Yanwaili Anti-Blemish Refining and Moisturizing Essence

Hellooo~ San Francisco! (We'll I'm not really from there.)

I'm in such a good mood because of the product we will be reviewing today! As you know, I recently purchased a bunch of asian beauty products from Sasa.com.

Actually, all those things I ordered were brands I HAVEN'T USED before. Feelin' adventurous, heh. I ordered mostly Yanwaili products which I haven't even heard of until now. I previously did a Yanwaili Anti-Blemish Cream review. When I bought my purchases, I didn't even look at the reviews online, only on the ones posted at the product pages, but you know they come off as pretty biased, you know? Sasa.com gives some incentives to lucky reviewers who post glowing reviews of the things they bought.

But I won't be like that!

It's a shame though that I will only have positive reviews of this product! Hahah!

So what we have here is the Yanwaili Anti-Blemish Refining and Moisturizing Essence that I have inserted in my weekly skin care regimen! I've decided and arranged my regimen so as to make sure I can use this product for best results.

This is made in Taiwan, as Yanwaili is a famous drugstore brand in the country. Taiwan is a good place to get beauty products like My Beauty Diary masks, which is like a staple for Asian beauty bloggers. Even as far away as I am, I have tried those masks before.

This Yanwaili Anti-Blemish Essence is one of the 6-step regimen of the Anti-Blemish line. I've had the cream one and this, and by far this is my favoritestestest :) of all of them

You can click below for the ingredients list. Sorry if it got cut off a bit. You can read below about some good ingredients that I like:

1. Retinoic Acid - Retinoic acid is the active form of retinol, and actual retinoic acid creams are only available from a doctor or dermatologist. It’s prescribed for serious skin conditions like acne but is also used as a potent treatment for skin ageing... A fair warning: some people may be very sensitive to retinol. It can cause cells to peel off and skin to appear dry, red and flaky, However you’re more likely to get a reaction from using prescription retinoic acid than an over-the-counter product. (source)

2. Salicylic Acid -Salicylic acid is especially helpful in treating acne because of its ability to penetrate the follicle. It encourages the shedding of dead skin cells from within the follicle, helping keep the pores clear of cellular debris. In this way, it reduces the number of pore blockages and breakouts on the skin. (source)

3. Licorice Root - Used in various popular products like Godiva and Meladerm as it is a very well known melanin inhibitor, to help lighten the skin over time. And according to this source, certain compounds in licorice is useful for skin care. Glabridin was identified as a powerful skin whitening ingredient, glabrene as an anti-oxidant as strong as natural Vitamin E, and licochalcone as highly effective anti-acne ingredient which controls sebum production and wipes away bacteria. Licochalcone is also a mild sunscreen effective against the UVA & UVB rays of the sun.

Directions for use:
1. Use in the morning and at night after washing and toning face.
2. Apply a small amount evenly to face or only to areas that are affected with blemishes then follow with moisturizing face products.

What I do is only apply during WEEKEND NIGHTS once I'm done with washing my face, since it contains Retinoic Acid/Retinol, your face can become very sensitive to the sun's rays. I have another day cream and sunblock for the morning anyway, so I'm already okay for the morning routine.

Here are some pictures of how much I put into my face and neck:

Consistency:
Thick but watery, looks like a serum. Glides well on the skin, matte after 2-3 mins.

Smell:
When the Yanwaili cream is compared to this Yanwaili essence, I thought that the cream smelled yucky! This essence is much better than the cream.

Verdict:
I really, honest-to-goodness, love this product. It is thick but has a watery consistency when applied evenly to the face and it is very easily absorbed too! I love that my face becomes matte after about 2-3 minutes of spreading the essence, unlike others it would stay liquidy. You can tell that the essence seeped into the skin properly.

I know I didn't give its counterpart, the Yanwaili Cream a very glowing review, but this essence is at par with my thicker, creamier Pond's night cream (which I use WEEKDAY NIGHTS). It's a tinier bottle than the lotion or toner from this brand, but I love this so much that I am planning to repurchase! I can't be running out now that I love this product.

I therefore conclude that this is a good find from Sasa.com! :)

Thank you so much for reading !

Yanwaili Anti-Blemish Line - Refining & Moisturizing Cream

Bought this along with other stuff from my Sasa.com online purchase and I've had about 2 and a half weeks of usage experience, so I'm here to report it!

I have mixed feelings with this cream! But let me tell you my review may be clouded because of my staple night cream, Ponds. You see, I've used Ponds for quite a while now, and I've never looked back. Sorry if I keep on comparing Ponds, but there's nothing else to compare for me because that's my regular skin care cream.

FIRST AND FOREMOST: Read the caution part of any skin care product if it is there. You can tell from there the allergens that may be present in the product so you can avoid what's bad for you. Luckily, I'm not allergic I don't think I have any allergies to anything at all!

Don't forget to read the ingredients list. For this cream, we can see there are parabens in the list! Parabens are kind of a taboo in skincare, but for me, there is nothing singularly wrong about having Parabens in the ingredientst list because they act as "preservatives" that keep products from going bad doubly fast. I have read this info:

Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) concluded that parabens were safe as long as they did not constitute more than 25% of a product’s content.  Parabens are found in levels ranging from 0.01% to 0.3% in skincare products.  Additionally, the FDA has determined that parabens are safe for use in cosmetic products.

But! If you are still not comfortable with parabens in your skincare, then Yanwaili is not for you. But the good thing about it is that it has good ingredients when it comes to ANTI-BLEMISH:

Glycerel Stearate, Salicilic Acid, and Allantonin.

If you're a hard core anti-paraben person, or are pregnant, or pro-organic, then it's best to save your money and buy something else.

Now with this Yanwaili cream, you can see from the size that it's a bit smaller. My night cream is bigger and for almost the same price =__= It looks cuter though since Yanwaili looks really nice with the silver cap and white bottle jar. I like that the packaging looks nice and refreshing, you can never really mess up the green + white color combination.

I used this replacing my beloved Ponds cream for a while, but it's really not up to par.... Thus my separation anxiety from my favorite Ponds cream. Having Yanwaili didn't help as I thought it would nor did it change my heart into using this.

Consistency:
The very consistency of Yanwaili Cream above is very light, more liquid than cream, actually!

Smell:
If you could go back to the ingredients list, you will see FRAGRANCE branded there. But in my experience, there was very little to no fragrance at all. The Ponds cream I normally used had this calming floral fragrance that's not cloying, but I was okay with Yanwaili cream but I found it to smell too earthy. Maybe I'm too used to light fragrance now.

You can see above the actual cream when applied on the skin. It looks thicker there because I put a bit more than what I normally would apply on my face.

But it gets soaked in fast! See below

Actual Application:
Once I apply on my face, it is immediately absorbed. It felt very nice while applying though I get bothered by the earthy smell sometimes. I find that when I use Yanwaili, it leaves a very moisturized looking face. I really like how moisturizing this cream is.

But I don't know, I feel like this isn't for oily-faced or combination at all since it's very moisturizing and I oil up a lot because of this.

Repurchase:

I would not. I think that my Ponds cream wins versus this Yanwaili cream. I would continue using this until it runs out to get the maximum benefit of this anti-blemish product.

That's about it for the Yanwaili Cream... Stay tuned for more reviews from my Sasa.com Purchase.

Thank you for reading!

Beauty Product Orders Have Arrived - Good Job, Sasa.com!

I can't believe it you guys! Our parcel is here in all its glory!

Last July 7 I processed the order together with my friends a group purchase in Sasa.com and we are so delighted that it came ON TIME! I'm like the #1 DOUBTER of international shipping, I've been burned plenty from my International transactions getting lost, not getting to me properly, having exorbitant fees to pay for shipping and etc. But Sasa.com has completely removed all those bad memories!


Box of Goods from Sasa.com

Now this is gonna sound like I'm kissing Sasa.com's butt... I am not, but I am just so happy with them! For real! Safe transaction (Paid with my CC, transaction went well and was secured!), REAL OFFER of FREE SHIPPING (some online shops offer free shipping but have so many fine print about this and that fees, don't you think???) and the best part of all, I was very surprised at the efficiency of Sasa.com customer service in handling adding of items even though it was dispatched (they charged us $5.00 since we miscalculated the products and had to add one more to get the Free Shipping, but what's $5.00 in exchange of $60.00 expedited shipping, right? Hahah.) and it went from there without a hitch at all!

Now it comes the hard part... praying for ourselves... PRAYING THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO PAY THE ALLEGEDLY SUPER HIGH CUSTOMS FEE! I researched high and low for the computation for customs tax and fee and all those things, and I came up with like P1,500-- almost half of the entire purchase of our box! We crossed our fingers, held on to the faith that Davao Postal Office would never screw us like that... I was even worried because the parcel wasn't delivered to my house, I had to claim it and had to pay a "fee". URK.

I went there... and what do you  know? Prayers are really answered. Here is the receipt I got after claiming the package.

YEP! P40.00! They increased by P5.00 and I've never been so happy. :)))

Sasa.com is upfront with their items, they even have a printed receipt for you including the items that are within the parcel. But!! Davao Postal is SOOOOOOOOOOO good to its Davaoenos... It doesn't charge us unnecessarily like other metropolitan cities do! Look at the Philippine Postal Office Horror stories everywhere in the net and here and here... So I say, I salute you Davao Postal Office! THANK YOU! I love DAVAO.

And here are some of the things we got: I'll try to name them once I list down the products from my Sasa.com account... But as you can see we have the Yanwaili Anti-Blemish series in cream and essence, as well as the Hada Labo Tamagohada Cleanser and Shirojyun Lotion, the Naive (by Kanebo) Peach Cleanser, Lancome Hydrazen Toner, C+M, Pinky Black Head Masque, and a free Butterfly hair clip from Sasa.com

There are plenty more not in the picture above because we were so excited to take the pictures of them altogether, we snatched the products one by one!

I now officially love Sasa.com! Expect many more orders from me and please don't change your speedy customer service and your expedited free shipping too!

---