Products that Didn’t Work for Me: Dr Lewinn’s Luminosity Range & Skin Inc. Vitamin

Hi beauties! Today I’m going to tell you about some products which unfortunately didn’t work for me. That of course doesn’t mean they won’t work for someone out there, but I won’t be repurchasing these goodies.

Dr Lewinn’s Eternal Youth Luminosity line. This is a line of products I received as part of a trial. You don’t have to worry about me being swayed by PR companies and beauty brands – usually the products I get to test out, don’t suit me at all LOL! That’s unfortunately what happened to me this time around also. Dr Lewinn’s is an Australian skin care line (though their products aren’t manufactured in Aus which is a shame) and they’ve never drawn me in. The have updated their image a few times in the past couple of years, but I still find the ‘look’ of the brand to be a bit dated (it’s like they are trying to hard to appeal to younger consumers). I do love brightening ranges when it comes to skin care products, so I was excited to trial this range regardless. Unfortunately, it didn’t go to well. Let’s start with the moisturiser first!

The Luminosity Day & Night Cream has a very light texture and upon application it feels nice and cooling on the skin. It doesn’t however, feel moisturising at all. And the weirdest part is that it ‘sets’ like a makeup product. If you apply a generous amount of the cream on your face (as the directions suggest) you will find that the cream once ‘set’, looks very streaky. It leaves this velvety, powdery texture behind (almost like a mattifying primer). It could be starch in the formula,that is responsible for this. Whatever it is, I do no like it. Actually, no let’s rephrase that. I hate it. Added to that, it has loads of shimmer. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go to bed with shimmer on my face. I also want a moisturiser to feel moisturising – otherwise what is the point?!? Please tell me! It’s like a cruel cruel joke… It’s one of the most bizarre creams I have ever tried.

It does have some cool ingredients in it’s formula, like 24 karat gold, diamond powder and hydrolyzed pearl. It also contains glycolic and lactic acid, but they are right at the end of the ingredient list, so we can assume there isn’t enough in there to do anything. The shimmer must be from the mica, which is pretty high in the ingredient list. I certainly don’t find this moisturiser to be moisturising enough for daily use, let alone night use (as suggested on the box) so I won’t be finishing the product up. Oh and I should mention that the cream is quite fragrant. It has a fresh floral scent which I personally don’t mind, but it might not the be the best for sensitive skin.

Above: Ingredients of the Luminosity Day & Night Cream

The serum in the line, L is a little better, in that the golden shimmer within the formula isn’t as noticeable on the skin. It’s quite gold when you dispense some of the product (it’s great the serum is housed in a pump bottle) but again, for a serum it doesn’t feel particularly moisturising. I really don’t like it when a skin care products try and cross over into the cosmetic category, trying to make your skin look ‘instantly’ better by the use of shimmer or badly coloured tints. I didn’t notice a difference in my skin after a few uses and I’m not really inclined to give up my regular trusted serums in place of this.

Above: Dr Lewinn’s Luminosity Day & Night Golden Essence

Above: Ingredients of the Luminosity Day & Night Golden Essence

The Luminosity Day & Night Eye Cream is probably my favourite product out of the three. The eye cream as a night metal, cooling applicator and the eye cream feels pretty soothing. It is very pearly however, so if I’m not wearing makeup and use this eye cream on my dark circles, it looks like I have placed highlighter on top of them, bringing even more attention to them. I don’t like to be cheap when using eye creams, so this is a shame. It does have some nice ingredients in the formula like, niacinamide (it’s number two in the ingredient list which is great!), jojoba oil, coconut oil, squalene and licorice root extract (though this is very far down the list). It also bizarrely contains pea extract lol The eye cream is also fragranced, which means it could be troublesome for sensitive eyes.

Above: Ingredients of Luminosity Day & Night Eye Cream

Each of these products retails for $70, which is quite a lot for a pharmacy brand. I may keep the eye cream, but I’m not sure yet. My eyes have been a little sensitive lately (because of my retinol + vitamin K experiment) and I think the cream may irritate my eyes more.

The next product I tested out was Skin Inc. Vitamin A Serum (regenerate). I looove the look of Skin Inc’s serums. I also love that all of their products are made in Japan. The philosophy of the brand is that you can use an individual serum to meet your skin’s needs or you can customise a serum by mixing together 3 active ingredients.

This is a retinol product (vitamin A), containing 0.1% retinol. It was the first retinol product I started to use around my eyes and I didn’t experience any irritation what so ever. The reason it didn’t work for me in the long run is that I use my Futurederm Time-Release Retinol every second night and as it contains 0.5% retinol, I didn’t notice any difference in my skin using the Skin Inc. serum. The retinol in the serum is also combined with palmitic acid (a fatty acid) which waters down the efficiency of the retinol. I’m guessing they did this, so it would be even gentler on the skin, but because retinol isn’t as effective as prescription versions of vitamin A, what’s the point of it being so weak? This would be however, a great serum to use if you have very sensitive skin and the thought of using retinol scares you. If you have used retinol in the past and find your skin adapts to it easily, I would skip this serum, especially since it isn’t cheap, I believe a 20ml bottle costs around $130 (it’s hard to find the exact price in Aus dollars online, so I could be a little off – I know Sephora in Australia has started selling Skin Inc, but as they don’t have an online store yet, I can’t double check the price).

Now I need to mention something that bothered me greatly. I was asked on Instagram what I thought of the Skin Inc. serums (by another beauty blogger) and I gave my honest opinion. I mentioned that I had only tried the vitamin A serum and that for me, it wasn’t strong enough to make a difference (being 0.1%) and that it was pricey. I also mentioned that I love the concept of mixing different ingredients together for a customised serum and that maybe the other serums would be better. A few days later, someone from Skin Inc replied to my comment and basically told me that I was wrong and that their serums aren’t 0.1% and what they are is very stable and effective. It was very passive aggressive and I did not appreciate it at all. I replied stating that I was only talking about the vitamin A serum as I had not tried any others from their line. I also know that the vitamin A serum is 0.1% because I emailed Skin Inc and that’s what they told me (since it’s not written on the packaging). I was so surprised because a skincare company should know that not every product is going to work for everybody. I was honest with my opinion and I didn’t bag out the brand at all. That’s a PR fail in my book. I have heard actually, that their Licorice Serum is very highly concentrated (this was coming from Futurederm so I trusted the opinion, though I don’t know exactly what the concentration is)  containing more Licorice than any other product on the market, but now I’m put off trying anymore of their products.

Does anyone know what the little coloured beads are in their serums? I love the look of them, but I am baffled as to what they actually are lol

Have you been tempted by any of the products above? What has let you down lately?

Catch ya next time beauties,

Beauty Bee~

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