Skincare Routine from my Advent Calendar

Alba Avram Eylül 11, 2021

Let's face it, one of the reasons we all love Beauty Advent Calendars and continue to buy them is because we love trying new products. There is something so satisfying about trying a new product and it just simply working for you, to the point where you cannot believe that you haven't found this product sooner. This feeling is something every beauty junkie craves and it was a feeling I hoped would come from using some of the products from my Advent Calendar from 2018.

My Beauty Advent Calendar of choice was the ASOS Advent Calendar. After much comparison and research, I thought it had the greatest amount of products I wanted to try and it was within my price point. I have already written a Post Christmas Update on my thoughts about the advent calendar, and I would say for the most part it was pretty positive, however I hadn't tried a lot of the products at the time of writing. In that post I did say I would be doing a skincare routine using a lot of the skincare items, this post is that post.

I have tried to use the products that I hadn't tried before within the calendar and half way through this routine, there is a certain point when I realise I had made a mistake by doing this but if you continue to read this post, you will find out about my mishap. I do go into quite a bit of detail about each product so this post is quite long so sorry in advance!

Caudalie - Micellar Cleansing Water

I am not a massive fan of Micellar Cleansing Waters as they tend to dry out my skin a little bit. I've only really tried the Garnier Micellar products but I've tried multiple products from the Micellar range and they are all hopeless. If you want an example of this, here is a post I wrote on the Cleansing Gel back in 2017: Garnier Micellar Cleansing Gel.

I know I am a skincare junkie but I do not actually cleanse my face in the mornings. Firstly I cannot be bothered but secondly I think it is too much for my skin if I cleanse both day and night, personally I do not think it is necessary. However for the morning I've always wanted something to clean my skin that was quick and easy and didn't involve water. As I received the Caudalie Micellar Cleansing Water as part of my advent calendar I thought I would give it a go and I was pleasantly surprised.

The first thing I noticed was the scent, it has a very earthy/twiggy sort of scent. At a guess I would say this contained fig as it has that earthy scent but there is also something fruity about it. The scent is only noticeable as you use the product but it is certainly quite pungent. I used a cotton pad to swipe this over my skin just to give it a little bit of a refresh. It is definitely quite cooling and it does feel like you are applying water to your face. What I mean by this is that the water does not leave the feeling of product on your skin. Sometimes when you use 'lightweight' product an oily feeling can be left behind but that is not the case with this water.

It takes about a minute for the water to dry and after that your skin feels clean but not dry or tight. There is no chance I would try this as a makeup remover as I do not believe micellar water can give your skin the cleanse you need when you have layers of makeup on but as a morning refresher, I really like this. Finally a Micellar water I can get behind. I don't normally cleanse in the mornings as I find it can be too much for my skin but using a Micellar water 3-4 times a week has been working out really well and has not caused any drying or breakouts.

Alpha H - Clear Skin Daily Face Wash

Alpha H are mostly known for their Liquid Gold which is an AHA/BHA combination that helps to resurface and remove texture from your skin so it gives results pretty quickly and the results are noticeable. A week after I have used Liquid Gold, my skin looks clearer as their is less texture so Liquid Gold is raved about by a lot of bloggers but I had no idea that Alpha H actually created other products.

I mean it is sort of obvious that they would, they are a beauty brand, no brand was created with only one product but I had never really thought about it before. I certainly could not have named any of their other products. When I saw the Clear Skin Daily Face Wash in the ASOS Advent Calendar it was definitely one of the products I wanted to try which was why I included it in this routine but in the end, I probably should have used the First Aid Beauty Cleanser but I will speak about my error in judgement a little bit later when I talk about the face mask I used.

I decided to try the Alpha H cleanser as I typically like to use cleansers which are designed to tackle spots as I do suffer with the occasional breakout, usually hormonal breakouts. I do like to combat these as quickly as I can and I find using cleansers with Salicylic Acid helps with this. When I opened this product I was immediately hit with the scent of Tea Tree which has quite a distinctive scent. It always takes me back to my teenage years when I used to use those cheap and nasty spot fighting products which contain so much alcohol that they do more harm than good. Tea Tree as an ingredient is anti-bacterial so it helps to remove the bacteria that causes spots.

Not only did I instantly notice the scent but the texture of the cleanser really surprised me, it is a really thin gel texture that is incredibly runny which does make it hard to apply. Before you apply this cleanser to your skin, you have to wet your skin and then you combine the water with the cleanser but because the cleanser is so liquid, you have to make sure you only put a small amount of the cleanser in your hand. When it is mixed with water, this does make a small lather but it isn't bubbly, it is more of a soft foam. You do have to work it quite a lot to get a lather but this makes it easy to remove.

I used a Muslin Cloth to remove the cleanser and it came off really easily. It left my skin feeling really clean and it definitely removed the oils that had built up over the day but it did leave my skin feeling tight. My skin felt really smooth but if I moved my face, I felt every movement and I hated it. The tight feeling was enough to stop me from liking this product. It was a nice product, not outstanding but it lost points when it came to the tight feeling after it had been removed. When I have bad skin, I can see myself reaching for this product but I wouldn't buy the full size and cannot recommend it.

Sand and Sky - Pink Clay Mask

I use a face mask at least 3 times a week: sometimes it is a sheet mask, sometimes a peel off but quite often I will use a clay mask so the Sand & Sky Australian Pink Clay Mask has been sat on my beauty wishlist for quite a long time. At just under £40, I was not going to buy this without trying it first and the ASOS calendar gave me the perfect opportunity to do this. There weren't any other masks in the calendar so this was always going to be the one I was going to use as part of this skincare routine.

However after I had started to apply this mask, I actually read the back of the product and I realised it contains Vitamin A. When I realised this, it dawned on me that I had made a mistake, I was using too many actives which can cause a reaction which nobody wants. By the time I realised, it was too late so I just continued with using the mask and I have to say it didn't feel uncomfortable, so I hoped for the best. Much like all Vitamin A products, this mask is supposed to brighten and detoxify, basically it is the dream combo for skin. However it can be quite drying so you do need to make sure you use hydrating products after any product which contains Vitamin A.

The only reason I read the back of this mask was to find out how long I was supposed to leave the mask on but like most samples you get in an advent calendar, it did not tell me. This highlights one of my major problems with advent calendars in general. It is all well and good getting all of these products to try but they give you very limited info on each product. In the end I took to the internet to find out and it said to leave it on for 10 minutes.

The look of this mask is quite cute, at first it is a very pale pink which I love and it had the scent of almonds, well I think it does, it smells like Snowcake Soap from Lush which is one of my all time favourite scents. This made the mask a pleasure to use. The thing that made the mask slightly more of a pain was how much it dried. It is one of those clay masks that dries so you can't move your face or it hurts. Nice if you've got nothing to do but a pain if you are trying to blog, drink a brew and mask at the same time. As it dries it doesn't stay pink, it turns into a toothpaste white so it literally looks like you have dried toothpaste on your entire face; a look you will identify with if you used to apply toothpaste to your spots when you were young in the hope that it would work miracles. I did realise as the mask started to flake off my face, a little goes a long way and you do not need a lot of this mask, a thin layer will be sufficient. In general this mask is quite thin which made me want to layer it up but trust me you do not need to.

After 10 minutes I removed this mask and it was the easiest clay mask I've ever removed. Usually I struggle a bit with the Glamglow Supermud as it literally dries down so hard, even water can't get that shit off easily but this mask literally wiped off like it was nothing, even though it was so dry on my face. Not only was that a bit weird but also the product that was on my muslin cloth was not white, it had reverted back to being pink. I have no idea how but it had.

My skin did feel smooth after I had used this but I waited until the next day to see whether it looked like my pores has been reduced and whether my skin looked brighter and clearer. The results for this mask didn't really come through until a couple of days later. Initially my skin seemed to have a bit of a reaction (more on that in a minute,) but my skin looked great a couple of days later. It looked much more smooth and make up looked better when I applied my base. I can see why so many people rave about this mask and I would definitely buy the full size of this in the future.

The Error

My error of using too many actives made me nervous. After making the rookie error, I didn't want to use any products which contained anything more than hydrating ingredients as I didn't want to cause a reaction. For those of you who are reading this and wondering why on Earth I am making such a big deal out of it, Vitamin A should not be mixed with any Acids as it is too much for the skin.

The mask contained Vitamin A and the cleanser I used contained Salicylic Acid which is a BHA, in other words an acid. What an idiot. As I didn't want to upset my skin any further, I did not use the Skin111 Brightening Treatment Mask, which I had planned on using as most brightening products contain Vitamin C. Vitamin C does not have the same problem that mixing an acid and Vitamin A has but they basically cancel each other out. There would be no point in using both a Vitamin A and Vitamin C so I thought I would use this mask on a different day but I will still speak about this at the end of the post.

Rodial - Dragon's Blood Sculpting Gel

I also gave the Rodial Scultping Gel a miss as well just in case but I have used this many times before and I already know it is a beautiful product. This has such a refreshing gel texture which makes your skin feel cool so this product is ideal for Summer. I can't say it is incredibly sculpting but I can't expect a product to work miracles. There is no chance I would spend £85 on a tub of this because I do not think the results are incredible but I like it and I am happy to have this sample size back in my life.

Clinique - Moisture Surge

Instead of these two products I subbed in my Advanced Night Repair and the Primark x Alex S Plump and Glow Serum. Two very hydrating products that both work to help boost cell renewal and they both start to create the barrier to keep moisture in the skin. To finish it all off I did use the Clinique Moisture Surge which is a true hero product.

I first tried Moisture Surge as part of the ASOS x Clinique Beauty Box and when I tried it for the first time I loved it! It is a thin cream/gel texture that provides a cooling sensation on the skin and just creates an impenetrable barrier so that moisture is retained in the skin. When I wake up the next day after using Moisture Surge my skin always looks plump and healthy which isn't the natural condition of my skin. As soon as I used this, my skin felt calmed and had a healthy sheen to it. If you have not tried Moisture Surge it is an incredible product and in theory it should work for most skin types as it is just an intense hydrating product.

111Skin Brightening Sheet Mask

After all of the fuss of my skincare error, I was going to use the 111Skin Rose Gold Brightening Facial Treatment Mask on a completely different day to the rest of the products but after doing a bit of research I've changed my mind. It turns out this mask is £20! £20 for a sheet mask is bloody ridiculous so I think I am going to save this one for an event or something, perhaps before my Birthday because I feel like it would be a better use of such an expensive mask rather than wasting it on an average weekend. At £20 this is almost half the price of the advent calendar itself which seems mad which is why I am going to save it. I'm sure when I eventually get round to trying this I will do a blog post on it because £20 is a lot of money and I am highly intrigued to know if that cost can be justified or not.

Look at me go, so many product reviews in one post! I have to say out of all of the products I tried, I would say they were all pretty successful. I do not think the Alpha H Face Wash is anything to rave about but it works. I can now say that I have tried the Sand & Sky Mask and it is worth the hype but just a word of warning, be careful with the products you are using at the same time as it does contain Vitamin A. Don't be a dumbass like me and mix actives! Clinique Moisture Surge is a product I have been raving about for months and using this sample has just reaffirmed my love for the product. I will definitely be saving the rest of the sample for a trip away.

My one problem with all of these products is the size. That is not the products fault but I just feel disappointed that these are literal sample sizes rather being deluxe samples. At £55 the ASOS Advent Calendar wasn't overly cheap and to just receive sample sizes was a bit disappointing, lesson learned for next year, check the size of the products when purchasing Advent Calendars.

You might also like: