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Every now and then, I wake up with really tired, puffy eyes. Be it that I had Chinese food for dinner or just didn’t sleep well, I look a hot mess. I used to just tough it out or occasionally use a hot rag on my face to encourage drainage, but now I just reach for this eye gel. The formula is incredibly light and cooling – it feels lovely smoothing it on puffy eyes and sinks right in. I don’t have to wait ages for it to absorb before I can apply my eye makeup, but I do like to give it a few minutes to start working its magic.

And work its magic it does! While it doesn’t give what I’d call instant results (aside from the really pleasant cooling sensation), within a couple of hours, my eyes are no longer puffy, they feel more awake, and they look much brighter. I don’t know how it does it, but I’m truly glad it does!

Since it isn’t terribly moisturizing, I do recommend using an additional eye cream if you need moisture, but I personally can get away with just this on days I feel I need it. On days my eyes feel great already, I just use a regular moisturizing eye cream.

I’m so in love with this eye gel that I can completely disregard the fact it comes in a pot-style package (which is truly a pet peeve of mine – the fact that I can look past it really speaks to how much I love it!). It’s a fairly good size, and given that I only use it on days when I need some definite help in the eye area department, it should last me for quite some time.

This is truly a new Holy Grail product for me. It’s totally going into my permanent rotation, and I highly recommend you try it out!

You can purchase the Adovia Mineral Eye Gel at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Again, I went into this expecting some irritation, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had absolutely ZERO irritation with this serum. I’m not sure how they do it, because I do still feel like it’s doing something – my skin’s tone has become more even and some of the redness I normally deal with has all but disappeared.

The texture of this serum is equally great: liquidy without being completely runny, and it absorbs likety-split into my skin, leaving not a trace of any residue. Once it dries, it feels like I’ve got nothing on my skin at all.

I absolutely love the packaging. The dark glass bottle will keep the product fresh, as will the pump applicator – no exposure to the air! A few quick pumps is a perfect amount for my face and neck, and the pump supplied works great.

Overall, I absolutely love this serum. It surpassed all my expectations from effectiveness to consistency to packaging. I personally prefer it to the last serum I tried, but I’m totally partial to pump dispensers for my skin care products – if you prefer droppers or just don’t like pumps for some reason, definitely check out Mystelic Beauty Nature’s Best Vitamin C Serum. Otherwise, jump on the Pure Body Naturals one. You can’t go wrong!

You can purchase the Pure Body Naturals Vitamin C Serum at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Of course, I do always worry about reactions to new products, since I have very fair, very sensitive skin that tends to respond with redness and irritation quite easily. Having read up on Vitamin C, I was preparing myself for the worst when I got around to trying it, but this serum actually hasn’t been bad. It seems to be very gently formulated, and the additional ingredients appear to be very complimentary to the Vitamin C. I haven’t been using it long enough to see significant benefits, but I have noticed that my skin feels minimally irritated and actually has less redness than it did to start. It does also have a bit more even tone and overall brighter look.

I really like the consistency of this serum – it’s very liquidy and not really moisturizing, so it sinks right into my skin, and I can still wear my normal SPF moisturizer on top of it without getting greasy. It’s definitely been easy and beneficial to incorporate into my daily routine.

It does seem to have an odd scent, though. Kind of herbal, plant-like…it’s not wonderful, but it also isn’t strong or lingering. I’m sure it’s just the natural scent of some of the ingredients, since it doesn’t smell unnatural or overwhelming.

The packaging is solid – it comes in a glass bottle and with a separate dropper that you use to replace the standard screw-top. It’s tinted glass, so that should help to prevent the product from oxidizing, but I will still be keeping it in a cupboard out of the light (light will cause Vitamin C to very quickly break down and not only become useless but actually harmful to the skin). The dropper dispenses an absolutely perfect amount of product to cover my face and neck, as well.

Overall, I really like this serum and will definitely be keeping it in my rotation. If you’re looking for a nice, solid, very light Vitamin C serum that doesn’t force you to suffer through an adjustment period, this one definitely fits the bill!

You can purchase the Mystelic Beauty Nature’s Best Vitamin C Serum at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

In that regard, this is a fantastic product. It’s very light – closer to a lotion consistency than a typical cream, and it absorbs quickly. It moisturizes my skin plenty, and it does seem to have a bit of a brightening effect, as it claims. I can’t attest to any real long-term benefits, as I haven’t used it very consistently, but given the light moisturizing quality, I’m sure that it would encourage at least a slight improvement in the skin quality of your eye area.

The one major complaint I have is that it doesn’t sit well under makeup, and since that’s a touted benefit, I think it’s absolutely worth bringing up. I tried a few different concealers over it, and they all caused the product to ball and pill on my skin – one of my all-time greatest beauty pet peeves. If you don’t wear any undereye concealer, then this can definitely work as a daytime product for you, but if you apply anything at all under your eyes during the day, this will strictly be a nighttime eye cream. This is the main reason I haven’t managed to use it consistently…since I tend not to wear much on my face at night (again, I don’t have dry skin, and I also prefer to let it breathe while I sleep), I just haven’t used it a whole lot. If it didn’t have this issue with my makeup, I would have used it daily without hesitation.

For anyone that does consistently use skin care at night or doesn’t wear much makeup, I’d say this is a very nice eye cream for people that don’t need intense hydration. It’s a lovely consistency and – at least instantly – does do what it claims in boosting radiance. I’ll definitely keep using it on days I go makeup-free or nights when my skin is feeling a little dry.

You can purchase the Foxbrim Youthful Radiance Eye Cream at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

So I’m going in expecting to be pleased, and I was overwhelmed! This is hands-down the most moisturizing bar soap I have ever tried, and I’ve used absolutely wonderful, hand-made, cold-processed goat’s milk soaps. Don’t expect this soap to rinse squeaky clean – it leaves a slight film of something softening on your skin that soaks right in as soon as it’s dried. You don’t feel anything but smooth, supple skin after you wash with this. I can definitely skip moisturizer on my face when I use it to wash away the day, and I don’t find my hands drying out nearly as much as they do with normal bar soaps – or even other good ones.

It’s also a hefty, solid bar that’s incredibly long-lasting. Most of the really moisturizing bar soaps I’ve tried have melted away quite easily, especially if left in damp places (like the shower). This one just keeps going and going…I’ve used it multiple times a day for nearly two weeks straight now, and you’d hardly be able to tell by looking at it – the logo has barely worn smooth.

About the only thing that approaches a negative for me is the scent. It’s very reminiscent of “old lady perfume” smells to me – that really heavy, heady floral-type fragrance. It’s incredibly strong in this soap, so much so that it constantly fills the room with the scent, even when you aren’t using it. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t linger much on the skin, so I don’t wind up smelling it all day long. Thanks to that, I really don’t have much of a complaint about the smell.

Honestly, it’s hard to say anything bad about this product – I absolutely love it, the price is reasonable, and I’m definitely prepared to order more!

You can purchase the Adovia Moisturizing Mineral Soap at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Before this product came my way, I’d never tried an Argan oil before. My oil of choice for some time has been jojoba – with the occasional addition of some coconut oil, but I think I may just have to add Argan oil into the rotation now! The Uni Argan Oil comes in a little bottle with a dropper cap. This is absolutely my favorite type of packaging for an oil, as it allows me to easily and hygienically dispense tiny drops of the product exactly where I want it. The bottle arrived safely and securely wrapped in bubble wrap and seals tightly – there wasn’t a single leak to be found.

The reason I’m such a fan of jojoba oil is because of how incredibly fast it absorbs. The molecule is so similar to natural skin oils that it’s readily soaked up as you rub it in, leaving your skin free from greasy fingers within minutes. I use coconut oil as a deep treatment – it’s very moisturizing, but it also tends to more sit on top of your skin rather than soak in. The Uni Argan Oil falls somewhere in between the two – it doesn’t absorb quite as quickly as jojoba oil, but it also does eventually soak in, unlike the coconut oil. For this reason, I like it best as an overnight treatment on days when I don’t need the intensity of coconut oil. Putting it on my cuticles before bed leaves me with supple, soft fingertips come morning.

On the negative side, I am a little bit put off by the scent of this product. It has a really strange fruity-earthy smell that isn’t very nice. It may be something that you get used to over time, but since I’m not planning to use it on a daily basis, I’m not expecting to acquire a tolerance. Since I haven’t used any other Argan oil products, I can’t say if this is a normal scent for Argan oil across the board or if it’s unique to the Uni Argan Oil.

All told, I love this oil and will use it often. It works wonderfully to soften and hydrate my cuticles, and I plan to give it a try on my face as well, since I think it would work fantastically as a deep treatment around the eyes.

You can purchase the Uni Argan Oil at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

In that regard, I absolutely love the Adovia Mineral Lift Serum. It is almost unbelievably light and perfectly fast-absorbing. In fact, for my skin, I could almost skip moisturizer when I use this and would actually prefer how my skin feels. It absorbs completely leaving no feeling of product on my skin in a matter of minutes – I can’t say I’ve ever used any other product on my face that didn’t sit on my skin, leaving a heavy, coated feeling (even moisturizers don’t seem to soak in on me no matter how light they are). I’ve been using it daily, and it hasn’t left me feeling oily any earlier in the day than usual and may even be helping to keep it balanced and normal longer. Since I don’t have even remotely dry skin nor do I have much along the lines of wrinkles to speak of, I can’t really attest to any anti-aging benefits it might have, but the mere fact that it seems to keep me from getting as oily as usual is more than enough benefit for me to continue using it as part of my daily routine.

Unfortunately, my thoughts aren’t all positive. The packaging this serum comes in feels decidedly cheap. I actually had to play with it a bit – untwisting and re-closing it a couple of times – just to get the pump working to dispense the product. Even though it has a silver look, the pump is totally plastic and feels flimsy, even moreso than a drugstore skincare product’s packaging. Thankfully I could get it working, so at least there’s that. And I do prefer pumps over tubs or other styles of packaging that require you to actually touch the product inside to get it out – a pump is the most hygienic way to dispense skin care. I do have to wonder how long the pump will hold up, though, given how cheap it seems. I also have my doubts about how much of the product I’ll be able to dispense with this pump and how much would be wasted if I don’t open it up at the end.

If only the pump didn’t feel so cheap, I’d be all over this product. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing if there are any long-term benefits to using it (say, a more even skin tone), but even if there aren’t, I adore how it makes my skin feel instantly, keeping oiliness at bay without being able to feel a trace of it on my face.

You can purchase the Adovia Mineral Lift Serum at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

After just recently reviewing another company's mud mask, I thought this was the perfect time to try out this one and compare. I’ll begin with some general thoughts on this mask, and then I’ll get to the comparison…

First off, I wasn’t too impressed with the packaging. I don’t like tubs to begin with, and especially with something like a mask (which you would definitely want to remain hygienic), it’s a huge disappointment for me. I can tolerate it with a body butter, as the skin on your body is usually less reactive to germ exposure than the skin on your face, but I get really squicked by face products that come in tubs. I imagine I’ll be able to use this mask maybe a handful of times before I start to worry the product has been too contaminated to continue using on my face without prompting a breakout.

Getting past the packaging, the next thing I was confronted with was the smell. This mask has an incredibly strong scent – one of the major ingredients is eucalyptus oil, and you can’t miss the menthol odor at all, but it also has a strong earthy smell from the mud. I’ve used plenty of mud masks over the course of my life, and many had no strong odor, so there must be ways to get around the earthiness present in the mud. When combined with the intense eucalyptus, it’s not all that pleasant… I do enjoy the smell of menthol (as I’ve mentioned in the past, I love using tea tree oil as skincare), so if that was the only detectable scent, I’m sure it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. It’s the combination with the mud smell that takes things into questionable territory.

Fortunately, the product itself doesn’t fall flat. This is what I expect from a mud mask: thick, dense consistency that sits heavy on the face and dries really solid to the point that it’ll crack if you move your face too much. It really feels like it’s pulling out anything trapped in my pores without parching my skin, and after rinsing it off, I was left with a squeaky-clean feel that was fresh but not at all tight. In this regard, I think the eucalyptus oil is a brilliant addition to the formula – it really works well with the mud to purify the skin. I also love how it seems to calm some of the redness in my skin, leaving it very even-toned and almost glowy. Pure & Essential Minerals has done an excellent job of including ingredients that condition the skin without being too moisturizing, with the end result being what I consider to be the perfect mud mask.

Overall, I’m of a mixed opinion on this mask. If only the packaging and scent weren’t so off-putting, I’d definitely repurchase this and add it to my usual rotation because the formula truly is awesome.

As compared to the Adovia mask I recently tried, I think the results end up being a wash… The squeeze-tube packaging Adovia uses is far-and-away my preference, and it doesn’t have any significant odor, but the formula was just okay and not what I expect from a mud mask. I’d much rather use the Pure & Essential Minerals mask for the results it gives, if only it also came in a squeeze-tube. I could probably look past the odor if the packaging were better, since the formula is so great.

You can purchase the Pure & Essential Minerals Dead Sea Mud Mask at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

Having tried the mask only a few times, I can’t speak to any long-term benefits of regular use, but I can say that it is a quality mud mask. If you’re expecting a mask that is really astringent for super-oily skin, this won’t fit your bill; however, if you have any other skin type, I think this will be perfect. This is the one area where I think the product falls short: it’s advertised as being targeted to oily, acne-prone skin, and I just don’t see it suiting such a skin type well. I’ve used plenty of masks aimed towards oily skin, thanks to spending all of my teens years with very oily skin (though fortunately it wasn’t acne-prone – just slick), and this mask does not function like them at all. It doesn’t seem to draw out a lot of oil, though it is refreshing, and now that I don’t really have oily skin (I’d say it’s more normal than anything these days), I would’ve expected a mask geared towards oily skin to leave mine a tad dry-feeling – this definitely didn’t.

It has a normal mud mask texture, but I love that it doesn’t dry stiff and crackle-y like most mud masks tend to do. It really feels like it cleans out my pores (hence the “Purifying” in the name), and all of the other ingredients do an excellent job of simultaneously conditioning my skin. The end result is very clean, smooth feeling skin that’s softened – neither dry nor oily. Consequently, I would actually recommend this mask for skin types that are anything but oily; if you’d like a mask that really cleans your skin and leaves it fresh but not at all dry, this product will be perfect for you. If you’re going in expecting more – for it to really draw the oil out of your skin and leave it squeaky clean – you’re going to be disappointed.

Finally, I can’t testify too much on its supposed anti-acne properties, as I’ve never in my life had acne-prone skin. However, I do occasionally have a blemish or two, and this seems to have drawn a couple out so that the pores could be cleared and the skin heal. I think most mud masks are capable of that, though, so I’m not sure how this one is really much better than any others.

At $33 retail, it’s not cheap, but it’s certainly not what I would consider pricey, especially because it’s a very large amount of product in the package – a full five ounces plus. There are plenty of masks that are half the size and twice the cost, so I’d say this particular mask is an excellent value.

Overall, it’s a good, solid mud mask at a reasonable price, so while in my opinion, it doesn’t necessarily meet the advertising claims, it’s something I’m happy to have on hand. Because this mask clearly suits my current skin type, I definitely plan to use it regularly and would absolutely consider purchasing it again as a staple for my beauty arsenal.

You can purchase the Adovia Purifying Mud Mask at Amazon.I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.