Products We Finished is our new seasonal feature of the products… we finished. Our team gets new products in on a daily basis and to avoid cycling through them, we thought of adding feature to serve as a roundtable. We’ll be bringing on a guest for these roundtables as well to add even more perspectives to these roundtables. Given the KBeauty/Green Beauty focus of our first Products We Finished roundtable, we invited green blogger, Jade from Nephriticus to share her always insightful thoughts with us!
Moon Juice Brain Dust
Chris: I mixed this with my morning drink, using Edo Jao’s recipe. It does taste herbal but mellows out with honey. I do think it’s the real deal though because one time I had put too much in and felt kind of loopy, for lack of better word. So this isn’t placebo, the herbs and mushrooms really are doing something.
Seth: Love Moon Juice, their packaging is probably the best of the LA nutraceutical brands and I also really like how they targeted their products by function. With that said, Brain Dust was not my favorite tasting (that honor will go to Beauty Dust). It’s kind of earthy and bitter, and does not disappear in anything you mix it with from teas to yoghurt, it kind of just ruins those. I know it’s supposed to be functional and not taste like candy, but I was fine passing this on.
Edison: I take Brain Dust to feel creative in the morning or counter afternoon slumps. I think it’s great for productivity whether you need to become a morning person or just need that extra boost to power through long stretches of the afternoon. I expect herbal nutraceuticals to not taste good and am kind of distrustful of ones that are sweet or “pleasurable,” I’m used to the traditional Chinese medicine route of herbal broths that taste of dirt and roots, so to me, this one is probably the closest that a luxury nutraceutical will get to a purist herbal medicine.
Jade: This is a product that I want to work and love, but I can’t definitely say if it helps with stress, mood, or focus. I do like to mix it into my coffee in the mornings with steamed almond milk, turmeric, cinnamon, and whatever herbs I’m feeling that day. It’s not magic that will cut through the morning haze, but it doesn’t hurt either.
MŪN ANAROSE Hydrating Rose Toner
Chris: When we recently tested ANAROSE for our face mists piece, this one was solid on all fronts. It may be it’s gentle nature, but it was largely under the radar until my bottle finished and I found myself missing it. Subtle and understated, but it totally does what it says. I think it is perfect for fall and winter because it’s such a high quality rose water mist that binds hydration. This toner is pretty much perfection.
Jade: I was really excited when this came out, as it seemed that it would be like an exfoliating toner, one of the bedrocks of the Caroline Hirons routine. But when I tried it, the packaging was not in a spray form, rather in a pump-less pour out kind of form meant to be used with cotton pads or with hands, which made me feel like I was losing a lot of product. Like the MUN serum, it has a glorious rose scent, but it didn’t fulfill the exfoliating toner role I wanted it to, and I prefer other toners.
Nick: I really liked this toner from the outset. The faint rose scent and way the mist felt like dew drops on skin were outstanding. The entire experience can be summed up as satisfying, especially if you follow it with a rose infused oil afterward, like MŪN’s Aknari serum. There are only so many ways you can put into words how great a product is but I really, really, really think everyone who sprays their skin needs to get on this.
Tata Harper Resurfacing Mask
Jade: This is definitely my most favorite product out of this bunch. I loved it even more after getting this tip from Tata Harper for acne-prone skin: spread a thin layer of the mask after cleansing, wait for it to dry, and then continue on with your normal moisturizing routine, treating the mask as a serum. Doing this was great for my skin at the time, and the mask is effective yet gentle enough that it ended up being well exfoliated and smooth, but not irritated.
Edison: The Tata Harper rep we spoke to basically said the Resurfacing Mask was the most important product in the range. It looks like jam, smells like a fruity cocktail I’d order at the Redwood Room, and basically works like an extremely gentle chemical peel made from organic ingredients. It’s so gentle that I can slather this on night after night without any irritation. Skin is known for being dull in the winter and lots of moisture masks don’t have any resurfacing benefits, so I consider this to be quite necessary in the coming months when you need to get your glow on without drying out your skin.
Seth: I like this mask because you need so little and it’s so convenient. A light layer for 10 minutes does the trick and you’re left with fresher skin. I used this mask so often because it was just really easy to apply and rinse off. The instructions say to leave on for 15-30 minutes, but I don’t like leaving it on my skin after it has dried because it makes me feel like I’m losing moisture. So 10 minutes, rinse off. Done.
Yuri Pibu Artichoke Power Essence
Chris: For a $38 serum, it’s pretty good. I can’t say I’ve noticed a lot of marked improvement to my skin, but it does feel nice, like a light moisturizer to apply after oils. I think of this as an all-in-one for when I feel lazy and just want my serum to double as moisturizer then go to bed. The price again is pretty good for that purpose so think of this as a lazy-man’s one stop product. Only slight issue was the medicine dropper either pumped out no product or an excess of product, and it’s kind of impossible to tell what you’re going to get each time you squeeze the pump.
Jade: Glow Recipe really hyped this product up for me, but I felt mostly meh about it. The packaging really frustrated me, because the serum would easily get clogged up around the dropper, and it would look kind of gross. On the skin, it felt nice, but wasn’t a gamechanger for me. I’m a big fan of Yuri Pibu’s ingredient rosters though.
Edison: The women at Glow Recipe can sell me on anything. Made with 60% Artichoke extract? Sold! – even though I’m not entirely sure what that does. A glance at their website indicates this extract is good for moisture and firmness, which sounds like all the products they sell. This product was also a little confusing, the website says essences are “modern, lightweight versions of serums” yet this felt more like a moisturizer which is heavier than serums. The dropper was indeed problematic. The main benefits of this essence are hydration and antioxidants. There are good antioxidant rich ingredients like the 60% Artichoke extract, and the thicker texture is great for moisturizing, but I do not think this product is powerful enough to perform any of the anti-aging claims such as tightening or firming. The texture is nice, the scent is reminiscent of “Asian beauty products” – no artichoke smell, and the application, once you manage to dispense from that forsaken dropper, is quite easy to spread and sink into skin.
Photographed by GW
