What it looks like when it's full (pic from the link above)
I purchased this product because I was in a dire need of some whitening. I'll get to that later. By the way whitening produts aren't anything like skin bleach or something. I doubt they're even sold in the market… Not legally, at least. Whitening products do lighten your skin a little bit, but they mainly even out your skin tone and reduce discoloration/hyperpigmentation.
I did like this one, it's pretty moisturing for a 'whitening essence'. It's quite mild and gentle, too. I did notice that my skin became brighter, but I was doing other things that could cause that effect so I can't say for sure if this is the only thing contributed to that, however I can definitely say that this helped.
I have one problem though. The capsule pops and particles come up with the liquid right? The particles doesn't really blend in. When I applied this onto my skin I realized that there were white balls of capsule contents left on my face. I can just rub it in, it's not a big deal, but I feel like if I do that the capsule contents won't be evenly spread all across my entire face. I don't get the capsule thing anyway. Can't they just mix entire thing altogether? That would probably make it more homogeneous.
I will buy something else from a different brand just for the sake of trying out different things, but if I don't find something better I'll probably come back to this one.
Now as to why I needed whitening.
I moved mid-November last year. Before that my bed was on the opposite side of the window, so farthest from the window as possible. When I moved, my mother decided to position my bed adjacent to the window, with the headboard pushed against the actual window. She thought I needed some more sun, which I clearly don't. No one needs skin cancer… Also, my mom won't let me pull up my sheets over my head (apparently it's bad for my breathing) or live with the blinds down. I mean why did she install them to begin with if she didn't want me to utilize them? (If you haven't noticed, my mother is one of those nature-is-the-best kind of people. Thank god she is not an anti-vaxxer)
So sometime during December, I ran into a person I had not seen since about August, and the first thing he said was,"Why are you so tanned?" It's weird, but my face really was that much darker. I thought it was strange because people are generally tanner during summer and paler during winter. Also as a person who applies sunscreen religiously and doesn't even see sunlight very much, I'm usually pretty light-skinned even during summer months. Therefore at that point I didn't think it was suntan. It's winter, I use sunscreen, and I don't even spend much time outside, so I can't possibly be more tanned than before, right? The weirdest thing was that it was just my face that got significantly darker, the rest of my body was pale.
I thought it was temporary at first but the darkness didn't go away after a couple months. So I thought there might be something wrong with my liver or kidney or whatever that was causing my face to look darker. I didn't think it was really about my skin. I went to the hospital and got this expensive bloodwork done, and surprisingly the result came back perfectly normal. It's a good thing that I'm healthy but back then I was freaking out because I didn't know the reason why my face changed color. I only knew that there was definitely something wrong with my skin because now it was very irritated and sensitive.
Then one day I woke up because of bright sunlight shining on my face and then I realized something. I didn't think much of the bed position before but when I came to think about it,
I was being exposed to direct sunlight several hours a day between sunrise and when I wake up (I wake up pretty late except on Thursday when I have early morning class), without any sunscreen on since nobody puts on sunscreen before bed. That's why only the face got darker, because the rest of my body was covered with clothes and blankets and stuff. I literally had tan lines between my jawline and my neck. I was freaking out. The skin color will come back eventually if I avoid sun from then on, but what about the damage and aging that was already caused by UV rays? I also realized that the irritation my skin had was a mild sunburn. I didn't know what sunburn actually was like because I made sure I didn't get them, but now I do.
So I took some measures to avoid further damage. I couldn't move the bed now so I just put the blind down and told my mother that if she's gonna be so obsessed with "getting some sun" and put my blinds up (I mean it's my room so why does she even care) she's gonna have to roll it down before sunrise unless she wants her child to have skin cancer. (seems kinda threatening on written text but it really wasn't lol) I also got a whitening product to boost the skin lightening process, hence this review. Although it will come back to its normal color eventually with or without it, I just couldn't wait.
Moral of the story: Avoid sun exposure AT ALL COST!
p.s. Just in case someone gets a wrong idea,
I don't avoid sun because of that 'white skin is good' mentality that some Asians might have. I do it because 1)
UV rays are bad for your skin (I mean sure, they also give you vitamin D but you can just get that from food or supplements, no need to risk early wrinkles or skin cancer just for something that can be easily replaced.), 2)
I don't want to get tan lines, I want my face to match my body, and
3) I just don't like the sun. Even if it was good for my health, I'd probably avoid it just because I hate it.
(#vampirelyfe) I think I'll block the windows with wooden board when I get my own place.
You see, if my entire skin magically turned darker I wouldn't mind, (although I would have to get new makeup and even new clothes to match that) but getting tanned involves seeing the sun (which I already hate) and that comes with damage from UV and tan lines (unless I go out in sun completely naked, which is illegal here), and I personally do not think nice tanned skin is worth the cost. (I envy people who naturally have olive skin, though lol my skin's kind of a weird color.) And yeah, a couple hours of sun a day usually won't cause skin cancer, but you never know…
