Shiseido White Lucent

Another common request I get from readers is to share with them my skin care products and routine. But I’ve been reluctant to do so because I feel that I have no expertise on this subject.

I’ve been blessed with relatively good skin (my mother’s genes) and never thought much to look into skincare much. My mother adopts a less is more policy and rarely puts anything on her face except for baby cream.

Since my mother wasn’t a strong advocate of skincare, I started skin care routines rather late in life and for the longest time I used to use only Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser and Hazeline Snow Moisturizer. As for masks and scrubs, they were all organic made from an array of household food stuff like oats, sugar, honey, yougurt, olive oil. etc.

And then I hit 25 and the fine lines started appearing. My body was ageing and dragging my skin along with it. All the hectic travelling and late nights wasn’t helping much either! And with the encouragement of many of my girlfriends I started to venture into the foray of skincare.

As a late bloomer, I absorbed information like a sponge and tried out different brands and I learnt how price may not be a good indication of product effectiveness and how some skin care would give short term improvements but loses it’s effectiveness in the long run. But that is another long story.

This post I’ll be sharing on my experiences with Shiseido White Lucent Series and what I learnt from their skincare experts. I gained a lot of insights from this workshop, being able to understand the technology and science behind whiting products as well as how it is applicable to end users like me. I brought home an entire range and took a couple of days to test drive the products before blogging about it.

What I found really interesting was the Shiseido’s choice of application of their products. Instead of the usual wash, tone and moisturize, theirs was wash, soften, serum, moisturize then tone! When asked why the toner was applied after the moisturizer, the answer was a really logical one. If toners are supposed to close up the pores… wouldn’t it make sense to close it up after the moisturizer has been absorbed?

There was a lot of talk of the cellular activities of cells and how skin turns dark but I think more relevant to those that are intending to try out Sheseido’s White Lucent range is the application the the effectiveness which will be my main focus in this post.

Firstly, the Brightening Cleansing Foam. What makes a good cleanser? A good cleanser must be water soluble, rinse of easy and does not make the skin feel oily or clogs up your pores.  You shouldn’t need to scrub but still have a clean skin with no burning in the eyes or redness and tautness. And in these aspects, this White Lucent Brightening Cleanser has met my requirements.

Before using any cleansing foam (SWL or others) you should always froth it up into a bubble like foam. When I tried it at home I didn’t manage to get it as frothy as the one Erica whipped up but it wasn’t hard to generate some nice foam. You should have at least squeeze out 1cm each time. It’s very light on the face and with the middle and ring finger you can cleanse your face in a circular motion. After rising off you can immediately feel that your face is softer and brighter! It was quite stunning because generally one doesn’t expect much of facial cleansers.

Next, apply the Brightening Balancing Softener. The softeners are not toners but are formulated to enhance the absorption of the nutrients and to remove some surface dead skin cells. Which is why if you have a lot of dead skin cells on the surface of your skin, wiping your face with a cotton wool saturated with the softener can leave it looking greyish and you skin more radiant.

Next would be the Intensive Spot Targeting Serum. It not only works on preventing spots but at minimizing the existing ones. My favorite part about the serum is the gorgeous texture. After hearing such good testimonials from users like Glitzy and Pearlin, I couldn’t wait to try it out myself!

I use about 2 pumps each time. It’s lightweight and absorbs fast! This little baby is also the star buy of the collection. Being sold out when they first launched and subsequently the demand still couldn’t keep up with the supply.

Next we have the moisturizer… they have a few types but the one I’m using is the Brightening Protective Emulsion for day and the Brightening Moisturizing Emulsion for night.  They did skin analysis for us during the workshop to determine which ones were suitable for us.

The day Brightening Protective Emulsion has a SPF 15PA++ and can help to prevent the damaging UV rays though if you intend to stay out in the sun or head out to the beach you should always add on another layer of SPF. I learnt from my chat with Erica that in order to figure out how much SPF you need you need to first know how easily your skin burns. So go out to the sun with a clean face and no products and see how long it takes before your skin feels hot or turns red. Mine was about 7 mins. Then take the time and multiply it by the SPF you are using. So if I’m using SPF 30 then I’ll take 7mins  X 30 = 210. Which means if I am using an SPF 30 sunblock, it would protect me from burning for 210mins which works out to be 3.5 hours. It’ll be great if I intend to stay out in the sun for that duration but if I intend to stay out longer then I either need to touch up after 3 hours or wear a sunblock with a higher SPF.

As for the nighttime Moisturizing Emulsion, it locks in moisture works its Melano Sensor System on your face while you sleep. I use only one pump each time when I use the moisturizers… applying to my cheeks first before my t-zone.

Another question I posed during the Q & A was how long does it need before I see the full effect of the products. Well, the slogan for the SWL series is that you would see visible difference in just 2 weeks but assuming in best case scenario where you protect yourself well and don’t get excessive UV radiation from the sun and have a good healthy diet with enough sleep. You’ll probably still need about 6 weeks to have really bright and clear skin. Shiseido is not an advocate of immediate results as it usually involves harsher chemicals. Instead they try to get their users to maintain a long term routine so as to get long term results in a sustainable fashion.

I’ve only been on this range a few days but I can say that my sensitive skin is absolutely loving it. No redness and a good balance of hydration without having to feel greasy. As for glowing radiant skin, I probably need to use it for another 2 weeks to see that.

Hope you all gained some insight from my experiences with Sheseido White Lucent.

As for my outfit that day.

I switched heels to drive and ended up wearing my driving shoes to the event instead but I wore these CD heels the rest of that day. I wanted to go Timbre that night with Regina but lazy me ended up having supper with Sushi instead.