SKIP CARE AND THE LANEIGE CREAM SKIN COLLECTION – BEST MOISTURIZING TONER, BEST MOISTURIZING CLEANSER
Okay so we got walloped in NYC this week with about a foot of snow. I always love the first snowfall. It’s the 87 snowstorms after it that really get to me. By the middle of January, I’m about to go insane.
But, hey, it’s an excuse to break out all those winter clothes that I missed. Like my favorite, super heavy hoodies that are just too warm to wear at any other time of year.
And the brown suede Prada military boots I bought in Florence thirty years ago. The Italian salesman told me they were modeled after German army boots. I almost missed my train back to Rome trying them on. I remember running out of the shoe shop toward the stazione thinking I’d apparently do anything for a fine pair of Italian shoes. Or maybe I’m just a crazy risk taker.
If you’ve ever been to NYC in the winter, you know that the snow is only beautiful when it’s freshly fallen. Within a few hours, and certainly by the next morning, it’s blackened with car exhaust and god-only-knows-what else. And, in the beginning of winter when it’s not quite frigid out, the snow always melts into a thick, horrid slush. Every New Yorker will tell you that those slushy sidewalks are a death trap…for your outfit!
So, it was about 48 hours of insanity as the snow came cascading down and, at times, even cascaded sideways. I hunkered down and just worked through it. When I wasn’t working, I was Netflix-n-chillin. Sometime in the middle of the storm, I discovered this profound, enthralling Spanish thriller that I couldn’t stop watching. It’s called The Mess You Leave Behind – el Desorden que Dejas. It’s about the murder of a teacher in a small Spanish town — and, well, the repercussions of the mess she created during her life. It’s super cool!
The skincare stuff starts here.
Of course, with the onset of winter, I think a lot about my aggrieved skin and how to maintain the healthiest skin condition possible in the extremely dry air. The importance of moisture and hydration to skin health is no more apparent that during the colder months when the air around you can suck the very life out of your face. I know it does to me!
A few weeks ago, I published an article titled, Favorite Face Mists for Keeping Skin Hydrated in the Cold – the Best Face Mists and Hydrating Toners for Dry, Dehydrated Skin. I reviewed some of my favorite toning mists for re-hydrating my skin throughout the day. (If you missed it, you can catch it here.)
One of the most unique of the six mists that I reviewed is the Laneige Cream Skin Mist. It’s the latest product launch in Laneige’s Cream Skin collection of innovative hydrating, moisturizing “skip-care” skincare.
I prefer to separate the concepts of moisture and hydration by focusing moisture more on the skin’s oil content and hydration on skin’s water levels. If you think about it this way, you more clearly understand that dry skin lacks oil and dehydrated skin lacks water.
As with so much about the skin and our relationship with skin care, it’s perhaps not as clear cut as that, but it helps me to understand my own skin and to find the right treatments for any seasonal skin concerns — like very real dehydration in winter.
But how do you know if your skin is dehydrated? And what’s the difference between dry skin and dehydrated skin, anyway? Simply, dry is a skin type and dehydrated is a skin condition.
What’s the difference between dry skin and dehydrated skin?
For insights, I turned to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team. There’s a superb piece on the Paula’s Choice site titled, What is Dehydrated Skin & How to Choose the Best Products.
Here is an excerpt:
Dehydrated skin often looks and feels like dry skin all over your face, but there's a major difference between the two: dehydrated skin is usually a temporary concern (with various surprising causes) and dry skin typically doesn't change over time. If you have dehydrated skin, your skin may also produce a normal or even excessive amount of oil on its surface.
"Dehydrated skin" is something we’re asked about frequently. It seems there’s a lot of confusion about what this skin concern is about. A major part of the confusion is that the term "dehydrated skin" is often used interchangeably with "dry skin" or "combination skin" but they are not the same! Dehydrated skin can occur in all skin types and is not exclusive to those with dry skin or combination skin.
The Difference Between Dry Skin and Dehydrated Skin
Having classically dry skin is easy to recognize. Dry skin frequently feels tight and dry, with no oil anywhere to be seen. This situation rarely fluctuates; skin feels dry all year long. The dryness might get worse depending on the climate, season, or activity, but regardless of those things, without great skin care products, the uncomfortable dry, tight feeling will persist.
As mentioned above, dehydrated skin can look and feel similar, but there’s a major difference: Dehydrated skin tends to come and go, it does not persist.
The Laneige Cream Skin Collection
With a clear understanding of the differences between dry and dehydrated skin, let’s take a look at Laneige’s Cream Skin collection — a range of three products that both moisturize and hydrate the skin.
Laneige | Cream Skin 2-in-1 Toner & Moisturizer
I first discovered Laneige’s Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer right around the time it launched maybe two and a half years ago, mid-2018 I guess. I was intrigued by the product’s bizarre sounding name — it’s got that Korean-English, or Konglish, quirkiness to it. I believe, though don’t quote me, that the Korean words for toner and skin are the same. If that’s indeed the case, imagine that the intent was to communicate that Cream Skin is actually a “cream toner”.
The Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer is a hybrid product that literally combines the hydrating benefits of a toner with the moisturizing benefits of a moisturizer — the two bookends of healthy skin in a single formula.
Not that combining hydrating ingredients and moisturizing ingredients in a product is novice; it’s clearly not. It’s that the two are combined in a formula that’s as light as water, which naturally enhances penetration into the skin barrier.
Many, in fact most, moisturizing substances don’t get very far upon application. Their molecules are simply too large to pass through the skin barrier. Think of oils, specifically. Oils are by their very molecular nature, thicker; and thus, they don’t easily absorb into the skin.
A lot of the beneficial actives of a moisturizer, particularly non-fragrant plant oils, sit in the surface or very top layer of the skin. Oils like Squalane, Jojoba, Argan, and Rosehip act in an occlusive fashion to seal moisture in and defend against water loss.
Laneige’s Cream Skin was inspired by the latest trend out of Seoul called “skip-care.” I’ve incorporated some really solid skincare habits from several K-Beauty trends — including my beloved 7-Skin Method, which I’ve blogged about here. If you haven’t tried the 7-Skin Method yet, the colder, dehydrating months are the perfect time to do so.
Psst…there’s a great piece in Allure magazine titled, The 7 Skin Method Is the Latest Korean Beauty Treatment to Know About, that you might want to check out!
The snail mucin trend has thankfully gone cold. Skip-care is what’s hot now!
What is Skip-care?
I found an excellent article by Byrdie beauty writer Faith Xue titled, Korean Millennials Are Following a New Skincare Trend Called Skip-Care. Ms. Xue says that the Skip-care trend is “about using fewer products without sacrificing results when it comes to hydration. If you’re used to a skincare routine that covers the bases of moisturizing, balancing, brightening, and anti-aging, then skip-care means that you’ll find products that do one or more of those things in one step.”
“Skip-care is a skincare method that allows you to identify the essential ingredients for your skin and avoid the use of unnecessary products for a simpler, yet proper, skincare routine.”
- AmorePacific Research & Development
Inspired by the Skip-care trend, milky toners like Laneige’s Cream Skin and Dr. Jart’s Ceramidin Cream Mist are popping up throughout A-beauty. They were the first of these trendy slimmed down, “skin care diet” products to hit the US market. Apparently Koreans, the originators of the 10-step K-Beauty regimen, don’t have time for ten steps any longer!
I guess they’re exhausted by all the layering — sometimes I’m exhausted by it too! So, to meet the demands of on-the-go consumers, particularly Millennials and Gen-Z teens, brands are combining steps — in this case Laneige combined toning and moisturizing.
Recently, a new Americanized K-beauty brand called Otzi launched at Sephora. Keep an eye out for it. Developed in partnership with Sephora’s internal teams, there will be a big push for the nascent brand in early 2021. The brand’s tagline: “redefining skincare, undefining you.” Otzi is a simplified range of clean, natural, uncomplicated skincare — clearly targeted at the Skip-care generation.
So what is Laneige’s Cream Skin 2-In-1 Toner & Moisturizer? Well, it’s a super light, milky liquid formulated with what Laneige calls its proprietary Cream Blending Technology intended “to melt a cream into a toner in pursuit of developing a hydrating skin refiner that makes the skin well-moisturized at the very first step of skincare routine.”
And then there’s this: Each bottle of Cream Skin contains an entire jar of moisturizing cream!
That always cracks me up! Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer has a relatively tight formula with just 15 ingredients in all — including high levels of humectant Glycerin and moisturizing Meadowfoam Seed Oil. The choice of meadowfoam oil to carry the moisturizing burden is an interesting one.
According to my skincare muse Paula Begun, Limnanthes alba (meadowfoam) seed oil is a “non-fragrant, edible plant oil originally developed as an agricultural crop in the 1950s. It functions as an emollient and softening agent in skin- and hair-care products. This plant oil is exceedingly stable because it is primarily composed of long chain fatty acids.”
While there is a small amount of antioxidant Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract (aka green tea) and Tocopherol (Vitamin E) — this is by no means an antioxidant powerhouse.
So, does Cream Skin work?
That is, does it replace a moisturizer by combining two steps into one?
Over the course of three days, I skipped using a moisturizer and only used Cream Skin as intended at the beginning of my daily skincare routine, followed by my serums and in the morning, sunscreen.
As I did during my La Mer-Vaseline Skincarma Challenge, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to put my Wayskin Skin Analyzer moisture meter to the test. It’s my go-to device for measuring the levels of moisture content in my skin
I took three measurements each day and I can honestly say Cream Skin works as intended. The first measurement was on bare, freshly cleansed skin. The second was taken about 30 seconds to a minute after applying Cream Skin — to give it time to absorb. And the third measurement was about 30 minutes to an hour later (depending on how distracted I was!). As you can see from the screen shots above, my skin was quite moisturized – and remained so.
I think the Koreans may be onto something here. They’re certainly the experts in skin care. Aside from that creepy snail slime thing, ya gotta trust a good K-Beauty trend!
SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the Laneige Cream Skin 2-in-1 Toner & Moisturizer for $33 here.
SKINCARMA….
GIVEAWAY!
Enter for a chance to win the Laneige Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer, one of the coolest moisturizing toners I’ve ever tried. Plus, win a Laneige water bottle and Cream Skin mini. ($33+ value)
Share why you want to win in the comments below. Then, return to the Skincarma IG page and comment “Done”. Giveaway ends Sunday 12/27/2020.
Laneige | Cream Skin Mist
Laneige’s new Cream Skin Mist is, of course, reminiscent of the heavier original Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer. In fact, the INCI’s are identical. But hey, it’s just as much fun to use — and even more convenient if you’re in a rush.
Cream Skin Mist shares all of the same actives and technologies as the Cream Skin moisturizing toner, with the star ingredient being the relatively uncommon White Leaf Tea Water.
So, somehow Laneige made the original moisturizing toner formula even lighter so it could easily be easily misted onto the skin. My guess is they added more of that white tea water!
As with Cream Skin itself, the Cream Skin Mist has a relatively tight formula with just 15 ingredients in all — including high levels of humectant Glycerin and moisturizing Meadowfoam Seed Oil.
As I said in my initial review of Cream Skin, the choice of meadowfoam oil to carry the moisturizing burden of the formula is interesting — and may be the true genius behind the formulas. According to the Paula’s Choice Research Team, Meadowfoam Seed Oil is among the best active ingredients for the skin.
What is meadowfoam seed oil?
Limnanthes alba (meadowfoam) seed oil is a non-fragrant, edible plant oil originally developed as an agricultural crop in the 1950s. It functions as an emollient and softening agent in skin care and hair care products.
This plant oil is exceedingly stable because it is primarily composed of long chain fatty acids, the type most resistant to rancidity when exposed to oxygen. Among plant oils, meadowfoam has the highest concentration (95%) of these highly stable fatty acids, making it a valuable addition to products that would otherwise be prone to spoiling quickly.
Meadowfoam seed oil contains two compounds known as glucosinolate derivatives, 3-methoxybenzyl isothiocyanate (MBITC) and 3-methoxyphenyl acetonitrile. Research has shown these compounds can inhibit collagen-degrading enzymes in skin and help offset the negative impact of UVB light exposure (but just to be clear, these ingredients do not replace the need for broad spectrum sunscreen).
The glucosinolate derivatives are not direct antioxidants (indeed, meadowfoam seed oil isn’t a good source of antioxidants), but they can positively influence skin’s own antioxidant defenses, which is a nice benefit.
Meadowfoam seed oil can also enhance the penetration of other ingredients into soil and across animal skin; however, to date the same benefit hasn’t been shown to occur on human skin. On the upside, the long-chain fatty acids in this plant oil have chemical similarity to some of the fatty acids found in skin’s own oil, so in theory it’s certainly possible meadowfoam oil would help deliver other oil-based (lipophilic) ingredients to skin.
I think the most interesting ingredient in both the Cream Skin and Cream Skin Mist is Inulin Lauryl Carbamate — which may give the formulas their power to more deeply moisturize skin in the hydration step. According to Cosmetics & Toiletries, Inulin Lauryl Carbamate has the ability to “emulsify high amounts of oil and wet several types of solid ingredients, such as pigments and fillers, in water to create either high-viscosity emulsions or fluid ones.”
And that’s how you get a milky toner to both hydrate and moisturize!
I love both Cream Skin formulas and appreciate having the lighter version around for a quick moisturizing spritz if and when I’m so inclined. Especially as the colds sets in…
SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the Laneige Cream Skin Mist for $27 here.
Laneige | Cream Skin Milk Oil Cleanser
And that brings me to the new Laneige Cream Skin Milk Oil Cleanser. Like Laneige’s Cream Skin Mist and Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer, it’s a real pleasure to use. It also has an awkward Konglish name, compounding the nouns milk and oil. If it were up to me, I would have named it Cream Skin Milky Cleansing Oil. But, alas, I wasn’t asked!
It is, in fact, very much like a milky cleansing oil would be — and it’s used in exactly the same fashion as a conventional cleansing oil. You dispense a few pumps of the Cream Skin Milk Oil Cleanser into dry palms and massage onto dry skin, just like a cleansing oil.
Its sleek, velvety texture is wonderfully pampering and I like to massage it until I get bored — about 10 seconds.
I believe its velvety-soft texture is derived from the Hydrogenated Polyisobutene in the formula, at ingredient number two and likely 10-15% of the formula.
According to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene is a “synthetic polymer used as a skin-softening agent and emollient. It has a rich, thick texture.”
As with the other Cream Skin formulas, there’s Meadowfoam Seed Oil, Green Tea Leaf Extract and White Leaf Tea Water, which Laneige says, “supports skin's moisture barrier while hydrating and soothing.”
There’s not much else that’s noteworthy about the Cream Skin Milk Oil Cleanser. Its uniqueness is in the formula texture, reminiscent of a not-so-common milky cleansing oil. It does have a pH 5.5 that helps to maintain skin’s own pH balance.
SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the Laneige Cream Skin Milk Oil Cleanser for $27 here.
Okay guys, that’s a wrap! If you haven’t yet experienced Laneige’s Cream Skin collection, I recommend that you do. IMO the Cream Skin products, and particularly the Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer, are the best Laneige skincare products — hands down.
💟 SKINCARMA
The Ingredient List of the Laneige Cream Skin Toner & Moisturizer:
sii|h 0 0, Limnanthes Alba (Meadowfoam) Seed Oil 
emo, 1,2-Hexanediol solv, Polyglyceryl- 10 Stearate emu, Glyceryl Stearate Citrate emo|emu, Sodium Stearoyl Glutamate emu|surf, Inulin Lauryl Carbamate surf|emu, Glyceryl Caprylate emo|emu, Ethylhexylglycerin pres, Propanediol solv|h, Disodium EDTA chel|vc, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract aox|so, Tocopherol aox 0-3 0-3The Ingredient List of the Laneige Cream Skin Milk Oil Cleanser:
emo 0 0-2, Limnanthes Alba(Meadowfoam) Seed Oil emo, Xanthan Gum vc|emu|surf, Citric Acid buff, Caprylyl Glycol h|emo, Ethylhexylglycerin pres, Disodium EDTA chel|vc, Propanediol solv|h, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract aox|so, Butylene Glycol h|solv|vc 0 1, Glyceryl Caprylate emo|emu, Polyglyceryl-10 Stearate emu, Glycerin sii|h 0 0, Inulin Lauryl Carbamate surf|emu, Tocopherol aox 0-3 0-3The Ingredient List of the Laneige Cream Skin Mist:
sii|h 0 0, Meadowfoam Seed Oil emo, 1,2-Hexanediol solv, Polyglyceryl-10 Stearate emu, Glyceryl Stearate Citrate emo|emu, Sodium Stearoyl Glutamate emu|surf, Inulin Lauryl Carbamate surf|emu, Glyceryl Ricinoleate emo, Ethylhexylglycerin pres, Propanediol solv|h, Disodium Iodide amic, Green Tea Extract aox|so, Tocopherol aox 0-3 0-3Hover the mouse over an ingredient for short explanation. Read more on INCIDecoder.
