Tag: face cream

Review: ROC Retinol correxion sensitive night cream

I’ve been trying a few different face creams recently and two have stood out as phenomenal. I don’t use the term “Holy Grail” usually, because I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration about most things, but when it comes to skincare, ROC Retinol Correxion Sensitive Night Cream and Olay Three-Point Regenerist day cream are now my Holy Grail products.

ROC retinol correxion sensitive night cream for sensitive skin.
Packaging of ROC retinol correxion sensitive night cream for sensitive skin.

I bought ROC retinol correxion sensitive night cream from Amazon back in December and I’ve been using it ever since. It’s been a great addition to my usual skincare routine!

How the box says to use it: The instructions on the back say to use ROC retinol correxion at night, going two nights with cream then taking a break for two nights before using it for two more nights, and so on, until your skin gets used to it, then to use it nightly.

How I use it: I’ve been using it two nights on, two nights off for the last 6-8 weeks and I don’t feel ready to use it every night yet. Why? Because it’s effective! It’s working perfectly for me so why go overboard?

ROC retinol correxion sensitive night cream tube review how to use
ROC retinol correxion sensitive night cream tube.

The immediate effect: When I first used this on my skin, it seemed to enlarge my pores and make my whole face look dry for about two days, then it completely settled down again and now my skin looks better than ever.

The long term effect: After about three uses, my skin got used to it and I found it seemed to be re-drawing my skin (I honestly don’t know what the word is, it was like an IRL photoshop airbrush) smoothing over all my fine lines and making my skin look more vital. It’s been completely amazing! It contains retinol which is drying to the skin so make sure to use a good day cream and maybe even face oil as well!

Negatives: Retinol increases your skin’s sensitivity to UV light, so make sure to use a sunscreen during the day when you use ROC retinol correxion night cream at night. I try to always use SPF-30 or above anyway, so it’s another reason to wear sunscreen. Also this stuff does nothing against blue circles, but that’s fine because the Olay Regenerist 3 Point day cream does.

The scientific bit: It contains Retinol which is a form of vitamin A that stimulates collagen production in the skin.

The packaging: It comes in a box with a clear window so you can see the tube of cream. Inside, there’s a plastic tray to hold the cream in place. I’d like to know if the packaging is recyclable or not.

ROC Retinol Correxion Sensitive Night Cream is available on Amazon.

Olay Regenerist 3 Point Cream

Don’t you just love discoveries? The perfect face cream was right in front of me this entire time, and I didn’t know it! I am so in love with the Olay Regenerist 3 Point Cream (the day cream) that reviewing it has been really hard! I don’t know how to talk about this cream without just raving about everything I love about it.

Olay 3 Point Regenerist Cream day cream review
Olay 3 Point Regenerist Day Cream.

Consistency: Thick but not too thick, and still easily spreadable. I lightly run my finger over the surface of the cream and gently rub a small amount onto my face. Scooping it out and plastering it on would be a bad idea!

Scent: It is perfumed, but it’s a pleasant scent that doesn’t overwhelm you or irritate skin, and once the cream is absorbed, the scent disappears. When I have a cold, the scent doesn’t irritate my sinuses.

Effects: Firstly, it obviously moisturizes skin. My skin is usually normal-to-dry, and I find that a layer of this cream makes my skin look less dry. Secondly, it plumps out expression lines aka fine lines. I don’t know what it does on deeper lines or full blown wrinkles because I don’t have any to test it on. I like that it also seems to help with the redness I get between my brows, and I would say that it does seem to give me a more even-toned complexion when I wear it. Another effect of this cream, which I’ve mentioned before, is that it helps get rid of blue under-eye circles (I don’t think they intended this use for this cream, but it’s a life-changer), and I discovered recently that it also works well on brown under-eye circles (I’ve got some other fixes for those, so I’ll write an article about that soon). I’ve been using it under my eyes for about 18 months but I hadn’t really used it on the rest of my face much until I ran out of Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden cream and now I’ve been using the Olay regenerist 3 Point cream regularly on my face and neck, I have so much love for this cream! There was an instant anti-ageing effect, and it took about a week for my skin to start showing noticeable results. When I stopped using it for a week, my skin looked tired again.

Feel: It doesn’t sting my skin, but I use it sparingly because it’s quite potent stuff. It makes my face feel fresh.

Compared to other Olay products: I’ve had some bad experiences with some of Olay’s other creams, with their Beauty Fluid being about as ineffective as not wearing face cream, and I was a little hesitant the first time I bought this, but from the first use I really liked it and will keep buying it. I buy mine from Amazon, and it always arrives in a plastic-wrapped sealed box, with an outer lid and an inner lid for the jar of cream.

Olay 3 Point Regenerist Cream day cream review
Olay 3 Point Regenerist Cream consistency.

Compared to other face creams: It was a bit like the Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden Active Reverse Day Cream, except the Olay 3 Point Regenerist doesn’t have any SPF. This is the biggest problem with the Olay 3 Point Regenerist, and for this reason I use it with the ROC spray on sunscreen, which I will review separately, but it’s not the ideal solution. UV damage can cause all sorts of beauty problems and I like to keep my skin protected even in the Miserable North of England where I’ve been stranded for a few years.

It was thicker than the Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine cream and I thought the Olay 3 Point Regenerist was better than the Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine Cream in a couple of ways. Firstly, it makes my skin feel more moisturized. Second, it makes my skin look better overall.

It wasn’t as thick as the Manuka Doctor Api Nourish Night Cream, and I liked the thinner Olay 3 Point Regenerist better because it glides on easily and doesn’t need to be teamed with an oil or similar to keep my skin hydrated.

Science: The Olay 3 Point Regenerist cream is a peptide cream that contains pentapeptide (matrixyl). This increases collagen production in the skin and thickens skin, helping to plump out lines and eliminate veins and blue circles. When used with an exfoliant (such as glycolic acid, which dissolves dead skin cells and increases cell turnover in the skin) the effects are even better.

The bottom line is, this is my favorite face cream, and definitely replaces the Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden cream I was previously using. The only thing I don’t like about it is the lack of any SPF. You can get it here on Amazon.com

Have you tried Olay Regenerist 3 Point? What did you think of it?

Discontinued? Sanctuary Spa Active Reverse Peptide Protect Day Cream SPF 20

What do you do when when you think a shop has discontinued one of your favourite face creams? I had finished one full jar of the Sanctuary Spa Active Reverse Peptide Protect Day Cream SPF 20 and I’d actually even gotten all the cream off the sides and bottom of the jar. I don’t normally do that, but it was still good and I hadn’t gotten round to buying a new jar yet. I like to rotate products to get multiple benefits, which means I’ve been using it one or two times a week since about August 2015, so it was time to get a new one. It was an integral part of my skincare routine for just over a year, so even though I got it for £10 on offer, I could justify paying full price of £20 this time.

I went to Boots….

And they didn’t have it. They had replaced their entire Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden range of products with new ones. Only they hadn’t replaced the Peptide Protect Day Cream SPF 20 with anything. I checked Sanctuary’s website and there was no mention of the Sanctuary Spa Active Reverse Peptide Protect Day Cream; it’s been discontinued, clearly. And now it’s selling on Amazon for stupid amounts of money. I’m annoyed it’s been discontinued without warning, and that there’s nothing online telling me what to try instead (and of course, the pre-Christmas party season is such a bad time for this to happen!!!), so I decided to do my own investigating.

Firstly, I’m not going to buy discontinued cream, because while I’m sad it’s been discontinued, it’s not a good enough product to cost that much (it’ll only keep getting more expensive if it’s not being made, and it will expire/go inactive, so there’s no point clinging to the past), especially since I only use it once or twice a week, so I thought it was a good time to try some new things.

I’ve decided it’s time to bite the bullet and go for the retinol creams. After all, some websites suggest you should be starting retinol in your late twenties, and I’ve just turned 30 less than a month ago, so it’s time to try it. I like the look of the ROC Retinol Correxion Sensitive Night Cream (that’s for UK Amazon, and holy COW that cream’s cheaper in the US) so I’ve ordered a tube and let’s see how it performs on early expression lines and general skin quality.

A big beauty concern for me is keeping my blue circles under control, and the Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden was one of the ways I did that, because one of the main ingredients in the Sanctuary Spa Active Reverse Peptide Protect Day Cream was Matrixyl, a peptide (Matrixyl is palmitoyl pentapeptide-4), which helps get rid of under-eye circles in combination with allergy remedies, and Matrixyl is also in the Olay Regenerist 3 Point (which I keep meaning to review), so since it’s also a peptide cream, I might switch to that more regularly for my peptide fix; if Olay Regenerist 3 point had an SPF, this would be my everyday day cream, but the reason the Sanctuary one was so good was because it had SPF20.

I’ve said before that wearing a daily SPF is so important for good skincare, not least because it prevents dark circles, which are caused by sun exposure and ageing. I already fight blue circles on a regular basis; I don’t want to be grappling with brown ones, too! Since the ROC retinol cream (a night cream) might make my skin photosensitive, I’ve decided to splurge on the Age Smart by Dermalogica Active Skin Recovery, which is SPF50. I will let you know how it all goes.

Nearly all links on this page go to Amazon UK.