Organic Skin Care Blog – Product Reviews & Healthy Skin

Vichy Mineral 89 Skin Fortifying Daily Booster was just launched here, and this is one of Vichy's largest launches this year - so of course I had to review it! The Vichy Mineral 89 Booster claims to make skin "bouncy inside and glowy outside", which are definitely very popular themes in skincare in Asia - bouncy, glowy skin is definitely "in", with the theory being that bouncy, glowy skin looks younger (I don't disagree).


Interestingly, I noticed that Vichy gave slightly different names to this product - perhaps because what different markets expect and finda cceptable vary from place to place. Here, in Singapore, it's called the "Mineral 89 Skin Fortifying Daily Booster", because the concept of "booster" products (stemming from Asian beauty brands) has become fairly mainstream here. However in the USA, it's actually called "Mineral 89 Hyaluronic Acid Gel Face Moisturizer", perhaps because the concept of a "booster" might seem foreign to Western markets. But, it's the same product with the same ingredients list anyway. Just slightly different wording in the product name.


Vichy Mineral 89 Booster: One of the largest launches for 2017 from the brand
So, does this live up to all the buzz? Well, let's find out, by starting at the (surprisingly short) ingredients list!
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This is my epic empties post part 2 (part 1 was written a few weeks back), and yes, we're going to do a quick-hits rundown of what I liked, what I didn't like, and why! And yes, there are some products I didn't like in part 2, unlike in part 1 where everything I did actually like. Which ones? You'll find out!


Today's post will focus on sunscreens, serums and essences, masks, sleeping masks, and exfoliating products, as well as the lone eye cream. Basically we continue from part 1 and cover all the product categories part 1 did not.


Well, we've got a lot of products to cover today, so if you're ready, let's get started!
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Skinceuticals recently launched their HA Intensifier, or Hyaluronic Acid Intensifier. As the name suggests, it's a serum/booster product with hyaluronic acid - but more than that, Skinceuticals also claims that the HA Intensifier will also help to boost your skin's ability to make its own hyaluronic acid, beyond just replenishing it. Application-wise, Skinceuticals recommends this go after your toner, but before your other skincare products.


Skinceuticals is one of those brands that's a little niche, but has quite the following among skincare devotees, particularly for its CE Ferulic (which is sometimes considered the gold standard in Vitamin C serums). So I was pretty excited about the HA Intensifier, and was hoping that it would also live up to the brand's reputation for good skincare.


Skinceuticals HA Intensifier: A key claim is that the product helps to boost skin's own hyaluronic acid production
I'm sure at this stage, you're curious about so many things - does this serum live up to Skinceuticals' brand reputation? How exactly does a serum boost your skin's own ability to make its own hyaouronic acid, and does the Skinceuticals product do so? So, let's start our review - at the ingredients list!
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Sulwhasoo's Snowise Brightening Serum was launched earlier this year as an addition to Sulwhasoo's already very successful Snowise skincare range, which is a whitening range (as you might guess from the name). Sulwhasoo is a niche, high-end skincare brand that hails from Korea, with a focus on "holistic beauty" that is "inspired by Asian philosophy", which in their skincare line, means the use of plant extractsa nd ingredients that are traditionally used in Asian cultures.


If Sulwhasoo's Snowise Brightening Serum sounds slightly familiar, it's because previous iterations of the same product have been released. This version, according to parent company AmorePacific, is the "advanced eighth-generation" version, with "enhanced white ginseng extract, moist and smooth finish and a new packaging design". A whitening serum, punched up one level - what's not to like?


Sulwhasoo Snowise Brightening Serum: The 8th genertion version of the serum was released earlier this year
Sulwhasoo opened a store in Singapore last year, and since then it's been getting quite a lot of buzz. Furthermore, the kbeauty trend is still a pretty hot one right now, and so I was quite keen to review this product. So, without further ado, let's take a look at the ingredients list, and begin our review!
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Dr Ci:Labo's Super 100 range is part of the brand's "Special Care" range, and it consists of 5 different ampoule/serum type products, featuring different ingredients, including Hyaluronic Acid, Marine Collagen, Vitamin C, EGF (Epidermal Growth Factor), and Placenta. These serums can be added to your moisturizer, or else used on their own before moisturizer. When mixing it in your own moisturizer, I'm told that you just add a drop or two into the appropriate amount of moisturizer in your palm, and mix before application.


These all come in blue or brown glass bottles of 10ml or 30ml, with a little tip that dispenses the serums one at a time. The Super 100 serums are all unscented, and in my opinion can be used with any moisturizer, although Dr Ci:Labo recommends that you use them with the other Dr Ci:Labo serums. Specifically the Hyaluronic Acid, Marine Collagen, and Placenta Super 100 Serums are meant to be mixed with the Labo Labo Super Moist Gel 5H5C (which I've reviewed before here), and the EGF and Vitamin C Super 100 Serums are meant to be mixed with the Labo Labo Super Keana Gel.


Dr Ci:Labo Super 100 Collagen, Vitamin C, Placenta, Hyaluronic Acid, EGF Serums, with the two Labo Labo moisturizers recommended for compatibility
Anyway, these might be pretty useful as nifty little boost to your skincare routine. And without further ado, let's take a look at the individual serum's ingredients and what's inside!
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This is a pretty major empties post, because the last time I blogged about my empties was half a year ago in December last year (it was also a pretty large post, that I split into two parts, part 1 and part 2). This time around, I have even more stuff!


The nice thing about empties is that, for me, using a product up comes with a sense of accomplishment (as in, hey, I actually stuck to something long enough to use it up!) and also a sense of permission (as in, hey, I've used up a lipstick, now I can buy another lipstick)! So for a beauty junkie like me, it's both gratifying and enabling!



Obviously, there's a lot to go through, so without further ado, let's jump right in!
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Origins' Original Skin Retexturizng Mask and Renewal Serum aren't new products - they were actually launched end of last year - but since I'm catching up on some old reviews at the moment, I figured, better late than never! And I suppose as far as skincare reviews are concerned, it's always a bit better to wait til you've tried the product more before reviewing it, because then you really get a better sense of how the product works.


From some of the promotional material I've seen, the Original Skin range is meant to target ladies with a "quarter-life crisis", so unlike traditional anti-aging lines it has a younger target audience. The Original Skin Retexturizing Mask is supposed to be a "two-in-one purifying mask and skin refiner", while the Renewal Serum is billed as a "renewal serum (duh, I guess) designed to restore the glow of younger skin". As with most Origins products, these have a slew of natural plant-based extracts and ingredients.


Origins Original Skin Retexturizing Mask: One of the products in the range
As with all my reviews, we start with the ingredients list, so we get to see what's in the products, and how the products work! So, without further ado, let's begin!
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The Body Shop's Drops of Youth collection of skincare products has launched, and this range targets the first signs of ageing and delivers hydration to skin. It is a surprisingly comprehensive range, with a Essence Lotion, Eye Concentrate, Youth Concentrate, Youth Cream, and Bouncy Sleeping Mask. So yes, a total of five products are being launched!


Some of you may remember my old review last year of The Body Shop's Drops of Youth Concentrate, which is part of the Nutriganics Line. And while I didn't review it last year either, the Nutriganics line also had a Bouncy Sleeping Mask too. The packaging of the products in the Nutriganics line is slightly different - the "older" Bouncy Sleeping Mask, for example, has a white cap rather than a black one, while the Concentrate had a different lid and dropper.


The Body Shop Drops of Youth: Five products, ranging from lotions to concentrates to masks
Anyway, we'll be looking at all these products in the Drops of youth collection - Lotion, Eye Concentrate, Youth Concentrate, Cream, and Bouncy Sleeping Mask, and as always, we're going to take a closer look at how these products work! Since there are quite a number of products to go through, this post is going to be a tad long, so buckle your seatbelts, and let's get starte!
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SKII's Facial Treatment Essence, with the acclaimed Pitera as the main ingredient, is one of the most famous products in the world of Asian beauty. It's got a cult following despite the high price, and people swear by it.

A year ago, I reviewed the SKII Facial Treatment Essence (together with the Clear Lotion and the Mask), I talked about the science behind Pitera (aka Galactomyces Ferment Filtrate), and also tried the product on myself. Once the review was up, I had a number of questions on whether there were any dupes for the SKII Facial Treatment Essence. Of course, I had to go and investigate myself!


Initially, when I started in my dupe hunt, I thought it would be an easy task - maybe a handful of products, and that's it. It wouldn't take long to do or be a lot of effort, right? Turns out, I was wrong! Upon closer investigation, however, I found that there were really many ways to make a similar product. There are products that try to mimic the formula almost exactly, while others bank on selling the star ingredient, Pitera, instead. Perhaps it is the popularity of the Facial Treatment Essence that prompts so many brands to create similar products. In fact, I found so many dupes and similar products that I ended up organizing them into categories:

Category 1: Close Dupes of the SKII Facial Treatment Essence
Category 2: 100% Pitera/Galactomyces Ferment Filtrate products
Category 3: Partial Dupes, retaining Pitera as the star ingredient, but don't closely follow the SK-II formula
Category 4: Dupes of the "Older Version" of SK-II's Facial Treatment Essence, with Saccharomyces Ferment Filtrate instead of Galactomyces Ferment Filtrate


That's quite a list! Clearly, even when brands don't put out a close dupe, they do put out tangentially SK-II inspired products, and that's fine by me - the more options the merrier! As for Category 4, I'd like to clarify that while there isn't an "older version" of SK-II's Facial Treatment Essence in that the key ingredient, Pitera, hasn't changed, P&G (the parent company of SK-II) had previously mis-characterized Pitera as Saccharomyces Ferment Filtrate, and later changed it to Galactomyces Ferment Filtrate upon further analysis (you can read more about it in my SK-II review I posted previously). Despite this error, it seems a lot of companies were inspired to create products with Saccharomyces Ferment Filtrate that seemed close to SK'II's formula, so I thought they might be worth a mention, too, for the sake of completeness.

So, as you might guess, we've got a lot to go through! Hence the "Part 1" in the title of this post - I don't know how many parts we will have eventually, but I do know that we'll need more than one post to go through all these!
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The Body Shop's Drops of Youth Concentrate is a new skincare product, and according to The Body Shop's website, it "works to help boost surface skin cell renewal", so that your "skin feels immediately moisturized and instantly softer". For those who like such products, it also claims to be silicone-free and paraben-free, with "99% natural ingredients".


With such a description, I was very curious to check it out and see exactly how it works! I mean, even the packaging has a whole list of awesome things the Drops of Youth Concentrate does - smoother skin, firmer skin, more even skin, fresher skin. What more could a girl want, right?


The Body Shop Drops of Youth Concentrate: Advertised skincare benefits include smoother, firmer and more even skin
With that in mind, I decided to take a look at the product's ingredients list first, in order to really get a sense of how it works, and whether it lives up to its hype.
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CNP Laboratory is a Korean skincare brand that boasts that it is started by doctors, and has an emphasis on skincare science - now, doesn't this sound like the kind of skincare brand I would like? So of course, as a beauty blogger who's into the science and geeky stuff behind skincare, I felt like I just had to review at least one of their products! CNP Lab's most famous product is their Propolis Energy Ampule (yes it is spelled "Ampule" not "Ampoule" - apparently "Ampule" is an acceptable spelling of the word, but the lack of an "o" in the word just throws me off when I'm reading it visually), so naturally I figured I'd start with this!


The CNP Labs website claims that this prooduct "contains Propolis extract also known as Honey Essence, it is well known for its antioxidant and moisturizing benefits". Interestingly, though, although CNP Labs calls propolis "honey essence", propolis is actually not a component of honey - it is instead "a natural resin produced by honeybees" that is used to build their nests. The product also contains Hyaluronic Acid too, "to maintain firm healthy glowing skin". Looking up some online retailers, I found out that the product has 10% propolis extract.

So now that we know what we're looking at, let's start dissecting this product, and taking a look at its ingredients! But first, I thought we should take a closer look at propolis, because, after all, it comprises 10% of the product and is the advertised ingredient. In particular, does propolis have a use in skincare? Is it beneficial to the skin? What effects does it have?
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