Hey!~

As most of you know I'm quite busy at the moment, so sorry for the lack of updates, but I'm still around!

I've been waiting to write an update of my previous Japanese skincare products entry, but just didn't find the time to do so.


SK-II (Max Factor):



When I went to Hokkaido this summer vacation - and it was raining most of the time - I had a lot of time for shopping (too much) and I ended up buying a SK-II trial set.
I've heard about SK-II's Facial Treatment Essence on Youtube and ever since then wanted to try it.
The trial pack with an additional 20% discount on that day (yay!) was cheaper than the essence alone .... although saying "cheap" doesn't cut it. SK-II products are one of the most expensive skincare products in the world. (o__o'') ....

Anyway, whenever I use a beauty product somebody recommended and claimed to have seen changes, I usually never see any on my own skin.
Sometimes I like the product simply because of its texture, smell etc. .... but I can't remember ever using anything where even stupid ol' me could see a difference.

This time I could ... like immediately!
My skin looks smoother, more radiant and just feels much better overall.

But let me first tell you what's so special about the SK-II products.
Somebody noticed that people working in Japanese sake breweries have wrinkles all over their face, but super young hands. They figured there must be something going on during the sake brewing process that caused this anti-aging effect.
They were able to get the ingredient and called it "Pitera" - and it's in all of the SK-II products.
SK means "secret key", referring to the "pitera ingredient".

The best-selling and most popular product is the "Facial Treatment Essence" with has 90% of pure pitera, so using it every day should prevent pre-mature aging, but also helps with hyper pigmentation, texture and radiance.

After using the products for about 1.5 weeks I stumbled upon a SK-II counter in my local shopping mall. They have a tool called "magic ring" which they use to analyze your skin. It's completely free of charge, so I figured, why not try it!
I was a bit afraid to be honest. I'll turn 34 in a few months and I've already first fine lines / wrinkles around my eyes and I can see more are coming through around my mouth as well. (T______T) ...................

Plus .... I know that I've committed so many skincare sins without knowing until recently .... so I was expecting a really bad result!
I also saw that some beauty gurus who blogged about their "magic ring" experience got pretty bad results as well. So, I thought ... if those people who know so much about how to keep your skin healthy and young have already such bad results, I don't wanna see mine ......



After scanning my skin, that's what appeared on the screen:



So, they have 5 points of healthy and young skin and my results were as follows:
88% for Refined Texture
68% for Firmness Power
72% for Wrinkle Resilience
66% for Spot Control
70% for Radiance Enhancement

Ok. I couldn't really work with these numbers, all I knew was that the result looked better than most of those I've seen online.
The lady was excited and told me even before the scan how great my skin looks.

Anyway, I guess it's a pretty good result. *shrugs*
Next they show you your face on the screen and how it could look if you don't do anything about it and how it could look if you use the right products (read: THEIR products).
Pretty scary to see the "bad" version.
I think it's possible to prevent pre-mature aging as only up to 30% is determined genetically.
However, I doubt you can get rid of fine lines or wrinkles you already have and I also doubt that you need a certain product line to achieve that.
More important is a healthy lifestyle (drink lots of water, eat healthy, don't smoke, sleep enough, try to avoid stress) and a healthy and good skincare routine suited for your age and skin type.

That being said, I know I need to take better care of my skin because I know I haven't. I think I wasn't doing that badly (or else I wouldn't have such good results), but honestly I really never cared much about it.
I did wash my face with a cleanser for my skin type twice a day and also used a toner. I used moisturizer. But I didn't exfoliate and I only put on sunscreen when I was out all day (but apparently you're supposed to wear it every single day).
Plus I always ever only rubbed my face with a towel instead of just padding it dry gently.
And I never used eye cream ....

Yet, here's my current skin age according to the SK-II analysis:



Skin Age: 27
(Are you kidding me? Almost 7 years younger than I actually am??? AWESOME!!!!)

In terms of "Refined Texture": 23 (WOAH!)
Firmness Power: 30
Wrinkle Resilience: 29
Spot Control: 28
Radiance Enhancement: 28


Not too bad. (*-*)b
I need to work on "firmness and wrinkle resilience". The products I wanted to continue using are luckily good for that. I decided to continue with the "Facial Treatment Essence" and the "Stempower Cream".
All the other items don't make sense to me at the moment and are way too expensive anyway. I refuse to spend a fortune on make-up remover or cleanser when I'll wash off the stuff again.
The SK-II beauty counselor also suggested that I boost up my radiance using their "Cellumination Aura Essence", but that one is WAY too expensive and I don't care too much about radiance to be honest. I got samples for it and it smells nice, but not for THAT much money, no no!
I also got a sample of their eye cream and am currently using it, but it's also too expensive to continue using it and I haven't seen any results at all. I'll go back to a cheap eye cream after I've used up the sample.

I ordered the "Facial Treatment Clear Lotion" which is a toner. I heard good things about it and it's not as expensive as most of the other products.




The big problem now is - apart from the price - that SK-II is only available in certain countries, but apart from the UK NOT in Europe.
Yes, you can get it online somehow but it's MUUUUUUUUCH more expensive than in Japan. And with something that's already super expensive, that's just not .... working out. :( ...


How about you? Have you tried any SK-II products yet?

There are apparently alternatives to the popular but expensive "SK-II Facial Treatment Essence" if you look for products that contain "galactomyces" as their main ingredient such as "Tony Moly", for example, but I haven't tried any of them yet and can't tell you how well they work.




Double-Cleansing:

In Japan, the "double-cleansing" method is very popular. I'm not sure if you've ever heard about it, so I'll quickly explain it.
You're supposed to wash your face twice, but not with the same cleanser. At first, use an oil-based cleanser to remove oil and dirt, your make-up etc.
Then use a non-oil-based cleanser (e.g. cleansing foam, milk) to remove any residue.
This is to make sure to remove all the dirt and make-up, both water-based and oil-based stuff.

I've never used an oil-based cleanser before and never have performed double-cleansing until I purchased the previously mentioned "SK-II trial set" where there was an oil-based cleanser gel and then a cleansing foam and you were supposed to use them both, one after another.
I do think it rinses off more stuff, although I cannot tell for sure. It makes sense, though.
I've purchased an oil-based cleanser (the Hada Labo one, because I don't want to use the expensive SK-II one once I'm out of my trial set) and will see how that goes.



Exfoliation:

Like I mentioned before I've never really exfoliated my face properly although you should do it once or twice a week (even more often if you have oily skin).
In a previous entry I talked about the "Cure Aqua Gel" which is a super gentle exfoliator mainly consisting of water. That's what I've been using twice a week.

But while researching I've ran into this guy and I'm sure some of you have heard about it as it's a SUPER hyped product:



It's the Clarisonic (an electronic cleanser brush).
I've spent a LOT of time reading reviews and also experts' opinions about this little tool and eventually decided not to purchase it.
Anyone here using it, though?




Ok, that's it for now. I'll keep you updated.
I might go to do another "magic ring" analysis next month to see if there's any improvement. Would be funny if my skin condition got worse after using their products for a while. ...