skincaresensei

deviant - Cleansing concentrate Then I met you - Living Cleansing Balm December here we go, first zoom-in flat-lay! Oh, cleansing balms, how I love you. Probably the best part of my routine at the moment (ever). Melts your sunscreen off, melts your waterproof mascara better than your own tears and even melts away the stress. That’s how I feel! Specially about the Then I Met You cleansing balm. This is my number one cleanser period. Gone through four of these jars and I will not stop. I can’t explain how much I love this cleansing balm but it just feels, smells and cleanses perfectly. It’s a whole experience. Basically, holy grail for years to come. I recently got on the DV wagon! Got their cleansing balm a few days ago and I’m already ready to give my thoughts. - Very positive! My face feels amazing when using this. Glowy and nourished. Compared to Then I Met You the experience is different. Even if I don’t expect them to be exactly the same it’s hard not to compare your new product to your absolute favorite. This one smells really earthy, liked cooked broccoli or broccoli stem, which ruins it slightly, a little doesn’t go that far actually and it’s a thicker and oilier than TIMY. It also didn’t come with a spatula, which I was disappointed about... However, I might like the feel and how my skin looks after cleansing slightly more with this one! I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing since I’m just going to place other products on top but just wanted to put it out there. Enjoying this very much so far! It also has a more luxurious feel to the jar. Heavy and I love the black glass. Which one is your favorite cleansing balm? Spatula or no spatula? Lmk!🧋

GLOW RECIPE - Avocado Melt Retinol Sleeping Face Mask New beauty buy but a little bit disappointed. I like Glow Recipe in general but these avocado products have not been it! Didn’t feel like it did anything for my skin sadly... and I don’t like the essential oils in it! I didn’t even know they were in there to begin with 😭🤚 it’s a pass for me

TATCHA - The Dewy Skin Cream Honestly, I got a small size for $20. Can you believe me 😭 This cream was nice... but that’s it. A little bit thick for me now that it’s summer though. I don’t fancy the fragrance and dyes in this but the other ingredients kind of make up for it. It truly is a nice one but the price.... Definitely prefer the water cream instead. That one is sooo good. While it also does have fragrance I found it being a better product. I know this one is such a favorite so I wanted to try it myself. And I was even thinking of getting the big jar. I’m happy they have smaller ones but the price for 10ml is super steep at least for me!

Krave - Oat So Simple Water Cream Krave Beauty’s newest product and probably my favorite. It’s a simple water cream containing only 6 ingredients, oats being one of them. It’s purpose is only to moisturize and nothing else. Aimed for people who simply want to moisturize! Love this cream! It’s a total winner in my book. I thought it was going to be more lightweight at first but it’s actually thicker coming out of the jar and does get more watery and more watery as you massage it in to your skin. It gets really watery and gel-like so don’t be fooled. It still thick enough for me to trust it to moisturize and lock everything in. This truly fits into anyone’s and everyone’s skincare routine. Just throw this in. Trust me. Get it. I love myself a more complicated moisturizer that maybe hydrated or has a little oil or nourishing ingredients but it’s refreshing having something so simple in your routine. Or if you want to go back to the basics, this is also your cream. Truly truly strongly recommend this. The $28 price tag really doesn’t bother me. It’s worth it. 80ml too which is a 20-30ml more than average!

These are my favorite right now!! My favorite colored lip and lip balm! The FAB lip therapy has such a nice minty scent and feel. And the Dior lip tattoo is such a nice long wear tint, minimal transfer and matte!

Brand Spotlight: Drunk Elephant Drunk Elephant. You may know her, you may love her, you may hate her. I discovered this brand in 2018 by perusing the Sephora bestsellers page and reading reviews on Protini Peptide Cream. I bought it because I was desperate and it actually worked so obviously I assumed the entire line would work for me and be a godsend...flash forward to now. If you go back through my profile you will find reviews of Lippe, Lala, Slaai, and Beste, so I won’t be highlighting them here. Products I’ll be reviewing: B-Hydra Hydration Serum D-Bronzi Anti-Pollution Drops Protini Polypeptide Cream The good, the bad, and the ugly: THE UGLY: DRUNK ELEPHANT - B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Serum Honestly when I first started using this serum it was my first Hyaluronic acid serum I ever used. I mixed it into my morning “smoothie” of Protini and D-Bronzi and slathered it all over. Even though I felt a difference in my skin while using it, I’m not sure I can solely credit this product for doing so. It contains a high content of niacinamide that actually helps to stop oil/sebum production in your skin. The texture is lightweight yet sticky if not used in a DE “smoothie.” I ended up swapping B-Hydra out of my routine and swapping in the Ordinary’s Hyaluronic acid 2% + B5 serum and saw an instant improvement in the hydration levels in my skin. So while I believe B-Hydra did SOMETHING, $52 for something that a $7 product does better is an all around scam. I said what I said! THE BAD: DRUNK ELEPHANT - Protini Polypeptide Cream Honesty is the best policy... Protini is very hit or miss for me. It’s a TOTAL HIT when I mix it with a facial oil or my skin is more likely to produce oils like the summertime. When I started using Protini into the cold winter months, my GOD I broke out so badly. Didn’t change my routine at all. Just swapped out Protini for Lala and my skin healed up in a week and stayed clear. I also notice an increase in facial hair when I use Protini which doesn’t bother me so much as it just causes an inconvenience. The texture itself is super light but it feels really hydrating when mixed with an oil. It also smells like yeast so that’s a bit off putting. It is great for the summer for me but in the winter it’s a flop. THE GOOD!! (Omg finally): DRUNK ELEPHANT - D-Bronzi Anti-Pollution Sunshine Drops D-Bronzi: wow when I first heard of this I thought it was an instant scam. I started using this product as a mix in to my morning “smoothie” or my super white SPF formulas. The difference I notice when this is in my routine is night and day. In the winter I’m too pale to add this in but in the summer it’s like, INSTANT GLOW! & the air pollution in my area is so bad there is a real noticeable difference in my skin tone when I use this. I’m not sure if it would help those who don’t suffer from bad air pollution though! Have you tried anything from Drunk Elephant? Any faves? Any hates?

I discovered Supergoop through the “skinstagram” community (does using this term make me a boomer?) and loved their mission and that they’re a brand dedicated to SPF—that immediately increased my trust in them. However be careful what you wish for... Products I’ll be reviewing: Shimmershade SPF 30 Glow Stick SPF 50 Unseen Sunscreen SPF 40 MY FAVES: Supergoop! - Shimmershade Eyeshadow Shimmershade SPF 30 Eyeshadow: this is just an incredible daily cream eyeshadow formula. I hate the heavy feeling of facial SPF on my eyelids and this came in CLUTCH. It feels just like a lightweight cream eyeshadow and looks amazing. I have the shade “” and it looks incredibly seamless when blended in with my fingers for that “next level” eye look. The pot has a ton of product in it for the price point ($24) and I highly recommend you try it at least once. Get a sample from Sephora! Supergoop! - Glow Stick SPF 50 Glow Stick SPF 50: I was really hesitant about this one—I purchased it as a chemical SPF option that wouldn’t pill under makeup. Surprisingly, I love this formula. It doesn’t sit on top of your skin and feels super lightweight. It’s also really easy to reapply during the day! I like that it’s a solid stick formula so it won’t leak or spill in your bag. My only real complaint is the packaging. You push the product up from the bottom and it’s just kind of hard to control at time how much you push up. Like a push pop without being able to push it back down. It also lasts FOREVER so $25 doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. NOT SO MUCH - LEAST FAVE: Supergoop! - Unseen Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 40 Unseen Sunscreen SPF 40: this is a translucent blurring SPF formula. The texture is SO silky. I loved how it applied to my skin...but any time I use this, my skin immediately breaks out in a rash. I’m not sure why this happens. I’ve heard so many great things about this product but my experiences haven’t been great, and at $34, I can’t justify the price at all, leaving it in the bottom tier of this brand Spotlight. What are your favorites from Supergoop?

I discovered this brand after watching one of my favorite youtubers (Samantha Ravndahl) talk about their Glow2OH toner helping her skin texture (she has acne and acne scarring). Honestly I wasn’t planning on buying more than that from the brand until they started releasing more and more products I was interested in trying! Let’s get into that more... Products I’ll be reviewing: PHAT Glow Facial Balancing Force Oil Control Toner Force of Nurture Hand Cream OLE HENRIKSEN - PHAT Glow Facial Mask My freaking fave. So, backstory: I was previously forcing myself to use Drunk Elephant’s Babyfacial every week. For months. Now, I have very sensitive skin that has rosacea and is acne prone. I have uneven skin texture from acne scarring. Babyfacial was pretty much made for me right? Wrong. It destroyed my skin barrier. But that’s another tale for another day. At this point I had given up on chemical exfoliating masks. Until OH’s Black Friday sale...I impulsively picked this up and I’m SO GLAD I did! It’s a gentler formula than Babyfacial, using PHAs instead of BHAs and AHAs—but honestly it does an even better job and destroying my blackheads and sebaceous filaments! Get this too—it doesn’t trigger my rosacea AT ALL. Zero redness! That’s literally insane to me. It does contain a bit of fragrance but tbh it doesn’t bother my skin at all. $50 for 1.7oz is awesome. When I run out of this I will be so sad! #OLEHENRIKSEN - Balancing Force Oil Control Toner[products]#[OneStar] Ahh, I wanted to love this so badly. Then I realized my skin type is 0% suited for this product. Nowadays I have combination dry skin (even though I was only using this on my nose which is oily) and it was causing my skin to flake from dryness. I want to also mention it might be a sensitivity I have to essential oils (this one tingles your skin as it contains eucalyptus and peppermint oil). Since then, I have switched to the Paula’s Choice BHA liquid and it is much better suited to my needs. I’m happy I got a sample size of this before purchasing, as it’s $29 for 6.5oz—not bad, but it would feel wasteful for me to throw away that much product. OLE HENRIKSEN - Force of Nurture Intensive Hand Creme This hand cream is my winter lizard hand savior! I prefer to use this throughout the day and a heavier cream at night. I am very sad because this has been discontinued. It does contain a bit of fragrance but the kpagnan butter in it cancels it out, I swear! My hands have never felt so soft after using it. I stocked up on it while it was on sale, but being discontinued I’m very sad and will try to find another kpangnan butter equivalent when I run out. Have you tried anything from OH? What are your faves and hates?