Product Review: Clinique 3 Step Skin Care System (Skin Type 2 Dry-Combi)

While makeup make us feel good about ourselves and can sometimes boost one's ego, nothing will beat having good skin. As I always tell my friends, the face is already a beautiful canvass and you need to just enhance whatever is there with makeup. But of course, if you have blemished skin, it will need more than just enhancing and might need more covering up instead. I am not saying I have perfect skin, so please don't get me wrong when I say I still feel lucky to have been blessed with skin that isn't acne prone.

I never experienced having a lot of pimples all over my face during my adolescent years. Some of my classmates then had a really bad case of acne and I saw how some of our schoolmates reacted to it and it wasn't a pleasant reaction at all. Some were made fun of behind their backs and it wasn't funny. Back then, I never really bothered taking care of my skin and I only used milk soap and Tender Care baby powder on my face.

But as I got older, I realized how important it is to take care of your skin so I started trying stuff on my face. I have read several posts from people saying how having blemished skin affected their self esteem and I honestly feel bad whenever I read posts like that. I have had my share of break outs with some of the products I have tried. Name it - Pond's, Garnier, Olay, Clean and Clear, Skinfood, Etude House, etc.

See, the problem with most of us is that even though we have already found products that work miracles on our skin, we are never satisfied that we keep on trying new products but still end up going back to those that worked for us. I am guilty of that too. So when I was offered to try some of Clinique's products, I immediately said yes. I was skintyped to have dry-combi skin which is Type 2. So here are the samples I have received and tried from this line.

Step 1: Liquid Facial Soap - Mild

Step 2: Clarifying Lotion

Step 3: Dramatically Different Moisturizer

The experience:

I was really excited to try these products. I have used the Mild Facial Soap and the 7-Day Scrub Cream Rinse Off Formula before and really liked them but I thought they were expensive so I stopped using them and stuck with my organic and facial soaps which gave me satisfactory results.

First use - After using the mild liquid soap, I thought my face wasn't squeaky clean so I used the clarifying lotion to remove the excess dirt and for exfoliation. While waiting for it to dry, I noticed my nose and the skin around it was red and oiling up but I shrugged it off and applied the DDML. It felt greasy but I thought that's how it was supposed to be like. I woke up the following day with moisturized but really greasy and oily face, which I never do when I use water-based moisturizer (Celeteque).

Second use - I noticed having red spots and patches on my face. I know that there is this "purging stage" which I personally never believed in. But still continued to do the three steps. I woke up the following day with super oily and greasy skin. Our helper asked me if I applied baby oil on my face and my aunt asked what I did this time. I checked out my face on the mirror and it looked awful because that was by far the oiliest face I've ever had. I then washed my face only to see allergies on my nose, chin, cheeks, and forehead. Still greasy even after cleansing.

I stopped using these products for about a week to give my skin time to heal. After a week, I started using it again religiously for a week. I got the same results - greasy with red spots all over the face.

Overall, I don't think these products work for me. It could be that I am not really skin type 2. I admit my cheeks get dry and patchy but only on cold months. They do not get as oily as my T-Zone though but there's still shine on most days of the year. I honestly don't believe the purging stage for myself because I know my skin well. Once it reacts on a product, it will never be in harmony with it. It will continuously get irritated that's why I had to stop using these after a whole week of testing. I really wanted to like this skin care system (because I have always loved Clinique Happy and have been using it for 10 years now) but it's just not the right one for me. It may very well work for those who have dry skin though.




Have you found the perfect skin care products for you?

Happy Manic Monday! :P