Review: Cetaphil DermaControl Oil Control Foam Wash

Price: $9.87 from Walmart

What they say:
- Clinically proven to effectively remove excess oil, impurities and make-up that can clog pores and lead to breakouts
- Gentle enough for everyday use
- Formulated for acne-prone skin
- Calming formula won't over-dry skin

What to do: Massage foam onto damp skin. Rinse.

What's in it: Water, Zinc Coceth Sulfate, Glycerin, Peg-75, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate, Zinc Gluconate, Peg-200 Hydrogenated Glyceryl Palate, Peg-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Peg-7 Glyceryl Cocoate, Sodium Benzoate, Masking Fragrance, Disodium Edta.

The good stuff:

• Pump dispenser
• Gentle foam
• Leaves skin feeling clean and refreshed
• Does not dry out my skin
• Definitely helped control my oily skin
• Helps cut back on shine
  

The low-down:

• None!
  

My take: I bought this because (as I've mentioned previously) I'm battling with terribly oily skin and breakouts since being off BCP for the past several months. In an attempt to get my skin back under control, I've been actively seeking out oil/shine-controlling products and I came across this at my local Walmart!

I cannot stress enough that I am SO glad I came across this product. It has worked WONDERS for me. Before, not even a 2 hours after applying makeup, my entire face would be a shiny mess. After using this foam wash for a few days, there was an IMMEDIATE difference in my skin. The oilyness was dramatically cut back and I was no longer shiny after only a few hours. As long as I set my face with powder, I have little-to-no shine all day. I have been using this for the past month or so and it has really helped my skin!

I use about 1 1/2 pumps of this face wash. It's nice and foamy and lathers well. After using it, my skin feels clean and refreshed. It also leaves my skin feeling a bit "tightened," but not stripped and dry. Even after continued use, this does not dry out my skin or have any other adverse effects. One thing to note though is that although it says it is formulated for acne-prone skin, I cannot say it helped decrease my breakouts though. But I think that is just another thing I'm going to have to deal with until my hormones stop fluctuating :x

Would I repurchase/recommend?

I would without a doubt repurchase this face wash! I absolutely love it and it has made such a difference in my skin. I would highly recommend this cleanser to people with oily skin and who want to control shine.

The Rundown:

Packaging: 5/5
Easy pump dispenser bottle.

Product: 5/5
Worked excellent for me! Definitely helped control my oil and made a difference with the condition of my skin!

Price: 5/5
Affordable.

Overall:

[ click here to read about my Review & Rating System ]

Homemade gelatin pore mask VS pore strips

I've touched a few times upon the chaotic state of my skin lately -- VERY oily, clogged pores, breakouts all over, etc. -- I recently started a new BCP, which I'll probably share my thoughts on later... It's my (I think?) 4th or 5th attempt at battling my PMDD (see this post for more info about PMDD) and I'm hoping it will start helping with clearing up my skin soon :x

Anywho, I just wanted to share my experience with a homemade gelatin pore mask. I had seen various youtube videos and read posts on this method of unclogging pores, and decided I'd give it a shot since I had Knox gelatin at home. When it comes to food-stuffs for your face; I'm pretty willing to try just about anything as long as it doesn't seem dangerous :P

All you need for this is:

• 1 tbsp powdered unflavored gelatin
  
• 1 tbsp milk

You're supposed to mix the aforementioned ingredients in a microwave safe bowl, throw it in the microwave for 10 seconds, then apply to your face in the desired areas with a brush (preferably one you don't mind getting gunky and/or throwing away). Then leave on for 30 minutes or until dry, and peel off.

I've read numerous reviews saying warmed milk is absolutely rank smelling and other people said they substituted plain water or green tea for the milk. So I opted for green tea since it has antioxidant properties. Unfortunately for me, IT STILL SMELLED TERRIBLE :| I'm not sure if it's just how it combines with the gelatin... but Idk, it smells grossss :( In hindsight, I think I should have waited awhile longer for the tea to cool down after I brewed it (I only waited about 10 minutes so it was still pretty warm -- figured it would be the same as if I had used cold tea & microwaved it) before I mixed it in. The gelatin pretty much instantly started to congeal and I had sort of a hard time evenly spreading it on my face.

Once on my face, I had to deal with the smell :x I got used to it but it was still not pleasant. I put the mask on/around my nose, on my chin, and on some problem areas on my forehead and cheeks. A lot of it was sort of clumpy and not evenly applied but it did dry relatively quickly, faster than 3o minutes but I just lounged around with it on anyway :P

Now peeling it off was the traumatic part. IT WAS SOOO PAINFUL!!! I think if I had a better consistency to start with, I would have been able to apply it more evenly and would have had an easier time pulling it off. But it was still really sore.

The "good" thing is that it feels like it ripped out every single baby hair on my face, so my skin was really smooth and clean looking afterwards. Surprisingly, it did not get red or itchy like I usually get with pore strips. The disappointing thing though, was that it did not seem to pull anything out of my pores!!!! When I use regular pore strips, I don't get a lot of gunk coming out; but at least I get SOMETHING. I couldn't seem to detect anything at all on the peeled-off gelatin mask. A bit bummed because the "fun" (okay maybe that's kinda gross but it is interesting!!!) part about doing peel-off masks is seeing all the stuff it takes out of your skin!

So overall I was pretty disappointed with my experience with a homemade gelatin mask. For the amount of pain involved in peeling it off, I was sure it would have really cleaned out my pores. But it seems that it didn't do anything.

On a whim, I decided I'd try to use face strips right after and see if it could pick anything up. I had one last Biore face strip so I cut it into pieces and put one on my nose, forehead, and chin. The forehead and chin strips came out clean, but the nose strip did in fact pull out some gunk!!!! I put it in the same area as the gelatin mask, so I KNOW the mask was not effective at pulling it out.

So overall I'm under the impression that the homemade gelatin mask is NOT as effective as actual pore strips. The biore pore strips are less painful also. I think I'd rather spend the extra cash and get actual results rather than waste gelatin and not get any results. From what I read of others experiences, it seems to work for some people, but just not effectively enough for me. I'd say it is worth a shot though if you have clogged pores!

NOTD: Revlon Whimsical over Hard Candy Sky

My sister from another mister Serenie gifted me with Revlon Whimiscal polish! It looks so pretty and cute in the bottle but it's very VERY sheer and the glitter comes out really sparse so it requires a few coats to get a nice distribution of glitter.

Whimsical is made up of a super sheer milky blue base with pink and blue chunky hexagonal glitters and blue microglitter. I layered it over Hard Candy's Sky which is a pretty pale baby blue with very fine shimmer. I love baby pink/blue combos so I think it came out pretty cute with some added deco :)

On another note, I need new topcoat! Definitely going to pick up a bottle of Seche Vite. The topcoat I have now has a lot of bubbles :(

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