If you follow any Pacific Northwest Instagrammers, you know that we are experiencing a mind-bogglingly early spring this year. Along with the cherry blossoms and saucer magnolias, comes that urge to shed cumbersome layers and spruce things up a bit. I thought my winter skin was as good a place as any to start my spring cleaning.
This Ren Skincare 1 Minute Facial was a gift from a thoughtful friend, and although it feels like I haven’t had a minute to spare since the beginning of the year, I decided that this was a minute worth finding. (I can definitely afford to delay my evening binge-watching of the new season of Bates Motel – which is harder than it sounds, Vera Farminga is sooo good!).
As I’ve mentioned before, my skin is fairly finicky so I followed the instructions to the letter. The solution is applied to clean skin, then you apply water with your fingertips to “activate” the solution. It goes on smelling like chewable vitamin c, but once it’s activated it takes on a dull metallic scent. Luckily, all fragrance evaporates as soon as the facial is rinsed off so no need to worry about smelling like a wet penny for the rest of the day. I left it on for exactly 1 minute, and waited 3 days before I used it again. So far there hasn’t been a single sign of irritation – yay!
There was a noticeable difference from the exfoliation of my shlumpy frumpy winter skin right away. My skin feels smooth, almost like a primer has been applied. This smoother skin looks so much better under my sunscreen (which is slightly matte) than it did before. If I can stick to finding that minute every 3 days, there should be even more improvement over time.
The benefits of vitamin c on the skin (yes, even topically applied), are well documented. If you are curious, here’s a scientific study, or if you prefer, the Dr. Oz explanation.
photo by michelle p. /image edited with Foto Rx of course!
