than a year or two).

Active ingredients is jojoba oil, juniper oil and peppermint oil.

Ren says it's a deep cleansing scrub formulated with microbeads of jojoba oil. Apply on damp face, gentle massage then rinse.

Comes in a squeeze pump, which is easy to use and no blockage yet occurred.

You can barely see the jojoba beads below, but basically any white bit is the jojoba beads. The more gel bit is the cleanser base. There is a lot of jojoba beads and they are very small and round, it's pretty much like Peter Thomas Roth botanical buffing beads.

Added a little bit of water, massaged out. You can see it's a bit grainy looking, which is the jojoba beads. 

The jojoba beads do not melt or anything, it just rolls around the skin gentle as you massage it in.

Overall it's exactly like PTR botanical buffing beads. The Ren product has pretty minimal scent, but also rinses off just as easily. Like both products, the jojoba beads sometimes do get trapped slightly between eyelashes  as you rinse off, so just rinse off a bit more carefully. 

The Ren product has peppermint oil which means it has a very, very slight tingle/ cooling sensation and a very slight minty scent. It must be a very low concentration because after using it for a while, it's almost un-noticeable.

Rating is 4/5. It does what it says. Mild exfoliation.  For those needing a more serious scrub like those microdermabrasion type of scrubs (e.g. Dr Brandt or the Lancome version), this is probably too mild for you . But again, suitable for those with sensitive skin who only need a light scrub (more like polish actually) once a week. 

Hadatuko Manten Hada Daily Protector SPF30 (sunscreen/ moisturiser) review/ swatch

"Hadatuko Manten Hada" is supposedly, a Japanese 'originated' brand which seems to be sold almost exclusive in Hong Kong and Sasa.com. "Hadatuko" means skin of a newborn- so the brand image is really going for the vibe of "we are going to give you baby soft skin".

After some googling I'm beginning to suspect that rather than a being a typical true Japanese brand as the website page and product packaging is suggesting, it might be one of those brands which features Japanese packaging and supposedly made in Japan and all, but really could be just be backed by a Hong Kong beauty brand (maybe Sasa given it seems to be distributed out of Sasa exclusively) and probably not very Japanese at all. (if you google the official website basically it's actually primarily in Chinese rather than having a dominant Japanese homepage). 

Hopefully someone can tell me if this is the case. It's not so much a brand origin bias thing, but I don't really like particular brands to be packaged and marketed in a certain way in Asia. ( there was various news these few years about brands that market themselves in Asia that they are Swiss originated etc etc with some secret patents formula,  and turned out to be made in some Asian dodgy factory).

The packaging is minimalistic- white paper boxes with green prints. The cap is a nice silvery blue-green.

The Daily Protector is basically the SPF30 moisturiser from the range for both face and body. The bottle is 40ml, given the fluid consistency it actually goes a long way if you only use it for the face.

English ingredient list:

Instructions (sorry, blogger's picture uploading property is terrible sometimes so it wouldn't rotate properly)

The brand says the product line features 6 unique natural skincare ingredients as its active ingredients:

- Jabara citrus peel extract (anti-oxidation/ anti-inflammatory)

- Sake- rich in amino acids, prevents aging and helps dark pigmentation

- Oryza Sativa (rice) lees extract- helps rejuvenate and brighten skin

- Green tea extract- anti-oxidant and anti-allergy

- Citrus unshiu peel extract: anti-allergy and rehydrates

- Natto Gum- improves dehydration and premature aging

Comes in a convenient nozzle design.

The product is light and fluid. It's similar to most of Sofina sunscreen's consistencies.

However it blends out a lot more watery than Sofina sunscreens.

Leaves a slightest shine below. However you can feel a certain 'coating' on top of the skin.

After going through about 6 or 8 bottles of Sofina sunscreens for the face last few years, I decided I might try something different. While this is in the same vibe of a liquid sunscreen (with the shake before use instruction like Sofina), I feel Sofina's formulation is more gentle and better.

In terms of SPF protection it's weaker than Sofina for sure. I have fairly stable skin while using Sofina sunscreens but since I started using this a month ago, I can visibly see a few more freckles coming up.  Not to mention after maybe 6-8 hours it may be slightly itchy on the skin too.

rating is 2.5/5. It's not terrible but it's not a worthwhile product to try.  If you like Sofina sunscreens, stick with those. If you didn't like Sofina type of sunscreens, you can skip this one too.

I will use this as a body sunscreen when I'm going for a walk or something. (I would not trust the SPF protection to be adequate for full outdoor Australian sun or watersports).

L'Occitane Masque de Riz Purifiant Clarifying Rice Mask (Mattifies and Purifies) review

Generally I have a reasonably good impression about L'Occitane products- I like the brand image, product designs, most of the scents and frequency of new products. 

I've gradually tried a few more skincare products from the line, and this Masque de Riz (Clarifying Rice Mask) is one of them.

Comes in a 75ml squeeze plastic tube. The labels are all paper based and they do get damp and ruined very quickly. It retailed for about 40AUD. 

Loccitane says that this product has exclusive formula and contains a unique cocktail of red rice active ingredients Camargue and three types of natural clays; white, green and pink, to ensure skin is left clean, fresh and kept blemish-free.

Instructions on the back says this Mask purifies combination to oily skin and ensures a long lasting matte and velvet finish. To use: Apply once or twice a week to the face. avoiding the eye area. Let dry for 5-10 minutes, then rinse with cool water.

It has a rather smart cap design- you twist it and the centre hole opens, and you can squeeze out product. Once you twist the cap again, it closes and you can just rinse off any residue. It's better than having a flip top packaging I think, or having loose caps everywhere.

The masque is a soft creamy consistency. Compared to most other cleansing masks especially clay types, these are runnier and softer/ smoother. Compared to mud types these are more creamy and doesn't have that sandy feeling. There is still a bit of grains inside, going to guess it's little rice granules.  However it is not abrasive on the face.

As instruction says I apply a thin layer. Just enough to cover pores, focusing on t-zone. I have large pores on t-zone and rest of skin is ok, a bit of freckles and broken capillaries though but skin texture is quite smooth on touch so I'm not very fussed about exfoliation for areas of face other than t-zone.

After 10 min it dries like below, but doesn't feel tight on the skin.

Rinsed off:

Honestly it is really mild- so mild that I'm not really sure what it did for my skin. It probably did take some of the oils away, but not strong enough like a cleansing mask to visibly draw out the oils or make blackheads surface etc. It's honestly a bit too gentle for me. (You can also see my pores closer to nose are all still very visible there).

I've tried leaving it on for longer, and tried to use it on various skin occasions (e.g. zit days, sallow skin days , lack of sleep days), but it's one of those skincare products which I just can't really tell what it does. It doesn't make my skin worse by any means, afterwards I do see the skin with a slight more glow but that's probably just temporary like after using any face mask.

Rating is 1/5. I may end up using the rest of the tube for like back or front chest area as a mild exfoliant or body mask. There are way more cleansing masks out there which can probably do better.

My Beauty Diary: Peach Soda Eye & Lip Makeup Remover review

I can't believe I've almost used this bottle all up- but here's a review of My Beauty Diary Peach Soda Eye & Lip makeup remover.  It's a bit like Lancome Bi-facil, it's a bi-phased eye makeup remover, there's a slightly oily layer on top and a clear layer on bottle. (As you can see from picture below, the top layer is a clear pink shade and bottom is clear).

As you can see I literally used the bottle all up already.

 

You are meant to shake the bottle before using (like Lancome bifacil and most bi-phased eye makeup removers.

I doesn't have much fragrance inside.

Comes out pretty much as a clear liquid:

Here it is on a few stubborn eye and brow makeup items. From left to right it's Eyeko london Curvy brush mascara , then Shiseido Dramatically eyes long mascara, then Maquillage eye brow wax pencil (forgot shade name). They are all waterproof makeup.

Here it is, just melts off the mascara:

You can see it leaves a slightly shine/ oil residue finish like Lancome bifacil.

All clean below with a few swipes.

It's a great cheap alternative to Lancome Bifacil eye makeup remover, you use about the same quantity, and for stubborn eyemakeup just soak the cotton pad and press against eye for a few more seconds before swiping makeup away. 

In terms of mildness, this is as mild as Lancome bifacil- it doesn't really sting the eyes when some accidentally gets inside my eyes.  Any residue rinses off easily after you use a normal foaming cleanser all over face after makeup removal.

My Beauty Diary is a Taiwanese brand which is owned by one of the largest corporations there, these removers are in 130ml bottles and retail for just 10-12USD depending on which country you bought it from. The bottle lasted me 2-3 months with about 5 times a week use.

Overall rating is 4.5/5. It removes as well as Lancome but probably just a tiny bit less potent, you just need to swipe a few seconds extra compared to Lancome, but they are extremely similar.

Kao Japan Curel Makeup Cleansing Gel review/ swatch

"Curel" is a Japanese drugstore brand, it's a product-line under the Kao Japan group (which is a major cosmetic/ skincare group, also owns various famous brands including Kanebo/ Sofina/ Asience hair line/ Biore, Goldwell (haircare), John Frieda/ Molton Brown etc.

I've read about the Curel line for years on various beauty blogs. It's sort of a low- key and low advertising brand in Taiwan for many years, until it was introduced one or two years ago.  It has a really simplistic packaging featuring usually white bottles with blue accents, which is in-line with its brand philosophy/ target audience - a line tailored for dry, sensitive skin, and ceramide as the key active ingredient (not so much advertised so in cleansing items but more in terms of moisturisers).

I'm reviewing the Makeup Cleansing Gel first. There is surprisingly no cleansing oil in the product line (at least in Taiwan), this is the main makeup remover product from the line. The only other cleansing product is the mousse cleanser which is a normal facewash rather than a makeup remover.

The full size is 130g. (Retails about 18-25AUD depending on which Asian country). You can often find Curel skincare kits to try out before you buy any item in full size. The travel kits are great prices and I highly recommend you trying to buy a travel kit from online before buying any full sized products from the line. 

The cleansing gel comes in a squeeze bottle. It says suggested application is 2cm diameter dollop. (even has an indicator on the back of the tube to show suggested size).

The box below does say at night time, after the cleansing gel, follow with foaming cleanser. 

Flip open packaging. 

Here is my standard test- trying to use it to remove makeup based on my existing makeup bag.

I'm using the below, Shu Uemura blush in M Pink 33E, Armani Designer shaping foundation in shade #4, MAC Brow finisher in shade "Wheat", and Eyeko London curvy brush mascara curl & hold in black.  (The eyeko mascara is ok, not worthy of a good or bad review. The Armani foundation I'm still testing it and will write separate review, MAC brow finisher in wheat is quite nice and so is Shu Uemura blush in M Pink 33E).

Swatches:

Applying a dollop of the makeup cleansing gel as per instruction. (Use on dry skin, then massage in small circles for a few times until makeup melts, then rinse with water). It's a bit like the cleansing oil concept other than you don't really need to gradually add water to emulsify.

The gel also sort of melts slightly once in contact with body temperature. It's a nice gel consistency, not oily but has great slip and spreadability, yet doesn't drip easily like most cleansing oils.

Massaged in: you can see how it almost slightly emulsifies just with the massage and melts the makeup. I did not add any water.

Rinse with water and pat dry. You can see it removes all traces of makeup other than waterproof mascaras. (Which is expected- mascaras nowadays are getting really tough, I'm yet to really come across many makeup remover products that is mild enough and can do the whole face without needing a specific eye makeup remover).

When using on the face I usually follow with a foaming cleanser (either by Curel or other brands) just for double clean. However, this cleansing gel does not seem to leave much residue or oily feeling even if you just rinse with water. The trick is to use on dry skin though (if you use on damp skin it does not cleanse as well and may leave a residue sort of feeling).

I used to never really believe the whole thing about cleansing oils causes congested skin which I've read repeatedly on various Asian newspapers or beauty magazines. I think usually only either bad quality cleansing oil products or oils that doesn't suit your skin or bad cleansing regime (e.g. not emulsifying and rinsing off properly) would cause congestion.  However, during my recent holiday abroad for a full month, I forgot to bring a cleansing oil and bought a Curel skincare kit which included this makeup cleansing gel, I actually found my skin to be clearer overall (less blackheads, less random small bumps under the forehead and less irritated/ sensitised looking skin after cleansing). 

It's a very slight improvement, however the improvement is there so I'm sticking with it.

I do still use cleansing oils occasionally when I'm lazy or when I'm wearing heavier makeup, but for usual light makeup days, this Curel cleansing gel is fantastic and I think I will be sticking with this for a while. (It reminds me a bit of Philosophy purity made simple cleanser- excellent makeup removal property yet easy to rinse off).

Rating is 5/5. The full retail size tube would last a few months easily, which means this doesn't really cost more than using a normal cleansing oil.