Review: MDSolarSciences Mineral Crème Broad Spectrum SPF 50 UVA-UVB Sunscreen

This is a series in which, in an attempt to work my way through my sample overload, I spend the weekend trying out samples, then inflict capsule reviews upon the internet. 

Available at Beauty.com, DermStore, MDSolarSciences, Nordstrom, Sephora,

Product Claims

According to the MDSolarSciences website:

This lightweight and silky-smooth crème blends seamlessly to help blur fine lines and wrinkles, making it a must-have for any daily beauty or grooming routine. Our exclusive “barely there” formula leaves a matte finish that is perfect to wear both under and over makeup. Naturally derived and safer Eco-cert zinc oxide helps reduce the risk of photo aging and skin cancer. Non-irritating and oil-free, this water-resistant sunscreen won’t clog pores, is gentle enough for even the most sensitive skin types and suitable for kids 6 months and older.

The Ingredients

Again, from the website:

The Good

This is a high-SPF sunscreen that feels weightless on my dry skin and looks and acts like a makeup primer. (It feels very similar to Boots Prevent and Correct, a best-selling silicone-based serum that a lot of people like to wear as primer.)

The sun protection seems great, although I haven't tested it with a full day of outdoor wear. It doesn't claim to be waterproof, so I wouldn't wear if I were going to be swimming.

The cream has a very slight tint and gives the skin a whitish cast, but this isn't a problem for me, as I am fair-skinned and wear it under makeup.

There is a very slight sweet masking fragrance, but no sunscreen reek.

Mild-to-moderate activity doesn't appear to affect it, at least, from the getting-in-to-my-eyes school of sunscreen torment, which is no doubt caused by the chemicals in chemical sunscreens. Since this is a physical sunscreen, it's very bland, and good for sensitive skin (or eyes, as in my case.) Also, I've walked and run with it on and it stayed put well without holding in sweat and making me feel suffocated, which is what happens to me when I wear waterproof sunscreen.

The product is paraben-free.

The Bad

First, there is the whitening effect, which could be a problem for people with skin darker than mine.

The high level of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide might product flashback in photographs, although I haven't actually tested this.

Verdict

Although I wouldn't swear by it for truly active/watersports days, if you are pale, or have dry skin, are comfortable with silicone-based skin creams, and are looking for something that plays well with makeup, I recommend it highly.

Bonus! a second opinion from my friend Wendy

Last May, when blackbird, Susie Sunshine, and Wendy visited me in Chicago, I gave out a few samples, and Wendy was gracious enough to email me her thoughts on some of the products she tried. She also gave me permission to quote her on my blog. This is what she said:

This is on my shopping list!!  I love the level of protection and I love how it goes on and feels when it dries.  It feels almost like make up primer when dry and says that it goes matte.  I agree.  There is a sheer white cast to it, but on my fair skin that's no big deal - I also follow it with powder foundation which is part of why I love how it feels like primer.  It's comfortable to wear and what I feel is enough to truly protect my skin.  No scent. I've been wearing it every day since I opened it and sadly have run out.  Like I said - I'm buying more tomorrow.  

How much? And where can I buy it?

The retail price is $30.00 for 1.7 oz. It's available at Sephora, Nordstrom, Beauty.com, and Amazon.

 

Would I buy it?

I already did! I followed a link from Brutally Honest Beauty and snagged a 1.7 oz. tube from DermStore using a coupon code that got me 30 percent off.

Because it's pricey and available at lots of different stores, I'd shop around to get a better deal--at the very least, free shipping.

Review: Cane&Austin Miracle Pad+ exfoliating pads

It's been a while since I've done a Sample Saturday report, mostly because I kept discovering products I liked and wanted to keep using.

Case in point: Radical Skincare Age-Defying Exfoliating Pads, reviewed here. (If you're new to these parts or don't understand why I'm obsessed with exfoliating my skin, you can read this post from 2013. Nothing has changed; I'm still engaged in an ongoing battle with my skin's unfortunate tendency to pile up in various crusty and unappealing ways.) I tried the sample, liked it, and popped for the full-sized jar of 60 pads, which I'm still using.

But here's my latest, greatest (spoiler!) find!

While we were traveling around Lake Michigan, I knew I was going to be spending the bare minimum of time primping. Not only because the dress code was Early Summer Lumberjack.

But because when you're sharing a bathroom with three other people, it behooves you to get in and out quickly.

Also I was packing light. So I brought a three-packet sample of Cane&Austin Miracle Pad+ 30% pads. Which I used up in a week, using them on alternate nights.

The Claims

The package say this product

delivers the results of a 30% Glycolic clinical treatment to restore luminosity and vitality to skin

and will

even skin tone, reduce fine lines, wrinkles, enlarged pores & the appearance of age spots

This is the most potent exfoliating pad Cane&Austin sells. On their site, they show you the following:

The Dermstore site says that the Cane&Austin 20% pads are

Since I pretty much have all of the above except for oily skin and acne, the stronger product seemed ideally suited for me.

The directions said to swipe the pad over a clean face morning and night, avoiding the eye area. I only used the product at night, because I only had three pads, and anyway, overkill.

The Ingredients

Here's a screenshot of the ingredients from the website:

I think it's important to point out that these pads promise the equivalent of a 30 percent glycolic peel; they don't actually claim to contain a 30 percent glycolic acid solution. As you can see from the above, there are other acids in this product: lactic, phytic, and tartaric acid, as well as willow bark extract and salicylic acid phospholipids. In this respect, this product resembles Radical Skincare in being a virtual cornucopia of active ingredients.

The Results

I've mentioned that I'd been bothered by milia, and although I'd gotten rid of most of them, a couple of outliers still remained, including a closed comedone (GROSS) on the side of my nose.

A couple of days I brushed my finger over the area of my nose where this tiny, stubborn bump had been located, and it was gone. Just ... vanished. There was no sign left of it, but no signs of any trauma, either. No red mark, no hole, nothing. I was delighted, yet somehow disappointed that I hadn't noticed the moment when it fell off.

That's gross, right? Still, it would have been kind of gratifying.

The Verdict

Naturally, I'm thrilled, and I want more.

Where can I get this stuff?

Cane&Austin Miracle Pad+ can be found at the Cane&Austin website and Sephora. Unfortunately, the product is not stocked in every store that sells Cane&Austin products. A lot of stores only carry the lower percentage glycolic products, so be sure to check the numbers.

How much does it cost?

It's expensive. You get 60 pads for $88.  There are many, many options for glycolic acid pads, though. Click here for the result of an Amazon search.

One word, though. If you have Roseacea or simply know that you have sensitive skin, proceed with caution. That holds if you simply haven't been beating up your face on a regular basis, as I have. For some reason, getting my brows waxed or my hair blown out reddens my skin like crazy, whereas I pile all kinds of products onto my face with no ill effects whatsoever.

Oh, and one more thing (she said, challenging Columbo.) When you are using products like this, which are pH sensitive, be sure to use them on a clean DRY face. Water will buffer the acid and the pads won't be as effective. 

Review: AmorePacific Moisture Bound Sleeping Recovery Masque

This is a series in which, in an attempt to work my way through my sample overload, I spend the weekend trying out samples, then inflict capsule reviews upon the internet.

AmorePacific Moisture Bound Sleeping Recovery Masque $60/3.38 oz.

Skincare samples are like drugs

It's been a long time since my last Sample Saturday review, and for that, I apologize. Naturally, the biggest reason is my indolence, and by that I mean TOTAL LAZINESS, but there's another reason, and here I put the blame squarely on the manufacturers. 

It's the samples themselves. Have you ever noticed how unhelpful samples are? I mean, some of the stuff I get is worth a lot of money ... if any cosmetic product can actually be said to be worth what the manufacturers charge for it. 

I mean, say you're the OohLaLa Skincare Company, and you want people to buy your new serum, which you're pricing at $1,000 an ounce. So you decide to package wee little samples of these magical skin-perfecting unicorn tears in adorable little bottles to be given to spoiled housewives at a Neiman Marcus beauty event. The bottles hold .1 ounce, which isn't very much, but if the serum were cocaine, it would have a street value of $100. 

Wouldn't it make sense to enclose a leaflet or some instructions or something? 

But they don't. 

Which is how I managed to glue my face to my pillow. Twice.

... or maybe Apple products

 

Way back in the olden days of butterfly clips and extreme low-rise jeans, I had a first-generation iPod, complete with an audible click wheel and a generous 5 gigs of storage. It was lovely and clean and was packaged in a white cardboard cube that evoked reverence for the sleekness of its design ... except there were no instructions, and I couldn't figure out how to turn the fucking thing off. So I'd let the battery run down. "That," I'd think to myself "takes care of that."

In my defense, this was before you could google all your stupid questions and get non-judgmental help from total strangers on the internet.

Back to the product in question

I've mentioned before that I'm tiptoeing into the world of Korean skincare, and may I just say that there's a pretty steep learning curve? Because there is.

One of the biggest differences between Korean and western skincare is the relative emphasis on hydration. It's not that we want to dessicate our skin here in the west; it's just that in Korea, every step of your multi-step skincare regimen is designed to force more moisture into your skin. The ideal look in Korea is dewy to a degree that Westerners might find a little odd. 

You're supposed to double-cleanse your face, using first an oil, and second a gentle product that won't strip your skin. They you layer on essences, serums, and ampoules. Then you add a sleeping mask. Here's what this AmorePacific sleeping mask contains in the way of ingredients.

As you can see, there are extracts, skin-loving ingredients, and scary sounding stuff--the usual K-beauty cornucopia. But definitely moisturizing, right?

And so, in order to sample my AmorePacific Sleeping Recovery Masque, I double cleansed, used an essence (Estee Lauder Micro Essence)  then a serum (Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair)  then this sleeping mask. Then I added a bit of eye cream and went to bed. 

I tend to lie on my side with half of my face in the pillow. If I get a little restless, I switch it up. So I turn from one side to the other a few times every night. Which would be fine, except my pillow kept sticking to my face.

I decided maybe I was overdoing it. The second time I tried this stuff, I decided to just cleanse, use the same essence, skip the serum, use the sleeping mask, and apply the eye cream. Surely that wouldn't create a sticky tsunami of products. And yet it did. For a second night, my pillowcase stuck to my face.

I can't complain about the way my skin felt in the morning. Especially when I showered, because my skin felt great when the water hit the remnants of the mask and rinsed them off.

But really, some instructions would have been helpful. How many products is it safe to layer under this stuff? Can I put it on and go straight to bed, or should I wait a bit and let it get absorbed first? I have questions! And my tiny sample tube (.33 ounces worth, with a street value of $6.00) isn't answering them.

Review: Laura Mercier Smooth Finish Flawless Fluide foundation

This is a series in which, in an attempt to work my way through my sample overload, I spend the weekend trying out samples, then inflict capsule reviews upon the internet.

Laura Mercier Smooth Finish Flawless Foundation, $48

I received this sample fairly recently (i.e., within the past two years) and yes, I checked. This stuff is still in production. It may not be Mercier's latest and greatest, but 'tis enough; 'twill serve.

I got this in Vanillé, and was ready to fall in love with it when I saw the shade. I'm not a Pale Porcelain Princess like the ones you run into on Makeup Alley and Reddit, always whining that I can't find foundation pale enough for my magnolia petal complexion, but I am fairly ghostly, and most sample shades tend to be too dark.

This foundation has a bi-phase formula; you have to shake it up a lot before you apply it to make sure it blends. Once mixed, it's thin to the point of being watery. It reminded me of other foundations I've tried, like MAC's Face and Body and Armani's Luminous Silk.

I find the Mercier sets quickly, so I do my face in three sections. I find it a bit tricky to blend. It tends to gather in the pores on the sides of my nose, and it takes careful blending to get coverage with no cakiness. I like it best applied with fingers over moisturizer and primer (Guerlain's Les Meteorites.) The primer helps by adding a bit of moisture and some much-needed glow.  

Once applied, this foundation has a semi-matte finish that lasts a full day on my dry skin. It doesn't break down, and I don't feel any need to blot or touch up with powder. It looks good, if a little, I don't know--embalmed? I'd call it a medium coverage foundation, so the embalmed look doesn't come from excessive coverage. Instead, it's the formula's oil-free nature. I prefer a dewier finish. Then again, I'm pretty sure Laura Mercier didn't have the likes of me in mind when she came up with this formula. I'm pretty sure it wasn't designed to be used during the winter by a dry-skinned, post-menopausal woman in the Frozen North.

If you have oilier skin, I think you might like this foundation a lot. It comes in 24 shades, some of which are quite dark, as well as a variety of undertones. Meaning that it might work for women of color. (I know! I find it hard to believe, too. It's almost as if it's the twenty-first century!)

To my mind, this product only has three drawbacks. First of all, it costs $48. Second, I've heard complaints about the packaging. Apparently, the product has a habit of gushing out of the tube. This wasn't a problem with my sample size, so I haven't experienced it myself, but it's worth mentioning. Lastly, this formula doesn't contain sunscreen. For me, that's a bug, because if I'm wearing it during the day, I have to apply a heavy moisturizer, then sunscreen, than primer to keep the foundation out of my pores, and after a while I have so many layers on my face, I feel like a turtle sundae.

On the other hand, if you're sensitive to sunscreen or want to avoid flashback in photographs, and either have oily skin or don't mind layering a lot of moisturizer under your foundation, this product could be your holy grail! If so, I'm glad to know that I haven't spent several days applying this stuff and peering dubiously at myself in vain.

Review: Robert Piguet's Mademoiselle Piguet

Retails for $92.99 at FragranceNet

We've finally arrived at the time of year when I reach for the strongest florals in my perfume collection. At this point, I can't take one more cold, gray day, and I self-medicate by punching myself in the face with the sort of floral perfumes I find completely overpowering in June, July, and August.

The usual February suspects include Kilian's Surrender, Lucien Lelong's Indiscret, and Lauder's Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia. All of them are very powerful fragrances stuffed with white flowers like gardenia, jasmine, and tuberose.

And then there's Fracas

I've been intrigued by Robert Piguet's Fracas for ages. Like Jungle Gardenia, it's a legendary fragrance that, instantly recognizable, billows invisibly when a woman wearing it passes by, and fills empty elevators to overflowing. In short, a fragrance with Presence.

On Frantica, the notes for Fracas are described as

Tuberose, exuberant and seductive, nicely blends with pure, clear and intensive notes of jasmine, white narcissus, gardenia, lily of the valley and white iris, with a hint of orange blossom and violet embraced by sandalwood, vetiver and sensual musk in the base.

This sounds like something I'd love, even down to the sandalwood. So I was excited to receive a GWP of a trio of Piguet fragrances: classic Fracas, Gardenia, and Mademoiselle Piguet. They sounded pretty damned floral to me—just what the doctor ordered, because a storm had just dumped a few inches of snow on top of the snowdrops that had just started emerging in the sunny part of my garden.

I decided to start with a Piguet fragrance that had no history or connotations for me—sort of sneaking up on Fracas on little cat feet. So after my shower yesterday, I applied five or six spritzes of Mademoiselle Piguet.

I'm going to veer away from the fragrance sample for a while--don't worry; I'll get back.

My husband is a fan of jasmine tea. Although I like the fragrance of jasmine, I think jasmine tea smells—and therefore tastes—like soap. Every time I lift a cup of jasmine tea to my lips, I get a whiff of the scent and think "Yep, there's that soap smell again."

I had a similar reaction to Mademoiselle Piguet. 

My thoughts on orange blossom

If I were a real perfumista, I'd recognize neroli or orange blossom a mile away. And it would Mean Something. But I grew up in the frozen north, getting my fresh flower fix by dipping my face into lilac blossoms and roses, rather then orange blossom. As a result, when confronted with lots of neroli/orange blossom, which is pretty much all Mademoiselle Piguet is, my nose doesn't come up with anything but an overpowering sweetness.

That is not to say that orange blossom doesn't come heavily laden with connotations. An orange blossom wreath became a traditional bridal accessory after Queen Victoria wore one, but of course, she had the orangerie at Kensington Palace at her disposal.

You will no doubt be fascinated to learn that there was a huge fad for wax orange blossom headpieces for brides in the 19th and 20th century.

Apparently a LOT of us were getting married in the Frozen North, with its traditional dearth of orange trees. We had to wear falsies.

Of course, well-to-do people like actor John Barrymore and his bride Delores Costello probably had access to real, rather than wax flowers.

But what I'm really trying to say is that for me, orange blossom is more of a legendary scent. An olfactory Harvey-the-six-foot invisible rabbit, if you will.

Why I've been dithering about wax flowers

I'm not well-versed enough in perfume terminology to wax authoritative about this fragrance, (see what I did there?) but Mademoiselle Piguet is coming across as a soliflore to me. It's as powerful and linear as Giorgio, except it's a soliflore instead of a ... whatever the hell Giorgio actually was.

According to Ca Fleure Bon, the notes in Mademoiselle Piguet look like this:

That's an extremely pared-down pyramid. Most fragrances have many more notes. But it bears out my experience with Mademoiselle Piguet. I'm used to perfumes that have opening notes, middle notes, and dry-down notes. It may not be cutting edge perfume-manufacturing, but that's what I'm used to. And so, for me, it feels odd to apply a perfume and have it smell the same for hours and hours. Odd, and weirdly inorganic. Static.

Mademoiselle Piguet doesn't develop. It starts off as a croissant spread with honey and orange marmalade, and it stays that way. For hours. And hours. And while this isn't a bad thing per se—for some people, like Gale Hayden when she developed Giorgio, it's a selling point—it's not for me.

As far as I'm concerned, air fresheners, soap, fabric softener sheets, and scented candles should have one scent that stays consistent, world without end, amen. They're background scents. Elevator music for your nose.

Perfume is supposed to be like a living thing. It's supposed to smell different on different people, and smell different depending on how long ago you applied it, and even smell different because it has started to break down in the bottle.

Perfume is not supposed to be an olfactory Energizer Bunny.

And yet, it's the next day, and I can still smell Mademoiselle Piguet.

Yep, there's that orange blossom smell again.

The Heartbreak of Milia

Lately I've become obsessed with exfoliating my skin, and my selections of samples to try has tended to include at least one product designed to scrub, melt, or blast the creepy bits off my face. It's because I've started to be bothered with milia.

This isn't the first time this has happened; I've had milia before under my eyes. I concluded (correctly) that the eye cream I was using was too rich. I stopped using it, and they went away.

This time it's a little more complicated. The milia have appeared at the outward edge of my nose and in my naso-labial folds. Unfortunately, I can't place the blame any single product. The culprit could be my day cream, my night cream, my makeup ... you name it. On top of that, I'm using more products on my face than I ever have, and because I'm working my way through so many samples, I've been switching products around like a plate juggler. It has also occurred to me that the problem could be the way I sleep with my face mashed into a pillow—maybe my night creme gets pressed into my [gasp] furrows. Maybe my skin can't breathe! OMG it's CHOKING! See what I mean about heartbreak of milia? Pardon me while I wail and gnash my teeth.

ANYWAY. To address the situation is a little more complicated this time than merely switching eye creams.

But before I go on acting like my typically long-winded self, I should cover the basics.

What are milia?

A milium is a hard lump of keratin trapped under the skin. Milia look like whiteheads, but they're not. There's no infection, inflammation, or reddening, and they don't ever come to a head. Eventually, with enough cellular turnover, a milium will go away. But if you don't help it along, it takes a really long time.

Who gets milia?

Two groups of people are prone to milia: babies and grown-ups who haven't been taking good enough care of their skin.

What causes milia?

Milia are caused by a lack of exfoliation. (To avoid repeating myself and/or telling you stuff you already know, I'll point out that I discussed the need for exfoliation here.)

With babies, I'm sure it's just that their tiny systems are tuning themselves up. I mean, they're born, and they're perfect, if a little crumpled looking. Then they go through a brief phase where they might get cradle cap, then milia, then they're perfect again (until they're teenagers and their oil production ramps up.)

But with grown-ups like you and me, milia can be caused by any of the following:

• a lack of exfoliation
• comedogenic makeup
• comedogenic face cream
• comedogenic sunscreen
• sun exposure

Yes, that's right. While sun exposure thickens the skin and makes it harder for it to shed milia, the sunscreens that prevent sun damage are pore-clogging bastards. You can't win. Unless you're a baby.

What I'm Going to Do to the Little Fuckers

1. Stop using face creams with comedogenic ingredients. I already know one prime offender.

Estee Lauder's original Re-Nutriv Creme (which I bought mostly because it's retro) contains serious amounts of lanolin as well as enough fragrance to keep a lady from smelling like a sheep. It honestly can't be great for the skin.

The current version no longer contains shark or turtle oil. Thank goodness

Sorry, Estee: Re-Nutriv is being downgraded to hand creme.

2. Double cleanse on any day I wear sunscreen. Which is every day, unless I'm in bed with the flu. Because I have dry skin with almost no tendency to break out, I have been known to be less-than-systematic with regard to this. You know, using a face wipe or two at night, or rinsing my face in my morning shower and calling it quits. That has to stop.

3. Exfoliate my entire face at least every other day. I'm currently using my Radical Skincare Age Defying Exfoliating pads, reviewed here. For suggestions of other pads you might try, click here.

4. Spot treat the actual milia with a cotton bud dipped in a beta-hydroxy acid solution. That sounds complicated, but I'm just using the liquid from my Stridex pads. In younger, more summery days, or in a beauty emergency, I have been known to use these all over my face, but at the moment, that's way too drying, so I'll just use a bit of the lotion on the milia.

By the way, these pads are dirt cheap, and they work on elbows, knees, and feet, sloughing off dead skin and keeping them soft. I always have some around. They're cheap, effective, and having anti-acne pads front and center in my bathroom makes me look young and sprightly.

Review: Radical Skincare Age Defying Exfoliating Pads

I received a packet of 15 of these exfoliating pads, from where, I know not, although my guess is that it was one of those Beauty Events I was just nattering on about. Probably at Neiman Marcus or Barney's, because this is some high-end stuff.

Radical Skincare Age Defying Exfoliating Pads (15 count)

The sample size packet I somehow acquired for free is available as a stand-alone item at Dermstore for $20.00.

The claims

Because I was working from a sample packet, which tend to be terse at best, I needed to visit the website to get more information. The Radical Skincare website claims this product will:

You know, I wish they had decided whether they wanted to employ the present or future tense. It would have made my blog post read that much more fluently. But no matter. There was no thought of pleasing me when they came up with these bullet points and their waffling, back-and-forth, pushmi-pullyu notions of time.

Here's what they say about their ingredients:

I am tactfully averting my eyes at the typos and missing apostrophes. The company mailing address is 20 Rue Cambon, Paris, which is pretty much across the street from the Chanel flagship store. I don't expect miracles of English usage from people who, if they needed a cup of sugar, could run across the street to borrow one from Coco Chanel. But I'm available for editing jobs at what I consider to be a reasonable price. Just putting that out there.

These are the actual ingredients, listed all legal-like:

This is where things get interesting. This product is like a multi-vitamin of acids and plant extracts, with both alpha- and beta-hydroxy acids in the lineup, specifically, glycolic and salicylic acids. There are also extracts of aloe, bilberry, coffee seed, grape seed, gotu kola, oat, echinacea, apple, chamomile, willow bark, tea, witch hazel, sugar cane, orange, lemon, sugar maple, tangerine, and Linalool, which sounds like it's right next door to Kalamazoo, or maybe Woolloomooloo, but is actually citrus peel extract.

Among the War and Peace-length list of ingredients, there are some that give me pause. I'm an insensitive person at best, but you might have a problem with any or all of these plant extracts. Also, I'm not thrilled with the inclusion of denatured alcohol. It's probably added as a penetration enhancer, which is OK, I guess, but I'm opposed on principle to alcohol being applied topically, when I much prefer it administered orally, where it might not do much for my skin, but will undoubtedly improve my outlook.

Shut up, Poppy. Just tell us whether this stuff works.

I am pleased to tell you that even though I consider the cornucopia of ingredients to be suspect at best (I mean, seriously, this thing rivals a can of Contadina tomato paste in its ability to squeeze an entire supermarket produce department into a single jar) I actually did get good results with these pads.

I should add that this was not without a certain amount of research, tweaking, and adjusting. I had to hit the internet to find out how to successfully integrate these pads into my existing skincare regimen. Finally, after using 13 of my 15 pads, I discovered that I had been doing it wrong.

Instead of wiping the pad over my face right after cleansing, I should have been using them 15 minutes after I applied my Vitamin C serum, and 15 to 20 minutes before I applied my nighttime moisturizer. Since I was down to my last two pads, I ordered another jar of them from Space NK (and yes, bought enough new stuff to get the gift bag SO SUE ME.)

This means that before I go to bed, I spend at least 45 minutes layering potions onto my face.  If you know anything about Korean skin care regimens, however, you would think I was the merest dilettante for mentioning that this process is somewhat time consuming. Because those K-Beauty babes use up to ten products at night, including a sheet mask. If I had spent as much time writing my dissertation as these women spend on their complexions, I'd be Dr. Poppy, and instead of blathering about skincare, I'd probably be correcting papers.

Never mind.

But Poppy, we thought you thought you had good skin. Why bother?

This is true. I mean, one of the things I discovered upon first dipping a toe into the world of Korean skin care is that most of the proponents are 20-somethings, and 90 percent of them have acne.  Since I don't suffer from either condition, I didn't think I would have much to learn.

I was wrong. It turns out I wasn't factoring pH into my regimen, specifically, that Vitamin C needs 15 minutes to penetrate, and that AHA and BHA products require an acid environment to do their work.

Once I let my Vitamin C serum soak in (and not coincidentally, acidify my face) and allowed the pads to work their 15 to 20 minutes, I saw immediate results. My pores were smaller, little cloggy places at the sides of my nose cleared up, and best of all, a couple of milia that had been bugging me worked their way to the surface of my skin and went bye-bye.

So, do they work? Yes. Would other products work as well? Maybe. Are they expensive? Cruelly.

60 pads for $75.00 at Sephora

Review: Marula Pure Beauty Oil shampoo and conditioner

Not Poppy.

Here I am in Florida, having packed a week's worth of outfits into a check-in bag that is supposed to weigh under 50 pounds.

I brought a couple of sample packets of shampoo and conditioner. I picked the ones that are sulfate-free, since I have both hair dye and a keratin treatment to protect.

Again, not Poppy.

I brought

Marula Intensive Repair Shampoo 8.5 oz./$28.00

with its matching conditioner

Marula Intensive Repair Conditioner 8.5/$28.00

And all I can say is ... this shampoo is probably OK for people who simply want to freshen their style by getting their hair wet enough to warrant blowing it dry. And this is actually me a lot of the time. Most of the time I have dry hair which I shampoo not because I really need to, but because it's been four or five days. Things seems a little flat. And dim. So why not?

But I'm in Florida, and I started this whole trip with "second day hair." So take second day hair plus tons of extra styling products to keep my hair from puffing and frizzing up in the Florida humidity, plus the extra yuck you get when you go jogging in 82 degree heat along the beach.

So, salt, humidity, oil, styling products + "glow" = a hot mess.

And this shampoo simply didn't get my hair clean.

It's sulfate free, so it doesn't foam up. Like, at all. So it's hard to know whether I've massaged it long enough into my scalp. And even with a second sudsing, it doesn't suds, so your guess is as good as mine as to whether it has worked.

I really hate blow drying my hair. It's incredibly labor intensive. I section it when it's wet into about 10 parts. Then I blow-dry each section and roll it around a velcro roller. Then I blast all the rollers with heat and let everything cool down. This takes a long time. My feet, back, legs, and triceps get tired.

When I go through all that, and my hair isn't actually clean, I get a little annoyed.

So I'd give the conditioner an 8 out of 10. It felt creamy and moisturizing, yet rinsed clean. It smelled good. It was a pleasant experience.

But the shampoo? Was like pouring a watery fluid into my hair. It didn't produce any suds. At all. And I know that sulfate-free shampoos don't create mounds of suds. But I did two "sudsings" and rinsed carefully and my. hair. still. wasn't. clean.

I'd call that the failiest fail that ever failed.

Review: Fresh Soy Face Cleanser

This is a series in which, in an attempt to work my way through my sample overload, I spend the weekend trying out samples, then inflict capsule reviews upon the internet. 

 I'm continuing to work on my sample stash, but the review process is getting bogged down with various treatment products. To detest a lipstick or nail polish is for me, the work of a moment, but if a product comes with 15 burn-off-your-wrinkles-and-brown-spots pads, I feel duty-bound to to use all 15 before weighing in. 

However, things are simplified when skincare arrives in a single-use packet.

Fresh Soy Face Cleanser, 1.7 oz., $15.00; picture courtesy of Nordstrom

This product has been reviewed hundreds of times on MakeupAlley and thousands of times on Sephora. Mind you, I didn't actually read these reviews before I tried the product, because it wasn't necessary. This wasn't a cloth mask imbued with eau de unicorn tears accompanied by instructions written in Korean. It was a water-soluble cleanser in a single-use packet.

There are ups and downs to these packets, which I feel pressed to bloggersplain to you. It can be hard to tell how much product to use, even when common sense tells you, duh, it's a single-use packet. With things like hair conditioner, the amount you use depends on the amount and condition of your hair. And sometimes the product you're sampling is incredibly expensive, and you're trying your utmost to avoid wasting even a drop, because you can dimly sense the shades of your Puritan ancestors judging you for your spendthrift-y wastefulness.

But with a tiny packet of facial cleanser, even an over-thinker can guess the amount required, so I ripped open the packet and rubbed its contents over my face.

The Good

This is a lotion-y, non-foaming cleanser, a lot like Cetaphil, except with fancier ingredients.

Ingredient list courtesy of Nordstrom's helpful website.

As you can see, the ingredients feature a lot of bland, inoffensive stuff, as well as small amounts of plant oils and extracts.

This product is sulfate- and paraben-free.

It feels like a lotion on the skin. In fact, it shares an okra-water-like slimy lotion texture with Cetaphil, its much cheaper, less allergenic,  more widely available comrade in cleansing.

Like Cetaphil, it doesn't strip the skin.

It worked fine as a wake-up-the-face morning shower cleanser.

The Bad

The product's claims are unconvincing. Fresh touts its use of soy, but as always, in a cleanser, the ingredients are on your face for an extremely short time, so whatever miracles soy is supposed to perform probably won't have time to occur.

It has limited cleansing abilities. It won't remove heavy makeup or sunscreen unless you also use some kind of mechanical exfoliation, either by washcloth or Clarisonic.

It's expensive.

It has fragrance. A strong cucumber fragrance

which I hated.

Poppy's Epiphany 

I like cucumbers, and I don't, in general, mind the smell of cucumber in my skincare (RIP Caswell Massey Cucumber cold cream) but this stuff just flat out reeked. Some reviewers pick up notes of rose, etc., which makes sense, given the ingredient list. All I smelled was a composting heap of cucumber skin.

And I realized something. Life's too short to use beauty products that make me gag bug me.

First of all, taking care of yourself should be one of life's great sensual pleasures. Your creams and lotions should look, smell, and fell wonderful—to you, not a random bunch of reviewers. If you adore the scent of Fresh Soy Cleanser, that's great; use and enjoy. But I'd be kicking myself if I'd popped for a full-size tube based on the reviews, because I would have never reached for it.

Which leads me to the second half of my epiphany. Bought-but-not-used products make me feel bad. They don't spark joy; they spark guilt. If I had purchased a tube of this cleanser, it would get shoved aside and neglected. And then the shades of my Puritan ancestors would gang up on me and make me feel terrible.

TLDR

This shit smells terrible, and it was with an overwhelming sense of joy that I threw the empty packet into the bin.

Unfloppable Poppy

So I'm thinking deep thoughts about K-Beauty and snail creams and whether I should tiptoe into all that, even though I suspect that if I do, I'll never get through all my samples. (Laura Mercier's oil-free foundation looks promising, but I thought I'd try it in Florida before I post a review.) So anyway, I procrastinated by checking out the most current links on bird's blog.

First I read a sad tale of bra shopping.

image courtesy of "Unsupported" by Betsy Morais, at the Awl

Then, I got this, from a website in New Zealand.

I think the universe is sending me a message. It is telling me to head over to Barenecessities.

And hey—when was the last time you refreshed your lingerie drawer? Hmmm? Those things don't last forever, you know. Even with careful laundering (use lukewarm water; hand wash where possible, but you can use a mesh bag, or, in a pinch, a knotted pillowcase; hang to dry, NEVER PUT THEM IN THE DRYER) you get maybe two years. If you rotate them. And don't wear them two days in a row.

Wait a minute—have we talked about this? Well, it bears repeating: take care of your girls and the bras that cover them.

Also, if you have access to a Japanese food store or are good at shopping on line, get one of these

You'll thank me. Socks, bras, hose—the uses are endless. And yes, my friend Liz thought mine was hilarious and came out of the powder room carrying one and laughing helplessly, but mine isn't nearly as funny as this

which is strangely reminiscent of those things you use to wash your trucker caps in the top rack of your dishwasher. But they would probably come in handy if you wear those bras with the linings and push-up pads and suchlike. Those suckers take forever to dry.

TLDR: If you can't read the size on the label anymore, it's time to buy new.

Dermstore 30 percent off coupon code: member30

Yes, internet, here are more tales of shopping from the idiot who is supposedly on a low-buy.

Here's my rationalization: trying out DHC's original stinky cleansing oil rekindled my love for DHC's Gentle Touch cleansing oil.

DHC Mild Touch Cleansing Oil (5 oz.) $24.00

And I am actually running out of my current cleansing oil.

I posed my bottle in front of my Marimekko washbag because POPPIES.

Also, I remembered that on Friday night I was having the dickens of a time applying a fairly new-to-me foundation

on top of the remnants of this mask

Sisley Black Rose Cream Mask (2.1 0z.) suggested retail $165, available at Overstock for $102.04

which I'd forgotten I'd been testing.

My foundation balled up like crazy. I wished I'd had a beautyblender to use, but I'd passed one along to my daughter and misplaced the other. I made do by blending and BLENDING and BLENDING with my fingers, then used a large powder brush to whisk off the extraneous balls of goo. (Look, I'm sorry, but sometimes beauty isn't pretty.)

(By the way, this is the second time in a week that I've admitted to having lost something I like. Which just goes to show what you're dealing with around here.)

At any rate, you'd be proud of me, Internet. For a brief shining moment, there was a $300 French hair dryer in my shopping basket, as well as a deeply discounted professional nail care kit that might have brought my sad January Chicago fingernails and cuticles back to life. But I removed them, and bought just the cleanser and two beautyblenders (one for my vanity, one for my washbag.)

Also, instead of buying the pre-packaged "Two Beauty Blenders plus a FREE Bottle of our Special Beauty Blender Shampoo--now with more plastic!"

I just bought two individual beautyblenders.

Confession: I already fell for that particular pitch and now have a lifetime supply of that beautyblender cleanser. Or, as they so winsomely named it, blendercleanser. (Don't waste your money; hand soap is perfectly adequate.)

As an aside: I'm thoroughly sick of typing these lowercase compound nouns. They can bite my asscheeks.

At any rate, if you're in the market, that 30 percent off code is pretty decent. And they're offering free shipping.

Of course, they also said something about free samples, but I'm trying to be brave.

Review: Clinique Black Honey nail polish

So apparently, one day Clinique woke up and said "Hey! We're the only department store makeup line that doesn't sell nail polish!" And with their usual all-American capitalistic fervor, they proceeded to manufacture some.

Now, being Clinique, they had to adopt this whole hypo-allergenic, dermatologist-tested scientific-sounding good-for-you stance, so they came up with a nail polish whose main claim was that it isn't irritating. Sort of ... the boy next door of nail polishes.

Apparently, the first place nail polish irritation shows is around the eyes, since we all touch the eye area hundreds of times a day. But most people don't realize this, so when Clinique announced that their nail polish didn't irritate the eyes, the beauty press's reaction was a profound "Wha------?"

Which may have affected sales.

Also, getting into the nail polish business three years ago is sort of like buying a house in 2006.

You've probably already figured out where this is going, right?

My tale of woe

This wasn't a sample, per se. I picked up my bottle as part of a Sephora Black Honey set.

I got the Almost Lipstick, the nail polish, and two Black Honey products that are exclusive to Sephora: the Quickliner twist up eye pencil and the Superbalm Moisturizing Gloss.

The good

It's a gorgeous color. OK, my husband thinks it looks like a bruise, or maybe a very old scab. And he's right. There's a definite dried blood look to this stuff. Polishistas™ would refer to it as "vampy." And it is a dupe of Chanel's original 1995 Vamp, the mother of all dark, so-ugly-they're-beautiful, blackened-red polishes.

But honestly, I think it's prettier than Vamp. Or Rouge Noir, which is the original Vamp, renamed for the American market.

Image courtesy of Izzy's Beauty Shop

But back to Clinique. The brush isn't as wonderful as OPI's wide brush, but it's not as flimsy and stupid as an Essie or Chanel brush. And it's not the 3-D mega-triangular-Hulk-Smash brush that Dior uses. So that's good, too.

Also, the length of the brush works well with the consistency of the polish. When the brush is really long, like Sally Hansen's, a glob of polish can migrate down the brush and flood your cuticles. But this polish behaves itself.

Also, it's a creme. No glitter, shimmer, or sparkles. Just a smooth, deep, glorious creme.

The Bad

Actually, it's not a creme; it's a jelly. Which I've been known to like a lot. But there's a time and a place for everything, and sometimes I'm not in the mood to mess around with glitter making jelly sandwiches.

I'm not fabulous at applying nail polish, but I'm not terrible. I mean, I can color inside the lines. I managed to get this on without ooking up my cuticles and the skin on the side of my nails too much. But this stuff is sheer. Really sheer. This is one coat

This is two coats.

To get good coverage, I think you'd really need to apply three coats.

Now, this polish dries fast. Very fast. But, as the lady says

In the interest of science, and because I really like the color, I tried this polish twice. The first time, I didn't get around to applying top coat, which is something I usually do. My nails started chipping within hours. Seriously, later the same day. Within two days my nails were the kind of mess that would leave Faux Fuchsia running around with her hair on fire.

I tried again--this time, base coat, two coats of color, and top coat. That's the second picture up there. And of course I was in a hurry so of course squidged the top coat a little, but there you go--again with the two coats, and you can still see through the color, and there's a tiny chip in the forefinger of my non-dominant hand.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this polish, unless you are really, really gifted at applying nailpolish, and own a great bulletproof topcoat.

Ladies, start your hoarding

None of this matters, though. I'm sorry to announce there is a world-wide shortage of this attractive, streaky, and chip-prone nail polish.

I went to the Sephora website to find out the price of the set I bought, and it's not there any more. (For the record, the set cost me $25, and I ordered it on November 9th, 2015.)

It turns out there are also no Clinique nail polishes to be found, on Sephora or any other store that sells Clinique. The Clinique website has nothing. I googled and got a hit, but when I clicked on it, the Clinique website redirected me.

WTF? It's like Clinique is trying to scrub every reference to their nail polish from the internet. 

Seriously, Clinique? You just introduced this line in 2013. I just bought this stuff two months ago. What if I had liked it? 

As of this writing, Clinique has disappeared their nail polish. Unless you're willing to buy from a third-party retailer, you'll have to wait for a St. Bernard carrying a barrel of dermatologist-tested blackened-red nail polish around his neck to come rescue you from your predicament.

Oops, I did it again

 

I'm sorry, Internet. I reviewed something you can't buy. Again.

Luckily, you probably wouldn't want to.

Of course, on the bright side, if you already own this polish, hold on to it. As with all discontinued products, there will be crazed fans out there. You'll probably be able to sell it on eBay for unbelievable amounts of money. 

Review: DHC Deep Cleansing Oil

DHC Deep Cleansing Oil, 6.7 oz, $28.00

This is the original cleansing oil. At least, it's the first cleansing oil I and my fellow American product addicts had ever heard of. I first heard about it on a fashion Usenet group, back in the dawn of the Internet. We were savages, sitting around chanting strange tribal chants ("mac ... mac ... bob ... bee ... brown") and then this monolith arrived out of nowhere. It was a huge bottle of olive oil. And we were all--"You mean you put it on dry skin, add a little water to emulsify, massage a bit, then rinse it off--and it RINSES CLEAN???!!! But it's OIL." And then we all fainted dead away.

The alt.fashion Usenet group, circa 2001

Flash forward to the present. DHC Deep Cleansing Oil is incredibly popular. There are over 4,000 reviews on the DHC website, and over 1,000 on MakeupAlley.

What do I have to add to the discussion? Not much. Remember, my goal is simply to use up samples. And DHC hands out a boatload--they even stick them to the pages of their catalog. (Remember catalogs?)

So anyway, I like cleansing oils. I like that they rinse off—sometimes it takes a little persuasion, but it happens—and you don't have the endless series of icky greasy tissues to deal with.

You can smile as much as you want; there is still grease all over the place

But I've tried several cleansing oils at this point. My favorite is actually a different DHC product: DHC Mild Touch. For some reason, it doesn't have nearly the level of popularity that the original, (spoiler alert: much heavier and smellier) oil has.

I'm currently using SKII. It's a bit heavy, but it doesn't smell. Would I repurchase? Probably not. It's pretty expensive for what it is.

My least favorite cleansing oil is Josie Argan's, which is incredibly heavy and hard to spread.

So anyway, this DHC stuff ... was OK. It did emulsify--begrudgingly--when I added a little water. But it smelled. What was that smell?

Oh. Lavender.

You know, I like the smell of lavender. Within reason. And in the right place. Laundry, yes. Ice cream, no. And, as it turns out, face wash, no.

Verdict: No.

Although I will keep those tiny sample packets for travel. Because you haven't really lived until your deluxe-sample-size-at-Sephora-Josie Argan cleansing oil leaks all over your washbag.