After a trip away to Australia (which I’ll blog about very soon!), an election, and a major work project, all of which have taken up an obscene amount of my life and left me deprived of precious blogging time, my life is (finally) assuming some semblance of normalcy.
Unfortunately though, my skin is not.
I know, I know. Compared to a lot of other people’s skin, this is a pretty minimal acne flare-up but, you see, I’m used to being relatively acne-free. Usually my skin is pretty good, albeit a little dry, but all of those late nights, instant makeup wipes, and added amounts of stress have seen my skin break out, big time. It’s not an issue that I have to deal with too often so, up until now, I’ve just been hiding any evidence of my sad skin by using a ridiculous amount of concealer (shout out to my Croquis Dual Concealer and its specialised spot concealer. You got my back) but I’ve known that, eventually, I would have to take more drastic action and go about eradicating those pesky blemishes.
That’s why I decided it was the perfect time to test out one of the products that I received in my Memebox #19 Cleansing Box, the Tosoowong Acne Cleanser. After a relatively successful trial of the cleanser made from snail secretion, I figured I couldn’t possible go too wrong with some of the more conservative looking products in the box.
I’ve actually seen this product available to purchase here in New Zealand, at my local Missha store, so I knew it would be pretty legit. When I read the sign near their Tosoowong display, they highly recommended this product and suggested that the best way to apply it was with a Clarasonic-type brush. I, however, am a slow adapter of technology and so I just had to make do with ye olde traditional method of flannel to face. But I digress.
Firstly, a little bit about the Acne Cleanser, which Memebox claims is a pharmaceutical product that is designed to eliminate “all excess impurities, blackheads, and dead skin cells.” The active ingredients, which include aloe vera extracts, royal jelly extracts, licorice and mulberry roots (just to name a few) are meant to “soothe, moisturize and facilitate skin regeneration.
For reasons still unknown to me (possibly its propensity for drying out your skin?), Memebox state that this product is specifically designed as a cleanser for summer-time use. However, since I like to live dangerously, I trialled it in spring-time just to see what would happen…
I decided to use this product after a session at the gym because I hate that post-workout sweaty, grimy face you get when you’ve failed to take off the day’s makeup beforehand. This also explains why I’m in my ridiculous pink get-up. You’re welcome.
The instructions were pretty simple: Firstly, wet your face, then gently massage the cleansing foam in using your hands or a pore brush. As I mentioned earlier, I did this the old-timey way and noticed very quickly that the very pleasant lemony smelling formula changed from white to a clear, sticky gel the more you massaged. Intriiiiiguing.
Then it started to burn. Just a wee bit, mind, but this may be due to the highly sensitive nature of my skin. I quickly washed it off using a warm flannel and hoped that the aforementioned burning feeling was all those extracts doing their job. You go, Glenn Coco.
The next morning, I woke up to discover more pimples, though my face still felt remarkebly clean. But still! Pimples! On my face!
YOU HAD ONE JOB, CLEASING FORMULA, AND IT WASN’T TO CREATE MORE BLEMISHES!
Since I’ve trialled it (for a few days, so far) I haven’t noticed much of a difference, but the fact that I’ve had such a adverse reaction to this formula hasn’t yet deterred me from giving up on it. I think this formula may work well for someone with a difference skin type from me; the fact that my skin is sensitive and dry probably didn’t bode well for a successful trial of this product.
I’ll keep persevering for a few days and let you know which one dries out first: my acne or my skin.
Analiese x
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