Skincare Review: Shiseido Ibuki Set

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a nice start to the week?

I decided to kick off this last week in January with a skincare review, specifically of the Shiseido Ibuki skincare set that I have been using now for about 6 weeks.

You may recall a post I did about my Sephora mini haul back at the end of November, and if you're interested, you can check it out here.

According to the Shiseido website, the word ibuki means "inner strength" in Japanese, and the products in the skincare line are therefore designed to help " correct imperfections, dryness and roughness while providing optimal hydration".


The set I picked up included three products:

1. Ibuki Gentle Cleanser

2. Ibuki Softening Concentrate

3. Ibuki Refining Moisturizer

Now that I've had a chance to test out all three products, I think it's time to give them a proper review!


1. Ibuki Gentle Cleanser

Rating:

First up, let's start with the Ibuki Gentle Cleanser. Oh my goodness, this has fast become my absolute favorite cleanser! For a long time, that spot was occupied by Fresh Soy Face Cleanser, but I have to admit, the Shideido Ibuki Gentle Cleanser is (in my opinion) superior. I've tested it out on my face following makeup removal and exfoliation, as well as on a full face of makeup, and it performs equally well in either situation!

Summary: You only need a very small amount of this stuff to get your whole face nice and clean! It lathers up beautifully and has a soft creamy texture. It's not too strong or drying for sensitive skin, and it really gets deep down into your pores for that nice and clean feeling.

2. Ibuki Softening Concentrate

Rating: 

Second on the review list is the Ibuki Softening Concentrate. When I first started using this, I really liked it and thought it was going to be my favorite product from the set. However, after a few uses it started to lose its luster. There isn't anything specifically wrong with it, but it just didn't impress me that much. On especially cold and dry winter days I found it helped add an extra shield of moisture for my skin, which is great, but I can't ever really see myself using this product in the summer unfortunately!

Summary: It certainly has a noticeable perfume scent, which might irritate people with sensitive skin. Great for people with normal/dry skin, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone with oily skin.


3. Ibuki Refining Moisturizer

Rating: 

Finally, the last product in the set, the Ibuki Refining Moisturizer. Ultimately, this product was the most disappointing for me. The consistency is too similar to a serum (almost the exact same as the Ibuki Softening Concentrate), which immediately had me doubting the product. The scent is also quite strong, which again, isn't a good thing for people with sensitive skin. When I went back online to check out some reviews, I was not surprised to see lots of complaints about it being greasy and causing people to break out.

Summary: The consistency is far too much like a serum, in addition to having a heavy perfume scent. It doesn't seem to work well for oily or sensitive skin, nor can I imagine it being sufficiently moisturizing for dry skin. Overall, this one was a big disappointment.

Sephora Mini Haul

So I stopped by Sephora the other day to finally use a gift card I received for my birthday in June! I had already done my research, so I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted to buy. Even so, I still got to check out all of the pretty holiday value sets, and that's always fun! 

Now that it's really starting to feel like winter here in Ottawa, I know I'm going to need to adjust my skincare and makeup routine. I don't like putting away makeup that's been three quarters used, so I'm planning on finishing up my current tube of Diorskin Nude BB creme before tossing it. I've also got about a week or two left of my CeraVe moisturizer, so I'll be finishing that up before I toss it away too! 

Anyway, without further adieu, here's what I got: 

Estée Lauder Double Wear Light Foundation
Available here at Sephora



I ended up deciding on shade 1.0 instead of 0.5 (which was exactly the same color as my skin) because I liked that it warmed up my complexion a bit. I don't like to wear very heavy makeup, so I'm happy that the foundation is considered "light" coverage. I have yet to give it a full day worth of wear, but I've got pretty high hopes that it will perform well!





Shiseido Ibuki Starter Set
Available here at Sephora

I'll be honest, a big part of the reason why I decided on the Ibuki skincare set is because I had hardly any knowledge of the product. Okay, so I knew it included a cleanser, serum, and moisturizer, but I didn't really know what ibuki meant or what the products were designed to target in terms of skincare issues. I did some research since picking up the set, and according to the Shiseido website, the word ibuki means "inner strength" in Japanese, and the products are designed to help "correct imperfections, dryness and roughness while providing optimal hydration". While I have yet to test them out, I am pretty excited to see what they're like in terms of performance! 

Beauty Products + Expiration Dates

 I was on BuzzFeed the other day, and came across a really interesting article about beauty products! I've seen plenty of other articles covering the same subject, but for some reason, this one really stuck out for me. 

Essentially, the article explains that instead of trying to remember how long your lipstick or mascara is good for (is it four months or six?), you can actually check for yourself on the product packaging. This way, you'll be able to know once and for all whether your MAC eye shadows really will last longer than your Revlon ColorStay quads. The trick is, you have to find the icon that indicates how long the product is good for. On most products, it resembles a small, slightly open jar, with a number in front. That number represents the number of months the product is guaranteed to be good for. Unfortunately, not every single product on the shelves has a clearly visible expiration icon, but luckily, most do!

Dior BB cream (12 months), Tarte Amazonian
Clay blush (12 months), Nars lipstick in Roman Holiday (24 months)

I know a lot of people who will use their makeup and beauty products after the suggested expiry date, and in some cases, this is perfectly fine. What you need to be careful about, is using your makeup products long after they've expired! If your blush expired last month but you still have a fair bit of powder in the compact, and it's not causing any skin irritation, I don't see anything wrong with using it. However, if you're using mascara that expired a year ago and is clumpy and dry when you pull out the wand, you really need to toss it! Ultimately, the most important thing to take into consideration is how your products are reacting with your skin. The expiration dates on your makeup are there to guide you, but if you're having trouble with any products at any point, it's always best to let them go. 

If you're interested in checking it out the original article on BuzzFeed, I've posted the link here.

Skincare Routine

One of the only reasons I think anyone can get away with the same skincare routine all year round is if you live in a place where the weather never really changes. For the rest of us, our skin definitely has very different needs in the winter than it does in the summer. That’s why it’s actually very important to have two separate skincare regimes! In the winter, your skin tends to get dry very easily, so it’s important to keep it moisturized with heavier creams and lotions. Comparatively, in spring and summer, when the weather gets warmer and the humidity starts to rise, it’s definitely better to opt for a lighter routine.

I have combination skin so I tend to avoid any cleansers or lotions that are specifically geared towards dealing with oily or dry skin. The reason I do this is because I don’t want a skincare routine that only focuses on one aspect of my skin’s needs. Also, I don’t have particularly oily or dry skin anyway so it’s really a mute point. Considering my type of skin and my age (mid twenties), I gravitate towards products that brighten, protect, and prevent signs of ageing.

I tend to use a combination of products from a variety of different companies but if I had an unlimited budget, I would almost exclusively use Fresh skincare products. I love Fresh products because they use natural ingredients and combine them with modern skincare technology to create highly potent products that work incredibly well and if I may say so, smell amazing! 

I am a huge fan of the Fresh Soy Face Cleanser, which I first tried as a sample from Sephora a few years ago. It’s so gentle, yet it manages to really do an excellent job cleansing your face. 

A lot of people tend to skip toners, which is too bad since they are a crucial step in any skincare regime. Based on my own skincare needs, I like to use toners that aren’t very astringent (meaning, they won’t dry my skin out too much). My longtime favourite has been the UNT toner Roses At Dawn, which contains soothing Bulgarian rosewater. The toner also contains a serum which is designed to protect your skin from environmental pollutants, so that’s a bonus! 

Now, when it comes to facial creams, you’re absolutely going to want to use two. One for the surface of your face, and the other for your eye area. The reason for this is because our eyes are very sensitive and the skin surround our eyes is generally thinner, with a different set of needs than the rest of your face. Some people use four different creams, one for your eye area in the morning, one for your face in the morning, one for your eyes at night, and another for your face at night. If you have fairly low maintenance skin, you don’t really need to be using that many different products on your face on a daily basis, but as long as you’re using them correctly, it doesn’t really hurt either. 

Anyway, to finish off, I’m just going to talk about eye cream and face cream for daily use during the warmer parts of the year. In summer, I tend to see a lot of gel based products flying off the shelves, although I personally have not had much luck with them. The reason for this is because my skin needs aren’t the kind that a gel based moisturizer is designed to address. If you have particularly oily or acne prone skin however, I would absolutely recommend using a gel based moisturizer somewhere in your skincare routine.

For me, I use…surprise, surprise, Fresh Black Tea Age-Delay Eye Concentrate, and Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve Face Cream With Super 7 Complex. These two products are absolutely amazing and I can honestly say, I can’t imagine even wanting to try anything else because I am just so happy with these two products. The eye cream is great for spring and summer because it offers a cooling effect which really helps with puffiness, while the black tea actually brightens dark circles and visibly tightens the eye area.

The face cream is a really lovely, soft texture with a clean scent (reminds me a bit of cucumber sometimes), that is light enough to not feel heavy, but still potent enough to leave your skin feeling moisturized. It’s packed with antioxidants to help prevent signs of ageing and boost your skin’s radiance!