On the highway to hydration

As mentioned recently, my dehydration required much repair.

It’s now been just over three weeks since returning back to Melbourne, Australia now and I would say my hydration levels have improved significantly. Makeup also applies a lot more smoothly.

This has been my repair skin routine

AM

1. Washing with warm water only – what is this craziness?! Ever since I started a skincare routine I have never ever done this! My face is still oily when I wake up, but I have found just warm water seems to be sufficient at the moment. Removing a surfactant surely helps with preventing further drying out. Now it’s going to take even longer to use up my cleansers! :O
2. Hada Labo Shirojun Moist – Hyaluronic acid is one of those ingredients my skin laps up. That said, I’m not sure if it’s my own skin or the constant reformulations of Asian products, I didn’t feel this was as extremely hydrating as previously bottles. Hada Labo are probably trying to push customers to the newer and slightly more expensive (by about Y200) Premium line…
3. Kikumasumune Lotion High Moist – This provides only OK hydration. As this was the current watery lotion I was trying, I continued to use this on return to Australia, but I don’t think Kiku will be a staple in my routine. The cheap price (around Y600) for 500ml and quick to use pump are really good points of this product though. There might be a very subtle brightening effect too? However, the pump is really splashy and the scent changes from sake, rubbish on a hot day (yes…) to strawberries and bananas, That said, don’t be surprised if I buy this again in the future.
4. DHC Amenity Olive Gold Series Gel Lotion – This is more viscous than steps 2 and 3, so I feel this acts like a humectant, as well as having great hydration properties. No web link for this one, as, uh, this is a hotel only line from DHC… And of course, no way to replace this one once I run out. 😳
5. Garnier Miracle Sleeping Cream – I received this as a competition win and it’s definitely a humectant moisturiser high in silicones. This is something I would usually never buy, although the site says it’s apparently influenced by Asian skincare trends. The most interesting thing about this product is its bouncy texture. Once you take an amount out, after a few hours the remaining product flattens and smooths out again and looks like a new untouched jar! However, this is strongly fragranced (don’t use near eyes or broken skin) and the alcohols in the ingredient listing concern me, even though they are considered “fatty alcohols”.
6. Sunscreen (currently Cancer Council Peppa Pig SPF50+ Spray – a competition win :P)  and makeup

My PM routine is the same, except I do use a cleanser and I don’t use sunscreen and makeup. My current night cleanser is Neutrogena Deep Clean or ModelCo Cleansing Gel. Both of them are OK cleansers, but they are nothing to write home about and I’m just waiting to use them up before I can move on to others in my stash. With really stubborn dry patches I used Avene Cicalfate Restorative Skin Cream as my step 6 at night, but only used this a few times.

So, that sums up the products I used to hydrate my skin. Now, I wouldn’t say I’ve achieved full hydration (e.g. pores are still very visible) nor should you run out and buy all of these products now. I would attribute a lot of my progress to mainly being back in Melbourne (climate) and the Hada Labo. The rest of the products just happened to be the ones I am currently trying out and have cooperated with my skin.