Hey, Picky family!

I won my first giveaway here and since I don't really use Instagram, I decided to create one to share my reviews. 

You can find me at @mikasasskin, just created the account so it will be a bit bare but I will start posting later today.

Please drop your Insta handles here, I'd love to follow you, too! Thank you for being an amazing community!

Skincare instas

Hi Picky family!

Missha is holding another US sale, with 50% off everything (including their BB creams) and 60% off their artemisia line. 

I just bought some products on the last sale but may need to buy some BB cream haha.

Happy shopping!

Missha US sale

Hi Pickies!

I've been looking for a good spot treatment for cystic acne. I already use hydrocolloidal patches for my more regular acne but that's not the usual pimples I get so not very effective in general.

I don't handle benzoyl peroxide very well so was looking for other options. Anything that has worked well for you?

Thanks in advance!

Spot treatment

Hey, everyone! Has anyone tried using the powdered version of vit C? My serum is almost done and I've been meaning to try the powder for a while. 

For those who tried it: did you like it? Does it work better than serums? Any recommendations or tips? Thanks so much!

Vit C powder

The mask itself is wonderful, like I said. However, on the next day, I woke up with a little bit of redness around my right eye area. I cannot say whether it was due to the mask or not, as I do use other actives, but this was the only new product I used that day.

This could have been a bad reaction to mixing the mask with other actives but I really can&#39;t tell. I kept my routine simple the next day and it disappeared. It didn&#39;t hurt, it wasn&#39;t particularly sensitive or anything, it was just a bit red.

I still liked the mask, think it&#39;s an amazing product, and don&#39;t want to take points away from something I&#39;m really not sure was caused by the product. I would still recommend it&#39;s use but wanted to give an honest review.

I think this instantly became one of my favorite masks. The mask itself is incredibly thick for a sheet mask, it has a gelatinous feel.

The packet is FILLED with essence. I grabbed it out of the packet and it was seriously dripping essence. I put on the mask and there was still so much product left that I managed to cover my full neck. Once I removed the mask, my skin was still completely covered in essence, it took about 1min to fully absorb. I am super thankful to Abib for the amount of product they packed in this, it&#39;s not common to find sheet masks with such generous essence.

This is a 🌱 hoouttuynia cordata (heartleaf) mask, which is an amazing antioxidant, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory ingredient. You can definitely feel a soothing, refreshing sensation on the skin upon using the mask already at the first minutes.

It is nourishing and hydrating. My skin felt wonderful after using it. This is a really solid sheet mask, I&#39;d definitely recommend it.

This product has dried my face like no other. After a couple months using it, my skin was dry like sandpaper and I have combination, pretty oily skin. I believe my sensitivity is likely to witch hazel in general, but this toner unfortunately did not work for me.

Not many good things to say, other than affordability for a decently sized bottle. I still have half a bottle left and I use it when I&#39;m in between toners, as my skin reacts well to it short term (2-3 days). It&#39;s fairly mild and goes well on my skin when it&#39;s more sensitive.

The only bad thing is that it works SLOWLY. I&#39;ve used other vit C products that were much more effective and as such, worked faster. After using this for about a month, I&#39;ve seen some improvement to my PIH but it wasn&#39;t that remarkable when compares to other products I&#39;ve tried.

That being said, I know vit C is an ingredient that works slowly and takes commitment and time to really see improvements, so this isn&#39;t that surprising.

I got this product from a Picky giveaway and been using it for a bit over a month.

It has 66% Poncirus Trifoliata Fruit Extract (hardy orange 🍊), which contains a vit C derivative that works to brighten the skin. It also contains niacinimide and panthenol to further brighten and hydrate the skin. The product is meant for those seeking to achieve skin brightening and treat PIH.

𝗧𝗲𝘅𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: it&#39;s a very lightweight serum, it gets absorbed almost instantly and doesn&#39;t pile. It appears to have these microbubbles, which contain the vit C, but you can&#39;t feel them when applying. It spreads very easily.

𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: this product makes my skin GLOW! Whenever I use it, my skin looks beautiful and has a nice, healthy glow even below makeup. It does work to brighten the skin as well but it works slowly, and is not as strong as other vit C products I&#39;ve tried, which makes it a good alternative for those with more sensitive skin.

𝗥𝗲𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲? YES! It works slowly but it does work. I also really like the texture of it, as I&#39;ve struggled to find good vit C products that are not sticky or fickle to use. This one does work albeit slowly and really does make the skin look beautiful.

Nothing negative to say really, it didn&#39;t cause any irritation, it has no added fragrance, and the lightweight texture is nice on the skin. However, I didn&#39;t really see any benefits from using it and think there are better products out there to handle dark spots and dull skin. I am still using it though, as I really like the formulation and believe I may see better results overtime--as it frequently is with hyperpigmentation.

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: ★
🍋 80% Yuja and yuja peel extract, ingredients known for brightening and antioxidant effects. The Yuja fruit has 3 times the vitamin C of a lemon and is recommended for treating dark spots.
💦 Several amazing hydrating ingredients, including butylene glycol, panthenol, and glycerin
💛 All-around amazing ingredient niacinimide, which helps control sebum production and ultimately help in controlling acne and balance hydration levels at the skin. 
🍥 Sugarcane extract, a humectant. There&#39;s a lot of confusion with sugarcane extract as an ingredient as being an AHA, since glycolic acid is generally obtained from sugarcane, but without undergoing processing to become an AHA, it operates like any other extract as mostly a humectant and hydrator. 

𝗧𝗲𝘅𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: it is a lightweight essence. When pumping it out, it looks and feels like a serum but the product is actually quite watery and spreads very easily. It gets absorbed by the skin very quickly, so a single pump generally suffices. That means the product can last a long time, which is always a plus!

𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲? The product doesn&#39;t have added fragrance (Abib caters to sensitive skin so it makes sense, and I&#39;m SO thankful for it) but the product does faintly smell of lemons, which stems from the high concentration of Yuja.

𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: in all honesty, I saw no effect whatsoever other than a refreshing sensation on the skin upon use. I used it only for a few days so it&#39;s very possible that this is one of those products that take a while for you to feel the effects, as it commonly is with products that treat hyperpigmentation, but I couldn&#39;t see any changes on my skin on the following days. I use other products for my hyperpigmentation and feel like they perform better than this essence.

I have started using this in replacement of my vit C serum in my morning routine, since I ran out of it, and have been enjoying it more than my night routine. It&#39;s lightweight so it works well on a morning routine, but still no visible effects. Again, I believe this is one of those of products that will take several weeks for me to really see a difference so I&#39;ll keep using it.

I have been struggling with maskne during the pandemic and that has left me with some dark spots that I&#39;m eager to see gone. I&#39;ll continue to use this product because I definitely see potential based on its formulation and will then update my review.

𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱&#47;𝗿𝗲𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲? As of now, no. As I said above, I think there are better products out there to treat dark spots. I can see this being added to a routine that is already focused on treating hyperpigmentation as another active to build upon the others, but wouldn&#39;t recommend it as the sole hyperpigmentation product. In all fairness, essences are not really the best step to use actives in, so I would truly approach this as an add-on to an already really solid hyperpigmentation routine.

This is likely not a product for sensitive skin. It has a somewhat strong, minty smell and witch hazel, which can be a sensitivitizing ingredient. 

As mentioned, application can be a little difficult. A lot of product comes out at once but because it dissipates quickly, usually just this one application won&#39;t be enough for the full face, so there&#39;s chance for wastage here.

Lastly (and I really need to continue to use to have a better idea of its effects), I don&#39;t yet see great improvement from its use other than overall smoother skin texture. I haven&#39;t noticed huge improvements on the incidence of acne or comedones, which I was hoping ti accomplish with this one.

I&#39;ve been using this for about a week now. I was on adapalene and couldn&#39;t mix the two, so have been using this for less time than I would have wished for a review.

So far, I definitely notice improvements on my skin texture after using this daily at night. I wake up with my skin feeling smoother and comedones seem to feel less evident. Part of this feeling goes away when I wash my face in the morning but I still feel the improvement.

I have been having cystic acne and haven&#39;t really noticed much of an improvement yet on making these go away faster or diminishing the amount of acne I get. What I have noticed is that new acne feels smaller and less inflamed so it goes away smoother. It&#39;s hard to say though how much of this stems from this product alone as I do use other topical treatments to alleviate acne.

The AHA&#47;BHA&#47;PHA concentration is low enough that it can be used daily if your skin tolerates it, and it is the acids that really contribute to the exfoliation promised by the product.

Texture wise, this is a lightweight toner, feels quite watery, which can be an issue, as it takes a lot of product to do the full face. It evaporates somewhat quickly from the cotton pad so I need to add more product at least a couple times. The positive side to it is that this means it stacks well and you can ready as needed or desired.

I look forward to see how my skin will improve with continued use and will update my review then.

MikasaSkin