HADA LABO

Me: rosacea combination super sensitive skin. Old AF. (Did I mention old?) I wear sunscreen every day, on sunny days heavy ass sunscreen.

I am burning through this like wildfire. I use 3 pumps at night and feel like I HAVE to double cleanse which was never my problem with Clinique's cleansing oil. [I also like BareMineral's version but looking for cheaper. (Who isn't?)]

Hada does not remove all of my eye makeup (so I am back to using a separate eye mu remover) or foundation/sunscreen at my hairline. But I like the consistency and the fragrance free aspects. It is conditioning and kind to my skin. Bottle is functional if you keep the vice lock that comes around the neck, if not you'll have to transfer to a travel-safe bottle.

First time shipping was delayed for weeks. IMO it's worth it to pay a little more for prime prices and to get it in 2 days. I started out loving this until I saw the same mediocre results again and again and the quantity decreasing exponentially.

Why does something this simple have to be so hard to find, purchase and love? And I don't want to make my own--tried that at least 10 years ago and it was an epic failure.

Talk about a do nothing eye cream--this is it. Actually made my eye area drier and caused irritation and bloodshot eyes. Doesn't matter if it's cheap if it doesn't work as intended.

While I generally speak highly of this toner and find it effective, I find myself reaching for others quite often. I do suspect that my skin does not like this in large quantities, which is problematic as I seldom apply just one layer of toner. I tend to get tiny red spots when I do, not many enough for it to be truly noticeable, but enough for me to find them annoying. The Hada Labo toner is in no way a bad product. It’s wonderful, especially when you consider the price. It’s definitely worth trying, if you can buy it without having to pay for fees and duties. Otherwise, it’s not worth the hassle — it’s cult, but it’s not unique.

My skin: generally combination, leaning dry in the winter and slightly oily in the summer, although the last year or so it's been settling in kind of normal, actually. I used to have mild to moderate acne for years and years, which I managed to mostly clear up last year. Apart from the odd acne flare-up, I've been feeling almost weirdly happy with my skin lately. I have large pores, but that's just life, really, some general texture issues and my first faint wrinkles are turning up now, at almost 41, but compared to how the acne made me feel about my face I LOVE my skin right now.

I have a long history with urea. I went through what feels like hundreds of tubes of the Eucerin 5% Urea moisturizer, it was pretty much the only thing that would keep my face hydrated enough, especially in the winter, without aggravating the acne. I loved that stuff, and my skin loves urea as an ingredient, but it disappeared from the shelves where I am a few years back. Last winter I had a stress-related flare-up of acne, dehydration, irritation and general skin badness, and came across https://simpleskincarescience.com/ doing some research on how to deal with it. The Hada Labo Gokujyun Premium products were recommended as good hydrating products containing good, high concentrations of urea, so I ordered the lotion and the Gokujyun Premium perfect gel cream. I love them, the lotion especially made a huge difference to my skin, I haven't really been dehydrated at all this winter. The gel cream I felt more meh about, it has an odd, sticky texture on the skin, I don't like jar packaging and I felt like the lotion was doing all the magic. So when I ran out of the gel cream, and I got hold of the Eucerin 5% Urea moisturizer again, also had a large tube of The Ordinary's Natural Moisturizing Factors + HA which I enjoyed last summer, I didn't expect to miss the gel cream at all.

After a week or two, though, I did. My skin became more meh, I started getting more smatterings of small whiteheads and more congestion, more irritation and dryness, more of the typical winter skin I used to have, but haven't been experiencing this winter before I ran out of the Gokujyun Perfect Gel. And I do still have and use the twice lotion daily, it's still lovely and helps a lot. It seems that a not insignificant part of the effect I ascribed to the lotion was due to the combination of lotion and gel cream, though, probably supported by the Gokujyun Premium sheet masks that I also got, used up and also felt slightly meh about until I ran out - and, well, I ordered a refill of the gel cream + another box of the sheet masks. I will probably take as much care to not run out of the gel cream from now on as the lotion. Still don't love the sticky texture or the jar, this is a night-time only moisturizer for me, but it's much, much better than I initally gave it credit for. I'm back on it now and my skin is getting back into shape.

So, would I recommend? Clearly, yes. Would I repurchase? Yes, already have.

This Hada Labo UV white gel made my face itchy. There has to be a trigger ingredient here.