(04-10-2019, 10:26 AM)Jetset Wrote: So I mentioned the Brickell products last year. I'm well into my 30s and have been gradually ramping up my skincare routine, and have seen results and gotten compliments, so I thought I'd throw out what I've learned so far:
A free product sample kit is available in the United States here, and they also have a scheduled subscription delivery service that includes a small discount. You can also buy them all on Amazon.
https://brickellmensproducts.com/product...ample-kits
Upsides: Brickell product ingredients lists all exclude "petrochemicals, sulfates, parabens, phthalates, synthetic fragrance or color, TEA, DEA, Glycols, silicones, or PEGs". I'm not one of those "all chemicals are bad" people, but known endocrine disruptors are a good thing to get rid of where you can, so this is a selling point. Most of the products have appealing textures and inoffensive, masculine citrus/mint/tea tree scents.
Downsides: Brickell isn't open about active ingredient percentages. In a few cases, which I'll explain below, this is pushing me to try cheaper competing products from The Ordinary.
What I'm using regularly and like so far:
- Shampoo and Conditioner: I started here. I tried a thickening shampoo and conditioner from another brand that contained silicones that were making my scalp break out, and the clean ingredient formulation in this brand sounded promising. The shampoo is a gentle cleanser meant for daily use and it took some time to get used to my hair not being "squeaky clean", but overall I think it's a huge improvement. My hair smells good, feels good, and as I grow it back longer for a fuller hairstyle, I'm finding it behaves better throughout the day than it did when it was more stripped.
- Face Washes: I've tried both the foaming cleanser and the oil/charcoal cleanser. I think they're both good products but I found the foaming cleanser to be too drying and instead use the charcoal and olive oil cleanser. It turns out that using something that doesn't strip the oils off my face calms my skin down and discourages it from churning out more by the end of the day.
- Hand Balm: Awesome product. I live in the Rust Belt and winters are desert-dry. I keep this at my desk and while it's hard to dispense because it's so thick, it soaks in instantly and stops my hands from splitting.
- Wax Pomade: This is probably the densest pomade I've ever seen. Multiple waxes are a top line ingredient, it washes out easily, and it leaves a slight shine. I don't use it regularly, but if I know I have a lot of wind and sweat ahead of me where my hair will get wrecked, I rub my fingertips in it to get just a little and scratch my head lightly until all the wax is distributed, then style as normal. There are probably other products out there I would like better, but the jar has lasted a long time and it's exactly what some people would want.
- Daily Essential Moisturizer: I bought this because I have small rosacea-like broken blood vessels on my cheeks and niacinimide was suggested as an effective ingredient. I don't know how well that has worked, but the moisturizer itself does a great job and a woman actually became irritated by how much my complexion improved from using it. It contains hyaluronic acid and a blend of other popular, if sometimes unproven, ingredients like vitamin E, MSM and DMAE. It soaks in quickly and leaves no residue, and you can buy a smaller travel-size bottle. If you want a one-stop skincare product, this is probably a pretty good one. No SPF.
- Anti-Aging Night Cream: This is a much heavier moisturizer with similar ingredients to the Daily Essentials lotion, but no niacinimide. It's in a base of shea butter, and has the thick consistency you'd expect. (There is also a day cream version with vitamin C and borage oil for people who want that, instead of the moisturizing lotion.)
- Face Scrub: Does what it says. Mild exfoliating scrub with pumice and jojoba beads. Expensive as scrubs go, but the price is in line with other "clean"-formula scrubs and it lasts a while.
With that said, if you want to go further down the rabbit hole on skin care products, there are a couple of products I tried in the sample pack that seem to work, but can't be justified at all:
- Day and Night Serums: At $55/ounce and $75/ounce respectively, this is ridiculous. These products work - I've been getting compliments on looking "brighter" since I started using the samples for a couple of weeks - but many of the ingredients are redundant to the regular moisturizers and you don't know the actual percentages of the active ingredients. In addition, the day serum contains witch hazel, which some people like, but others react badly to. You can buy several ounces of the key active ingredients, niacinimide and matrixyl for daytime use and vitamin C with alpha arbutin for nighttime use, from The Ordinary at a fraction of the cost of one ounce of these.
- Eye Balm: In competing products, caffeine seems to be the active ingredient for reducing dark circles under the eyes after a rough night. Again, it includes many redundant ingredients already present in the moisturizers and serums - for $40. I have no way of being sure if caffeine is effective for this, but if I still want it when I run out of the free sample, The Ordinary sells Caffeine + EGCG solution for $6.70. Boom. Done.
I'm probably going to test out the Brickell sunscreen moisturizer with The Ordinary's niacinimide, as well as the Ordinary's "Natural Moisturizing Factors" for $5.80, to see if I should replace the daily moisturizer and/or maybe get out of applying a separate daily sunscreen.
Vitamin c for the face is pretty unproven. Why use that but not the stuff that is proven? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/well/...owe%20said.