Its that time again – check out the rest of the post for some commentary on my February 2014 Favorites.
I received a sample foil of the new Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream in Light to Medium recently, and because I was feeling kind of blah but not blah enough to break out my foundation, I ripped the sucker open to slap it on my face. This is the first product I have written about that I did not bother to research before slapping it on my face – crazy. I felt like living on the edge, I guess. I had no idea what kind of marketing or claims were associated with this product other than that it is new, it is from Olay, and it is listed as a BB Cream.
Here’s what the Olay site has to say:
Finish your daily beauty regimen with the all-in-one solution with 6 skin-perfecting benefits:
• Refreshes skin instantly
• Brightens for a radiant glow
• Evens tone with a splash of sheer color
• Hydrates for 24 hours
• Smoothes for softer feeling skin
• Protects against UV damage with SPF 15
• Infused with essence of honeysuckle and white tea
As far as my experience (which, again, occurred before I checked the product out) – the contents of the foil packet felt light on the pads of my fingers and was easy to apply – smoothing it on and blending it out was easy with just my fingers thanks to the light consistency. Though it looked pretty opaque when squeezed from the packet onto my fingers, I found that it was actually quite sheer as I applied it to my face. Using my lighted mirror as well as varying mirrors and levels of lighting, I tried (and failed, fortunately!) to see any lines where the color was showing or off – although I did not see any harsh lines, this did pull a warmer on me than my skin actually is.
Although the Fresh Effects BB Cream’s packaging says that it is, well, a BB Cream, it then indicates that it is a, “skin perfecting tinted moisturizer.” The distinction is important – although a lot of popular Western brands are trying to cash in on the BB cream market, most offerings are not really BB Creams, and are typically just tinted moisturizers with the addition of sunscreen – meaning they are not actually alternatives to foundations and so forth. This product, though it felt nice going on, is entirely too thin to be a true BB Cream.
The first trait of this product that struck me, though, was not how light it felt, how easily it applied, or how sheer it was – it was the scent. As it turns out, Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream really means, “Olay heavily perfumed BB Cream.” If you are familiar with the fragrance used in Olay’s Quench line of body washes, lotions, etc. — it is that scent, or something very close to it. I’m indifferent to the scent as a body product but for the love of cats why would you add that to a face product and not warn people? Not thrilled with that aspect at all, especially as I started sneezing shortly after putting it on. I do not have any known allergies (unknown-unknowns, etc) to anything in this stuff, but I abhor strongly scented products that are designed to linger on my face (i.e., moisturizer, foundation, etc).
Because I only had a foil pack, I don’t have any pictures for you, so we’ll live with a stock photo.
Now, to tackle the claims:
Refreshes skin instantly – The fact that it feels moisturizing is quite nice, and that may be what they mean – but something like this should not be applied onto anything but freshly washed skin that shouldn’t already need refreshing.
Brightens for a radiant glow – I do not feel that it brightened my complexion but it does leave a dewy finish, but doesn’t appear to be shimmery like some products boasting radiance have.
Evens tone with a splash of sheer color – The product does have sheer color, but if you have anything other than light splotchiness, you may want something heavier duty like a Korean BB Cream or straight-up foundation because this is little more than a tinted moisturizer.
Hydrates for 24 hours – Nope. Not in the winter, anyway. Beyond that, do not forget that this, and products like it, are cosmetics. Wash your face before bed!
Smoothes for softer feeling skin – Immediately after applying, my skin did feel slightly softer than before I applied, but otherwise my skin felt normal throughout the day.
Protects against UV damage with SPF 15 – It is true that this product contains sunscreen, but like any sunscreen it is recommended that you reapply. Don’t be that person reapplying tinted moisturizer without removing the old layer, okay? It will not be flattering.
Infused with essence of honeysuckle and white tea – Great, I like both of those things – unfortunately neither of those were what the smell is. White tea has antioxidants, but I can’t imagine the concentration in this product is high enough to combat a thing.
This is by no means a bad product, but it is important to recognize it for what it is – a tinted moisturizer, not an actual BB Cream. If scented facial products do not bother you, Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream is available online and at drugstores for between $10-14. Between the dewy finish (not cute for me, I have some pores that were a little obvious) and the smell that I just could not get past, I washed it off when I got home and will not be purchasing a full sized tube.
Disclosure: Hey! There are some affiliate links in here, thought you might want to know. There’s more info on the About page.
I have written about the Olay Pro-X before, and, as promised, wanted to deliver a more-robust review. You will notice that the images depict some slight discoloration at the “seams” of the device – we have hard-ish water, but I assure you it is clean, just well-used. I do not approve of sharing photos of filth. Here is the back of the device, complete with logo on the battery cover. The larger of the two grey buttons is the power button, the smaller is the speed control. The Pro-X has two speeds: normal and gentle. This device does not have a timer like some higher-end devices do, so you are advised by Olay to time yourself for about a minute.
Here’s a profile shot of it to give you an idea of the thickness. The Olay Pro-X is a small, lightweight device – fairly travel friendly. The bristles are bent because I was not careful enough about letting it dry after its last use. They snap back with no complaints after your next use. Though other devices position the buttons on the bristle-side of the brush, it is no more difficult or inconvenient to use, given the device’s small form-factor.
There’s nothing interesting on the “front” side of the device except the brush head itself. Olay currently only offers one brush so far (not counting the sponge thing for their Microdermabrasion stuff – but that is new-new, and I have not tried it), and the bristles are pretty long and soft. I have had no issues with them on either speed – but then again I do not have sensitive skin. If you have, or suspect you have sensitive skin, start on the lower speed juuust in case. While using it, if you apply too much pressure, the bristles are so soft that they have a good bit of “give” to them – so don’t mash it up against your face or you will just make your bristles wonky and you’ll be wasting your time.
Pro-X brush heads are not overly expensive to replace at $7-8 for two. Olay did not include any guidelines on how frequently to replace them, but I wound up doing it every 3-4 months, at the same time I changed my toothbrush’s brush head. Popping the brush head off is easy – hold the device, grab the plastic “back” of the brush head and gentle pull free; it pops right off. Doing so reveals the pentagonal post it sits on that is rotated by the motor and really does all the work of this device.
This is the back of the brush head. Nothing exciting here, really – let’s move along. In fact, let’s move along to the most infuriating, ridiculous part of this contraption: replacing the batteries.
“Hi!” it says. “I’m the Olay Pro-X! I’m a friendly little critter until I start behaving sluggishly and you have to replace my batteries. Then I am a horrible fiend!” It’s okay, friendly reader. I’ve been where you are. I had to look it up, too, because I was about to bash it off the counter because while it obviously has to open somehow, it is not obvious how.
Because I do not have extra arms, I couldn’t really show you ALL of this and take a picture. So I’ll walk you through it and hopefully this picture will help. With the “back” of the device facing you, firmly grasp the body of the device in one hand. With the other, place your forefinger and thumb on the bottom battery cover. I find it easiest to brace my thumb against one side and my finger against the other, kind of how I have shown here. Pull down and to the right (a rocking motion sometimes helps!), and this it will pop open. Be careful until you have the hang of it – you don’t want to apply too much force lest you break it.
Once you have triumphed, it will look like this. The bottom piece comes off completely, and there ARE battery guides to show you which side should be positive-up, etc. The Olay Pro-X takes AA batteries and comes with a standard pair of alkalines. After they died, I switched to rechargeables. Swap your batteries, and the cover snaps right back in place without problems. This was my only substantial complaint about this device.
This device is waterproof and does have a rubber O-ring to protect areas from water exposure. I stored mine in the shower and had no issues aside from a little discoloration. With daily usage (one time per day), I got about 4-6 months out of a set of batteries – not bad, all things considered. I never felt that it was too harsh on my skin or that I was over-exfoliating (I hear people tend to overdo it with higher-end devices). I’ve used different cleansers with it without issue (though I wouldn’t use this to OCM). Its maintenance is not costly if you go with rechargeable batteries and watch for sales on brush heads. I would caution against using this device on the thin, delicate skin in your eye area; the Olay Pro-X cleans manually via spinning the brush head. The spinning motion could tug a little on the eye area which most now know is inadvisable.
In summation, it is a nice entry-level skincare brush with few bells-and-whistles. A welcome upgrade from a washcloth, it would make a thoughtful gift for someone into skincare, who wears makeup, or someone who perhaps struggles with acne. They are available for $20-30 in most drugstores, mass-retailers (Wal-Mart, Target), and online via retailers like Amazon, drugstore.com, soap.com, and others.
Disclosure: This wasn’t sponsored! That said, some of the links in this post are affiliate links – this means I may get a very small percentage of the sale if you decide to buy something. I will only ever tell you that something is awesome if I tested it myself and believe that.
Last week, I talked about my initial impressions of the Argan Oil craze. I was ensnared when friends admitted to using the argan produts by Josie Maran and that it seemed to be helping with facial scarring and under-eye blahs.
The JCPenney in my local mall opened a Sephora in October – on my first trip there, I bought one of the small bottles of Josie Maran 100% Pure Argan Oil, 0.5 fl oz. for $14. I have some pretty stubborn dark circles and had a dermatological procedure coming up that would leave me with a facial scar, so I figured the timing was good.
Last year, I was only just starting down the rabbit hole that is the beauty world and started hearing about beauty oils. It wasn’t gradual, it was sudden, it was frequent, and more often than not it was Josie Maran’s 100% Pure Argan Oil ($49). Although some struggle with the idea that facial skin + oil = unparalled catastrophe, that was not my obstacle. My personal obstacle was wrapping my head around
Okay, maybe I got a little carried away there at the end. It doesn’t feed hungry people, not directly anyway.
That said, it does feed hungry goats. The Argan tree, in addition to producing fruit with nuts inside that we get our so-called magical oil from, does in fact feed hungry Moroccan goats. Evidently, these goats determined that the fruits from Argan trees are outstanding because they climb the trees to eat them. Pics, it happened:
Beauty oils started increasing in popularity within the last couple years, but mostly among those in the beauty industry or fanatics. It seems that in the last year however, they have just exploded in popularity. Pesky waterproof makeup giving you trouble when it is time to remove? Oil can fix that. Facial cleansing that doesn’t strip your skin–squeaky clean isn’t actually a good thing, people–and leave it dry? Oil. Moisturizing without caking some awkward, likely scented goop on your face and waiting forever for it to sink in? Yeah – oils.
The problem is that many of us have been conditioned for years–hell, decades–with the understanding that oil = bad. Oil = shiny, and oil = blemishes. As it turns out, we’re in the wrong – as with many things, we should not assume that all oils are going to give us trouble simply because some do. We need to clear the cache here and start anew, because beauty oils are not going to ruin your day. Many people with oily skin (or even just combination/oily T-zone) seek oil-free everything. Cleansers, moisturizers, treatments, foundations – all for the fear that additional oil would exacerbate the problem. Not so – in fact, removing too much oil or forcing your skin to be too dry is going to cause your skin to overcompensate and produce more of what you’re fighting against. Using an oil (provided you choose the right one, please do not slap canola on your face and call it a day) can calm your skin down and make it scale back its oil production. Using an oil on waterproof makeup is a gentle and quick way to remove it. Sephora has been pushing them for a while and it really makes you wonder why they didn’t gain popularity sooner.