A pleasant surprise: The Body Shop Facial Washes

I enjoy The Body Shop mostly thanks to the gorgeous smell of their products. I was mostly buying body lotions, as they smell awesome and there was no risk of doing any charm to my skin. I was sceptical about their facial skincare products and wasn't even tempted to try it out, until I have run out of face masks from Poland. In UK the choice of masks is very poor, most of the stuff available in pharmacies, supermarkets and Avon is clay-kind of masks, which I don't really like. I prefer "sink in" type of masks, the ones you apply like cream and leave to absorb, no need to wash off, I like to use them overnight. The only place where I managed to find this type of masks (in reasonable prices, as I wasn't even looking among posh brands) was The Body Shop. I have bought two and since there was "3 for 2" offer I grabbed vitamin E facial wash. My newest Korean face foam from Mizon turned out to be rubbish and postage from Korea takes up to two weeks, so I really needed something to wash my face with until another order from Asia arrives. I didn't really expect much of this product, I just hoped it won't dry me out as badly as Mizon. Surprisingly TBS face wash turned out to be so nice I didn't have to make another order from Korea...

Vitamin E Gentle Facial Wash

Product description: A gentle facial wash that lathers on the skin to leave it feeling clean, soft and refreshed.
INCI: Aqua, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Coco-Glucoside, Triticum Vulgare Germ Oil/Triticum Vulgare (Wheat) Germ Oil, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Acrylates/Steareth-20 Methacrylate Copolymer, Phenoxyethanol, Tocopheryl Acetate, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Benzoate, Fragrance, Benzyl Benzoat, Hydroxycitronellal, Disodium EDTA, Limonene, Geraniol, Tocopherol, Linalool, Citronellol, Cinnamyl Alcohol, CI 17200/Red 33, CI 14700/Red 4

In the ingredients list we will find soybean oil, rich in B vitamins, vitamin E and K and Omega-6 fatty acids. Soybean has antioxidant and moisturising properties. There is also wheat germ oil, another source of vitamin E and antioxidants.

The facial wash has pale pink colour, creamy texture and Nivea creme-like scent. The tube is made of soft plastic and contains 100ml of product. It doesn't really leather much, but is a bit slippery, so it's easy to spread on face. It is indeed very mild, doesn't leave skin feeling dry and tight. In comparison to Korean face washes it's not very efficient, the tube lasted only for a bit over month.

But it's not only the mildness that got me into this foam. Primarily thanks to this product I discovered that my skin doesn't like alkaline products. On Snow White and Asian Pear blog I've read negative review of Mizon's foam, that was referring to it's high alkaline pH. Out of curiosity I've bought on e-Bay pH tester strips, which arrived after I've bought TBS wash... So when I was buying TBS wash I didn't know what pH level it has. When I tested both foams it turned out that my Vitamin E wash has slightly acidic pH 6. The immediate effects of using non-alkaline foam was lack of skin dryness and tightness and the long term use effects exceed my expectations - for the whole month during using TBS facial wash I didn't experience a single break out, only during my period one single spot has arrived. One! That's amazing! It's because our skin has naturally acidic pH, which helps to create protective barrier against harmful bacteria. If you use alkaline products, you lower your skin's pH level, weakening it's natural protection system. Thanks to acidic face wash your skin has better ability to protect itself from acne causing germs. I really wish I would have known about it before, it would save my skin so many breakouts...

Price: £8,50 in The Body Shop store.

Pros:
+ creamy texture
+ mildness
+ healthy for skin, slightly acidic pH
+ doesn't dry out skin

Cons:
- doesn't last very long, what makes it a bit expensive
- doesn't leather much

Pomegranate Softening Facial Wash

Product description: The Pomegranate range addresses the signs of ageing. This cleanser softly cleanses and refreshes skin.
INCI: Aqua, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Sorbitol, Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate, Stearic Acid, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Acrylates Copolymer, Coconut Acid, Bertholletia Excelsa Seed Oil, Caprylyl Glycol, Sodium Chloride, Disodium Lauryl Sulfosuccinate, Sodium Isethionate, Zea Mays Starch, Parfum, Bisabolol, Creatine, Butylene Glycol, Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, p-Anisic Acid, Punica Granatum Extract, Punica Granatum Seed Oil, Disodium EDTA, Hydroxycitronellal, Citronellol, Pyrus Malus Fruit Extract, Limonene, Geraniol, Ursolic Acid, CI 77891

This face wash contains moisturising Brazil nut oil, which thanks to high selenium content has anti-oxidant properties. There is of course pomegranate - both fruit extract and seed oil. Pomegranate is a powerful antioxidant, has anti-inflammatory and skin brightening properties. Wash contains also apple fruit extract, which is natural preservative and is rich in skin brightening vitamin C. SLS has been replaced with milder detergent - Disodium Lauryl Sulfosuccinate.

The soft plastic tube has 100ml capacity. Wash has pearly colour and creamy consistency, although not as creamy as Vitamin E wash. It's not very clear on the picture but it leathers much better than Vitamin E wash and it's also more efficient. It has fruity smell, but not sweet and temping smell you would expect from Body Shop - it's smell of over ripe fruit, weird, but bearable. Pomegranate face wash is very mild, doesn't sting my eyes, there is no skin dryness and no tight feeling after use. Similarly to it's Vitamin E cousin it has good for skin, slightly acidic pH 6, thanks to which I haven't experienced any major break out. In general I don't believe in anti-ageing properties of product like face wash, because you wash them off and they have only short contact with the skin, although I have impression that my skin is firmer since I use this wash. But it may as well be some placebo effect ;)

Price: £11 - more expensive than Vitamin E wash, but lasts for longer, so the value would be similar.

Pros:
+ leathers up better than vitamin E
+ a little goes a long way, I use it twice a day from over two months and still got 1/5 of the tube
+ mild for skin and doesn't sting my eyes
+ doesn't dry out skin
+ slightly acidic pH 6

Cons:
- weird smell of over ripe fruit

Summary
I am pleased with both products and I'm sure I will re-purchasing them. I did enjoy my foamy Korean washes, but now since I know that my skin doesn't like high pH, I won't buy them without checking pH level first. Cat Catus from Snow White and Asian Pear blog together with other blogers has created on-line index of facial cleansers pH, which is very handy and worth having look at. Not everyone is sensitive to pH level, but I would recommend trying out products with different pH - it may turn out that one simple change in your skin care routine may make huge difference in your skin condition.

Non invasive filling of the tear trough - natural filling substances

Today I've got for you post that took me over six months to complete.
Since always I had problems with me eyes' area - dark circles, under eye bags, wrinkles. Dark circles don't bother me anymore, coz they are nothing else but blood vessels being close to the skin surface and giving it purplish cast. Wrinkles - just getting older I suppose. The biggest problem are my under eye bags, which during past year got much worse. Colleagues at work kept asking me if I feel alright, I was looking very tired and down even when I slept 10 hours and felt great. Becoming fed up with my tired face I tried different tricks - some moves from Tanaka face massage, massaging face with ice cubes, face yoga exercises. Unfortunately none of this methods were working, I kept looking like an underdog. Eventually, completely frustrated I stood in front of the mirror for good half an hours, touching and examining skin around my eyes and I came to sudden realisation why none of the under eye bags tricks worked - it wasn't the bags that were my problem, it was so called tear through (also known as tear valley).

What is tear through?
Tear through is a lack of adipose tissue under the skin, running obliquely from inner corner of the eye toward the cheek, along the eye socket edge. It may be caused by sudden weight loss or ageing - as we age the tissue and skin loosens and slides down toward the cheek, leaving "valley" behind.

Under eye bags or tear through?
Bags under the eyes are opposite of the tear through - it's puffiness under the eyes caused by accumulation of lymph and/or adipose tissue, which may be reduced by lymphatic drainage or injection lipolysis. But even though this two problems are completely different they are easy to mix up - the tear through creates optical illusion of under eye bag, the subsidence on the eye socket edge makes skin between lash line and eye socket look puffy. The easiest way to determine if you deal with bags or tear through is to examine your eye area with your fingers. Do you feel tissue under the skin, is the eye socket edge easy to feel? This is how I recognised my tear through - skin under my eyes was very thin, the eye socket so easy to feel that I was afraid to put any pressure when touching my eye area, scared that I would bruise myself.

Filling the tear through
The most popular way of tear through rejuvenation is filling with hyaluronic acid injections. Unfortunately the treatment is quite expensive (the cheapest I managed to find was £250 for single course, but sometimes you need more than one) and it doesn't last - have to be repeated every 12-18 months.
What you can do then if you are afraid of needles or can't afford spending couple of hundreds every year?
Thanks to one Polish beauty bloger I found out about lipophilic substances, natural filling ingredients for topical use. In June 2014 I bought my first topical filler - Sidmool Pueararia Anemarrhena Elastic Essence. Essence contains extract of Pueraria Mirificia and Anemarrhena Asphodeloides. Pueraria contains isoflavones and fitoestrogen and causes the filling effect by accumulating water and fat in the application spot. Asphodeloides is plant growth factor, which stimulates production of adipose tissue, also causing the filling effect. It's a great duo for tissue loss - one substance produces fat tissue, the other one "feeds" it.

Essence is a runny liquid, which makes application a pain. The pump applicator sucked, shooting liquid in uncontrollable way, so I changed it for pipette that I had after using up some other product. On the beginning I was pouring a little bit of liquid out on my palm and gently patted into eye area, but it took ages to get absorbed, so I gave up this method. Instead I started to make compress out of it - I cut cotton pad into strips which I soaked in liquid and kept on my tear troughs until dry (about 30-40 minutes).

Unfortunately I lost my first bottle of the essence in delegation just after a month of use, so I quickly had to buy another one. Turned out I did it just in time, as in Autumn Sidmool stopped production of this essence and brought instead essence containing 70% of Anemarrhena Asphodeloides.

Old formula INCI: Pueraria Mirifica Root Extract, Water, Anemarrhena Asphodeloides Root Extract, Sodium Hyauronate, Glycerin, Fructan, Althea Rosea Root Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Extract, Zanthoxylum Piperitum Fruit Extract, Usnea Barbata (Lichen) Extract, Xanthan Gum

New formula INCI:  Anemarrhena Asphodeloides Root Extract, Water, Sodium Hyaluronate, Glycerin, Fructan, Althaea Rosea Root Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Extract, Zanthoxylum Piperitum Fruit Extract, Pulsatilla Koreana Extract, Usnea Barbata (Lichen) Extract, Xanthan Gum

I haven't use the new product yet, but there is not much change - they gave up on Pueararia extract and instead put more Anemarrhena in it.
You can buy Sidmool Anemarrhena Elasticity Essence on Tester Korea for 15300 KRW which equals about £9. I have paid for my essences about £30 each, as I didn't know Tester Korea back then and I bought it from bloger thanks to who I heard about them.

My next non invasive filling product was Aida Wonder Eye Volume Filler. I came across it accidentally, browsing sale section on Memebox website. Product was featured in one of the boxes, but I don't know which one as I wasn't much of a Memebox fan. I can't remember exactly how much I have paid for it, but I think it was around £15-17.

Wonder Eye is a product designed to achieve "ulzzang eyes" - a little fold underneath lower lash line that is considered cute in Asia. Product contains 10% Volufiline, French patent filling substance. I thought that Volufiline is some kind of synthetic ingredient, but it turns out that it's already mentioned Anemarrhena Asphodeloides with addition of Hydrogenated Polyisobutene. 

INCI: Purified Water, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Jimo Extract, Butylene Glycol, PEG-32, Glycerin, Glyceryl Acrylate/Acrylic Acid Copolymer, 1, 2-Hexanediol, Niacinamide, Macadamia Seed Oil, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer,C12-14 Pareth-12, Sodium Hyaluronate, PEG-5 Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-8 Stearate, PEG-20 Stearate, PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Portulaca Oleracea Extract, Carbomer, Arginine, Xanthan gum, Adenosine, Disodium EDTA, Pomegranate extract, Ascrobic Acid

 
Thanks to pointy applicator product is easy to use and precise. It works like pen, by pressing button on one end it will pop out a bit of cream on the other end. The effects were noticeable quickly, much quicker than with Sidmool essence. I'm not sure if it's combination of this two (when I started Wonder Eye I still had some Sidmool, so I used one in the morning and the other at night) or just Wonder Eye, but my tear through has finally began to get shallower. 

Unfortunately is seems like my fillers are jinxed - I found this product only on Gmarket, but from quite along time now it's out of stock. I am not sure if it still even manufactured. As an act of despair you can try Avecko, website that offers "buying service" - you need to tell them what Korean product you are looking for, if they find it, they will buy it, add some commission and send it to you.

So far I didn't have to turn to Avecko, because I found a Polish website offering cosmetic ingredients to make your own formula and they have a product called Voluplus. This one, for a change, doesn't contain Pueraria nor Anemarrhena, but Macelignan, a substance obtained from nutmeg, that expands adipose tissue and stimulates production of new fat cells. The products comes in a plastic bottle with dropper like nose or eye drops.

INCI: Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil 95-96 %, Macelignan 3-5 %, Tocopherol 0,2-0,3%

Macadamia seed oil in this formulation is a carrier/solvent for Macelignan, it also offer moisturisation and softening effects.
 
Voluplus is designed to be used with other products, recommended concentration is 2-5%. Macelignan, as a lipophilic substance, likes oils so it's recommended to be added to some facial oil. I can tolearte oils on my face only in cleansing version, so I decided to go for a cream. I bought regenerating and nutritious Dr Organic Moroccan Argan Oil Day Cream, which contains various oils: argan oil, cannabis oil, clove oil, cinnamon oil, rosewood oil etc. I mixed 50ml of cream with 5ml of Voluplus, achieving 10% concentration.

mixing cream with Voluplus

Voluplus didn't change cream's texture or smell. Cream itself has quite strong smell, which makes undereye application slightly unpleasant, but well, that's what happens when you buy cream without checking first... Cream is slightly greasy, so I use it only at night time - after cleansing my face I apply it on my tear throughs and nasalobial folds, give it some time to absorb and top up with my usual eye cream and night cream. Voluplus maintained great results that I achieved with Wonder Eye, currently I look better tired than what I looked like 6 month ago after 10 hours sleep :)

The results
The part that everyone have been looking forward to ;) here are the results after 7 months with natural fillers:

The difference is not smashing, but there is visible improvement, the tear through is more shallow and shorter. The biggest difference is the skin structure, when I touch my skin under the eyes it's no longer thin like a paper, I can feel tissue between skin and eye socket edge. I can now easily put creams under my eyes and apply some massage without worrying that I will bruise myself.

The difference is more noticable when you add some effects to photos:

Increased saturation - you can admire gorgous purplishness around my eyes :P

Black and white, no other effects

Negative - here the difference is the most obivious

So as you can see the natural filling substances work, but if you want to give them a try you need to be patient. I noticed that effects are better when you apply along the whole bottom line of eyesocket, from inner corner of the eye in semi-circle across the cheek, not only on the tear through.

Where to apply

The costs
Sidmool Pueararia Anemarrhena Elastic Essence x2 = £60
Wonder Eye - approx. £17
Voluplus - 20PLN, approx £4
Dr Organic Argan Oil Day Cream (to mix with Voluplus) - £7 (regular price is £9, but I bought it on offer)
Together approx. £88, but it didn't feel as so much, as it wasn't one off spending. My treatment isn't over yet, I still got over half a jar of cream with Voluplus, which should last good couple of months, so this £88 may be treated as a cost of year long therapy. Much cheaper then hyaluronic acid injections, but takes much longer to see the results.

I would recommend natural filling methods for peoplo who:
+ are patient and systematic
+ want to fight first signs of ageing
+ are afraid of needles and injections
+ can't afford hyaluronic acid injections
+ enjoy experiments :)

Natural fillers are NOT for people who:
- need results quickly
- have very deep tear through - the results may be unsatisfactory
- are impatient and unsystematic

Other filling products
Extracts of Pueraria or Anemarrhena can be found in many various creams designed to enlarge and firm bust. Just put "volufiline" into e-Bay search engine and many results would pop out, however if you want to use them on your face you sholud be cautious.

When it comes to filling products from trusted companies you can buy Sidmool Volufiline Ampoule on Gmarket, sometimes it shows up on e-Bay as well. Product is worth consideration because of it's very pure ingredients:
INCI: Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Anemarrhena Asphodeloides Root Extract
it's 100% volufiline!

Also well known to fans of Korean beauty products Missha has it's own firming cream with Pueararia extract, designed to be used on bust and neck. It's available on Missha's official websites (unfortunately there is no UK website) and e-Bay, for approx. £15.

Terminology
Just to clarify:
Pueraria Mirificia = Kwao Krua Kao
Anemarrhena Asphodeloides = Jimo = Zhi Mu
Volufiline = Hydrogenated Polyisobutene + Anemarrhena Asphodeloide

If you struggle with tear throughs, nasalobial folds or loss of firmness I would like to encourage you to look for your own fillers. If you now any other products containing filling ingredients, please let me know! :)

su:m37 Flawless Regenerating Eye Cream review

Recently I finished my last sample of su:m37 eye cream, so it's time to review! It's my first su:m product and I was encouraged to try it by few very positive reviews on other blogs, including My Asian Skincare Story. Let's see how it worked for me.

Product description: Eye cream with fermented ingredients, smooths and regenerates eye area.

Why fermentation is such a big deal? In general fermented (in other words broken down) ingredients nourish our skin better than normal ingredients and are able to penetrate our skin better. Our body is home for over a 10 thousand different microorganisms - some of them are using fermentation to help cells get energy. Su:m37 has copied this process and created a fermentation complex, that includes five types of microorganism fermentation: Sphingobacterium, Sphingomonas, Corynebacterium, Lactobacillus and Bacillus.

Except of microorganism fermentation we can also find many other fermented ingredients in this cream, like fermented extracts of rice, licorice, Ginkgo Biloba, lavender, thyme, raspberry, soybean, olive... and many many more. There are also oils: anise, rose, lime, clove, rosemary, May Chang, Ylang-ylang. And since we are talking about fermentation they couldn't skip Saccharomyces, type of yeast, one of the best known fermented ingredients, famous thanks to"first essence" type of products, like SK-II Treatment Essence or Missha First Treatment Essence.

Full list of the ingredients you can find here.  

For me the full size version of this product is very expensive, so despite of positive reviews from people I trust, I still wouldn't buy full size straight away. I ordered set of 10 samples from Tester Korea, which has been recommended to me as a reliable source of genuine samples. Samples are also available on e-Bay, but not from any of my trusted sellers, so I didn't want to take the risk.

The cream itself has great texture, thick and rich. I love rich eye creams, I like to feel my eye cream under my eyes. Despite of thick texture, cream absorbs into skin quite well, it takes about a minute or so, giving us a little bit of time for gentle eye massage. After is absorbs fully it doesn't leave any residue or film on the skin, so it's perfect to use with make up. Cream is very moisturising and nourishing. It has very characteristic, herbal scent, which I don't mind, but some people may find it unpleasant. In general it was nice to use and I enjoyed testing it out.

As for the results, I wasn't really sure if it did anything for me except moisturising, so I decided to take a picture and make a little comparison:

As you can see I have three major concerns with my eye area: dark circles, under eye bags and two horizontal lines under lower eyelid. My dark circles were always there, since my childhood.  It's just the blood vessels being close to the skin surface and causing the purplish cast on the skin, there is no fix to this, eye cream won't help. My under eye bags turned out to be a "tear through", a lack of tissue underneath the skin on the eye socket line, causing the illusion of puffiness. Again, eye cream won't solve this problem, only filling will, for example hyaluronic acid injections. At the moment I'm using special creams with non-invasive filling substances, which I will write more about soon. The third problem of my eye area are wrinkles, which been there for a while. Actually the deeper one, the one closer to the lash line has been there always, I found it even on pictures where I'm 13 years old. So again, no eye cream will fix this, it's just the part of my feature. The only concern that eye cream could help with is the lower wrinkle, that is actual sign of ageing.

So, did su:m37 addressed my wrinkle problem? I'm not sure to be honest. Firstly I was sure, that there is no difference, now when I look at this photos I may see a subtle difference, the wrinkles seem shorter on the newest photo. What do you think, can you see any difference there?

What I'm sure of it's that su:m37 kept my eye area moisturised and restrained my wrinkles a little bit (when skin is dry wrinkles appear deeper). I wonder if effect would be any better if I would continue using this cream for longer - I may come back to it one day, but at the moment I've already started testing another eye cream. It may be good to use as a prophylactic, to prevent my wrinkles from deepening, but I must admit that I'm a bit reluctant - if I start using such an expensive product i my twenties, what would I use in my forties, pure gold?

Price: from £80 for 20ml jar. I bought set of 10 samples, 1ml each, for approx. £2.

Pros:
+ moisturising and nourishing
+ rich texture
+ absorbs easily
+ keeps my wrinkles restrained
+ impressive list of ingredients
+ a little goes a very long way - 10 samples lasted me for two months of use

Cons:
- pricey
- popular among counterfeiters - you need to be careful and make sure you buy it from reliable source
- a bit odd smell

Summary:
I'm glad I could test this product and put something higher end on my face, as usually my skincare regimen is build on much cheaper products. But even though I quite enjoyed using it, I won't buy full size version - at the moment I simply cannot afford it, also I'm not sure if I liked it enough to spend £80 on it. Still, I think it's worth to buy some samples since quite a few people claim it to be miracle product. With less than £2 for two month supply in samples it's worth checking out. For now I say goodbye to Flawless Eye Cream, but I do plan buy some other su:m37 samples.

3in1 face mist review: Sana Quzulan Gelo Make Keep Mist UV Oil Block

Today I've got for you a review of an very interesting Japanese product which I bought from the owner of My Asian Skincare Story blog - the bog owner had a little clear out and was selling cosmetics that didn't suit her/that she had too many of.

Product description: Make up finishing spray that uses triple benefit system: extends the wear of make up by absorbing excess sebum, keeps skin firm and hydrated and features high broad spectrum sun protection. Can be used over make up as needed to set up makeup, refresh skin and touch-up skin application.

Product contains two chemical sunscreens: Bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine also known as Tinosorb S and  Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate also known as Octinoxate. It also contains extract from Saxifraga Sarmentosa (also known as Strawberry Saxifrage or Creeping Rockfoil), which has skin brightening and antioxidant properties and extracts from red, brown and green algae, which has antioxidant and moisturising properties and are rich in vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

The full list of the ingredients you can find on Ratzilla Cosme website. Ingredients analysis [HERE]

For some reason Ratzilla describes the product as a "Guzulan" - I can clearly see "Q" there and the bloger that I bought it from also called it "Quzulan", but I don't know who is right here.

The product is in a plastic 40ml bottle with atomiser. It's small and handy, perfect to carry around in the handbag. It has quite strong, synthetic lemon scent.

Triple function: make up setting, sebum control and UV protection. Face of the person producing sebum = priceless

There are multiple ways to use this product, you can use it both before and after make up. Before as you sunscreen and sebum protection, after as make up setting spray and extra sunscreen. Quzulan has SPF40 PA+++, but mind that to maintain this level of protection you would need to apply approx. 1,5ml which in case of mist would get your face quite wet. Because getting wet in your make up is not what you would really want I apply less of it, therefore I don't use it as my only UV protection, just as an addition. You should reapply sunscreen every couple of hours, which may be difficult to do when you wear make up and this is when Quzulan comes handy. However be warned that in opposite to typical make up settling spray, which is usually a clear liquid fine mist, this is actually a watery lotion that leaves white droplets on the skin. When I first used it I almost had a heart attack, my face was covered in white drops!

Luckily my makeup haven't dissolve :) you need to wait approx. two minutes for spray to settle and dry, but make up is untouched. However Quzulan leaves face quite shiny.

It looks quite nice and glowy on my palm, but on my face effect is way too strong and gives impression of greasiness, so I always mattify it with some powder.

Now a little make up resistance test:

From left: eye shadow, brow liner, eyeliner

Three sprays of Quzulan, which leaves my pal quite wet...

After two minutes: Quzulan has dried and left skin shiny, lines are untouched and not smeared

As you can see Quzulan won't ruin your eye make up, the same goes for BB Cream/Foundation - in case of BB/foundation you can even pat it your skin gently for mist to dry quicker and your make up will still be in place.

As for the performance - what I like the most about this product is that even tough it contains alcohol it doesn't dry my skin out and doesn't leave tight feeling. I have make up setting spray from Avon, after which I feel like I sprayed my face with hair spray - dry and stiff. With Quzulan I don't have this problem, actually after it dries I don't feel it on my skin at all. Apparently you can also use Quzulan despite of blotting papers - I have tried and it does indeed absorb some of the oil from skin, but I still prefer to use blotting paper first and then refresh my face with spray. It's true that it extends make up wear, prevents cakeing and make up disappearing (some BB creams seem to just vanish after few hours) + it offers a bit of coolness and refreshment during the day. The lemon scent, even though it's obviously synthetic doesn't bother me, topped up with my orange powder pact makes me all citrusy :P did you know that citrus scent stimulate your subconscious suggesting cleanliness? This is why so many cleaning products have lemon scent :)

The only problem with this product is actually getting hold of it. It is not available on Rakuten, e-Bay or Amazon, so I don't even know how much it really costs. But do not fear! I have contacted Aga, Polish lady living in Japan, who has her own on-line shop Berdever. Aga said that she will try to introduce Quzulan in her shop. The shop website is actually whole in Polish, BUT if you have product enquire you can contact in English by e-mail: kontakt(at)berdever.pl

Pros:
+ high UV and PA protection
+ handy packaging
+ extends makeup wear
+ won't smudge your makeup
+ refreshing and cool feeling
+ a little goes a long way

Cons:
- availability
- it takes a while to dry

Summary: It's a very interesting and useful product and I'm glad I got hold of it. If you can get it, it's definitely worth trying!