My Experience with The Body Shop Tea Tree Oil

*purchased by me*
*non sponsored review*

 I think you've already know how much i love Body Shop lately (read my review here, here, here and more in future) but in fact, this is the first one that hook me in.. Beside the body polish, of course ^___^

I am on fight with acne since last December (another story can be found here) and i purchased this baby in late February. Truthfully, i was clueless about how to use essential oil as skincare. Thanks to the Beauty Assistant how does help me there.

 

The Body Shop's Tea Tree Oil

10ml / 0.33 US fl.oz

idr. 119,000

contains of 15% Tea Tree Oil

(as long as i know, previous version contains of 10% Tea Tree Oil)

 

The bottle is made from thick green glass while the closure is from plastic.

 

direction of use :

use directly to acne spot skin

drop to warm water as aromatherapy, facial steam and even foot spa

..and it can be mix with your favorite BB Cream, CC cream or foundation to make it bearable for acne prone skin (tried it several times : most of the time it does works)

 

The bottle is very save. It's even almost impossible to open it with one hand. You need to use both of your hand, one to hold the bottle and the others to push and screw the closure to open it. 

There's some information i'd like to bold about it :

[1] even it's an oil, the texture actually feels more like water

[2] it's not a pure essential oil

[3] it does contains of alcohol

The Ingredient List :

 Water, Alcohol Denat., PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Polysorbate 20, Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) Leaf Oil, Limonene, t-Butyl Alcohol, Calophyllum Inophyllum Seed Oil, Citral, Leptospermum Petersonii (Lemon Tea Tree) Oil, Denatonium Benzoate, Tocopherol.

FYI, this one is my THIRD bottle so i think i really know about it, and how it works on my skin.

At first, it works like wonders. After 3 days of use, i can see how it improve my skin condition. My acnes reduced and my skin feels great because of the cooling sensation. I'm really happy, so i think maybe pure Tea Tree Oil will works even better.

Before the first bottle completely empty, i moved to another brand of pure tea tree oil. No alcohol at all. As i predicted, it works better. In the other hand, my Tea Tree Oil from Body Shop start to makes me disapointed.

I think it's because the one is pure, while the other one loads another ingredient that low it down. That time, i thought the lower the better because i read it somewhere on internet that pure tea tree oil is not supposed to use directly to your skin.

After the pure tea tree oil finished, i am back to The Body Shop one.

I use it religiously every night, morning, afternoon, evening.. Anytime.

It won't work as wonder as the first time i used it. And i start to noticed that my skin oftenly turning red and itchy.

To make it worse, everytime i feel itch, i add more tea tree oil to that area because it cool it down.

I am not supposed to do that.

Because it does contains alcohol (second in ingredient list) and therefore, makes my skin getting worse).

My favorite website to help in analyzing ingredients is COSDNA.com

And here what it said for The body shop Tea Tree Oil (read it here):

1. Alcohol denat is level 5 in irritant
2. Tocopherol is level 2 in both irritant and acne trigger ingredient (but since it's the last ingredient, maybe the number is not significant)
3. There are two pure fragrance in list (Citral, Leptospermum Petersonii (Lemon Tea Tree) Oil) which are not irritant nor acne trigger but i found it disturbing
4.  Calophyllum Inophyllum Seed Oil beside work as anti oxidant and a plant extract, also as sunscreen. And i definately won't use sunscreen anytime. Not at night.

 

My biggest concern is how could a product that supposed to be use as Acne repellent contains of a level 5 irritant ingredients?

But my skin does loved it at the start.

Well, i've moved on again.

ps. maybe it just me? or does it also happens to you?

because i hope it really works. I love tea tree, and my skin does too.

oh and i love Body Shop :)

 

My Experience with Secret Key Starting Treatment Essence

*purchased by me*

Secret Key Starting Treatment Essence (STE) is one of most popular Galactomyces essence in the market. The first thing i noticed is how similar the box and the bottle with the one from SK II. Yes, it was meant to be a substitute for SK II's FTE (which is about 10 times more expensive). I haven't tried FTE, doesn't even put some interest for it, but if STE really as good as FTE and in such an affordable price tag, why not?

Now i've been using STE on and off for 6 months. Please read the whole story, or at least go scroll down to my conclusion before you decided to get it or not.

Back in December 2013, my acne was getting worse.
I always and always got acne, but since i'm doing OCD (Obsessive Corbuzier Diet) from September to early December, i rarely got breakout. Well, many reviewers said that STE would help to optimalizing skincare, and somehow also help to reduce acne. I ate the words and use STE in 2 ways :
[1] Basic korean skincare method : cleansing foam - STE - toner - emulsion - so on.

[2]  Compress my acne specifically on the exact spot using cotton bud soaked with STE.
this method purposed to makes acne grew faster, so i can easly push-out the zit.. err yes, i did plush them out.

I should say both method are work so well in first few weeks. The i got bored and decided to do Chizu Saeki Method (please google for more information) and mask my face with STE. I did this about 2-3 times and yes my acne getting worse and worse.
In this point, both method doesn't work anymore. My skin start to hate STE, so i stopped.

I should say, since February to May, i almost doesn't use my STE at all. Sometimes, i use it for 2-3 days and stop again. My skin still hate it.

This month, i am back to STE. I think even if i got breakout (purging or any other reason), at least my face's texture will getting better. Yes, it's getting better but then i realize the reason why STE is not working so well for me.

 

this is how much i've been used my STE.

The bottle is made from thick glass and the closure is from stainless steel.

It does give the luxurious feeling. Sorry i've thrown the box, but it does alike with SKII FTE.

Fermented product is better to be packaged in glass bottle. Plastic will lessen product's efficiency, so even if you need to depot the product, do depot in mini glass bottle. I personally like to use my used Tea Tree Oil bottle from The Body Shop (reviewed here) ^____^

 Secret Key contains about 90% galactomyces

The texture is water like and easy to absorb. The scent is kinda strong, but it just linger for a while.

 

Be careful with this hole please.. It's too easy letting the product out.

Ingredient List according to Cosdna.com :

Water, Glycerin, Galactomyces ferment filtrate, Butylene Glycol, Arbutin, aloe vera gel, Human Oligopeptide-1, Dimethicone, Anthemis Nobilis Flower Extract, Centella Asiatica Extract, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Hamamelis Virginiana Leaf Extract, Oryza Sativa Bran Extract, Portulaca Oleracea Extract, Zanthoxylum Piperitum Fruit Extract, Adenosine, Phenoxyethanol, Disodium EDTA

There i got it.

Back to the story. I do looking for some other product with galactomyces to help my condition and i realize that even STE is really low in acne trigger ingredients and irritant, it doesn't have any clue to help to rid them out.

If you're having acne for a long long time, you'd be familiar with some active ingredient to combat acne i.e : salycylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, niacinamide, sulfur, and Alpha hydroxy acids. STE doesn't have any of it.

So if you think that STE alone would help to combat acne, no it wouldn't. It also wouldn't help to reduce redness.

As much as i could understand is that SK STE is supposed to help optimalizing skincare, moisturizing and due to moisture effect, also help reduce wrinkle and improve skin textures.

My skincare regime with STE is usually :
cleansing foam - toner / STE (if i am using toner with cotton pad, toner first. if not, STE first) - tea tree oil - spray with distilled water - snail based moisturizer.

so you can see that i am not hoping to STE to work alone (TTO to combat acne, snail for redness) but it just doesn't suit me.

***

My conclusion is, you need to purchase it if :

• you're looking for an affordable galactomyces based product
• you doesn't have serious problem with acne and redness
• you want to improve your skin texture
• you're willing to use at least 4 steps skincare regime (cleansing foam - toner - essence - moisturizer) everyday
• you need something to refresh in mid day

and DON'T purchase it if :

• you want something that works wonders
• you want to getting rid your acne and redness
• you want a single-use product

Nowadays, there's so many galactomyces based essence out there, from various korean brand and using various names. Do google and decide which one suit you best.. Don't forget to check the ingredient list! :)

.. and yes i have to admit, SK's STE is the most affordable one.

 
and on instagram @taniaasvs
and @primafacie_corner

thank you for reading, hope that helps ^____^ 

Original Source British Strawberry Shower Gel

Original Source is now easy to be find in Indonesia. I saw them in Guardian, Carrefour, Hypermart and so on. To add more excitement, the price is not as high as another bathing brand from around the world, and hey, it's also cruelty free!

Me, as usual, have a tendencies to try new product in market and tried several variant of shower gel from Original Source (hopefully could do the review of all of them). This one is a seasonal edition (not sure if it's limited though) and unlike the others that has the number of something the add to the gel (82 sunshine for vanillas, etc), this one hasn't.

 Obviously, i bought it because i think it would be a good complement for my Strawberry Body Polish, but it doesn't really match.

 

Original Source is originally came from UK.

I am not sure why it's named British Strawberry Shower though.. Does it supposed to have a scent of British Strawberry or what?

The product itself is manufactured in Thailand so yeah i think it's hard to get the real british strawberry right in thailand.

 

The packaging is the same for all original source's shower gel. Flip-top in the bottom part.

There are some size of 250 ml in tube size, 500ml in plastic size and a mini travel friendly bottle. Mine is in 250ml size, i bought it during a sale for about idr. 19,000.

 

The guide of product : natural fragrance, tested on human, packed with natural stuff and the packaging is recyclable.

If you're familiar with Strawberry Shower Gel from The Body Shop, well, this one smell more synthetic or maybe it just the scent of British Strawberry i haven't smell directly.

okay the camera washed me out here. i am NOT that pale.

The product is tinted with orangey-red and it's medium-thick. It takes low to medium effort to spread it but the result is lovely. I barely noticed dirt remained after shower.

The scent is not last long though, but it just a shower gel right?

Well i wish Original Source makes body lotion to complete the line, makes a match scent to each other :)

If you haven't try this, well it's worth the try. But better to get it while it's on sale (which happen oftenly).

Have a nice day!