Starting Tretinoin: 4 Asian products to help fight flakes

Tretinoin: The dreaded dry skin flake-maker that promises to eliminate our acne and smooth our wrinkles. After attempting to fight my hormonal acne with AHA, BHA, benzoyl peroxide, Voodoo, Vitamin C, and anti-androgenic birth control, I finally caved in mid-October and scheduled a dermatologist appointment to get a retinoid prescription.

Now after around two months of using Tretinoin almost every day with very very minimal of the infamous flakies, I figured I'd write a quick blog about the Asian products that helped me survive starting tret. Yes, I use a lot of Western products too, but this post is just focused on the Asian ones. No, I don't use these all at once, I mix and match as needed.

I am not a doctor (nor do a play one on a TV show. I do, however, have a background in Theatre if you're casting for one...) so please take everything I say with that in mind. And remember: your mileage may vary (YMMV).

Cupidrop, Tatcha-cha-cha, and Etsy extravaganza

I had three mini-hauls lately, one utilitarian, one frivolous indulgence, and one completely random. This is a quick overview of them all:

Cupidrop

 I placed this order with Cupidrop for three reasons:

1. I was running desperately low on oil cleanser and wanted to try something new
2. Fan-b's review of the Cosrx low pH cleanser wooed me 
3. Samples. Because every time I start browsing Cupidrop's website I start thinking about all the sweet sweet samples that came in my last order and crave moarrrrr!

So I actually didn't want the Cosrx cleanser as a face wash- I wanted it for a body wash! I have my Minon foaming cleanser for my face, but it is too hard to come by to justify using it on my acne-prone body areas. the Cosrx is a pretty large tube and a little goes a long way. I have to be careful to cleanse my back properly or else I get some nasty backne from wearing a sports bra, sweat, and general barn crud. Since some areas of my skin are especially acne prone, I decided to go with a gentle low-pH cleanser instead of a traditional body wash to help protect that skin barrier as well.

Review: MINON Mild Facial Foam

   When bouncing around on Rakuten and Ebay, searching for things I hadn't heard of with descriptions I could actually read, I ran across the brand MINON. MINON seems to be a brand that focuses on creating products for sensitive skin, which I don't really have, but what caught my eye was the constant mentioning of "formulated with weak acidity to protect skin barrier". Weak acidity? A promise of a low pH? Okay, you have my attention.

   On one ebay seller's listing for the Mild Facial Foam, the description mentioned that it was formulated not just for sensitive skin, but for people who had to wash their face multiple times a day. That would be me! After I got into skincare, I learned pretty quickly that my face will break out if I do not wash it with a cleanser in both the AM and the PM. None of that 'splash with water in the morning' shit for my dainty face. That is all find and dandy, but it becomes a problem when my schedule has me needing to do a mega-cleanse around noon.

You see, I wake up in the morning at about 6am, cleanse and apply sunscreen, and then haul my still-half-asleep butt off to the barn to babysit my trainer's child, ride horses, and clean stalls. When I get back home around noon or 1pm, I'm covered in sweat, sunscreen, horse hair, and dirt. Oil AND Foam cleansing is not optional here.

So that is how I began seriously washing my face 3 times a day. 

My tried-and-true cleanser since I started Asian skincare has been Hada Labo Tokyo Moisturizing Cleanser. The US version is easy to get via Amazon Prime or a quick trip to Ulta, so I had no worries of running out of cleanser and having to pray to the USPS gods that my cleanser arrive before my face goes to shit. But I wanted to try something new, something different, and so I ordered MINON Mild Facial Foam off ebay and waited patiently while it made its way to me from Japan.