battle of the essences | may coop raw sauce vs. sk-ii facial treatment essence
UPDATE 10/ 18/16: After reading more about Korean skincare, I've learned that the SK-II essence is a first essence and the May Coop raw sauce is a more traditional essence. As both of them have slightly different purposes, perhaps it wasn't fair of me to compare the two. Both are supposed to help products sink in better but have different spots in the typical 10 step Korean skincare routine. But even after learning about the differences, I still stand by this review and would pick the May Coop over the SK-II any day.
After having a few breakouts over the past month, I've picked up the slack in my skincare routine. A product I've started religiously using again is essence (don't know what essence is? read this ITG article) and I've got two in my arsenal-- May Coop's raw sauce and SK-II's facial treatment essence.
I bought May Coop's raw sauce last year in the height of the Korean beauty phenomenon. You can read my first impression's of it in my Sephora VIB haul post. The SK-II essence sample I received as a free sample from influenster, in exchange for my honest thoughts on the product.
Before I start my review, I have a little bit of beef to pick with this SK-II essence. If you follow any bigger bloggers on instagram or use bloglovin', you might have seen one or two or a dozen sponsored posts pimping this essence. And in about 75% of said posts, the bloggers were either pretending they were applying the product atop a full face of makeup or overly-saturating a cotton pad with it (which seems like a massive waste of a $100+ product.) Then cue a litany of readers' questions about the product, "how well does this work," "when do you apply this in your skincare routine," etc. And 9 times out of 10, said questions are met with radio silence by the blogger.
If bloggers are getting paid thousands of dollars to advertise a product, but can't provide any actual helpful information about the product, I'm going to assume it's because either the product was terrible or because it seemed so unappealing they wouldn't even try it.
And the whole point of me complaining about this campaign was to say that I was already biased when I received the SK-II essence from influenster.
Price: Neither of these essences are particularly cheap. May Coop's raw sauce is $43 for 5.07 fl. oz, which breaks down to $8.48/ fl. oz. SK-II's essence comes in various sizes but the smallest is $99 for 2 fl. oz so it's approximately $50/ fl. oz.
Ingredients: May Coop's raw sauce is 93% maple sap. I haven't found much background on the benefits of the sap, but the brand claims its molecules are so small that it absorbs into the skin better than water. You can read the rest of the ingredients at Sephora.
Sk-II's essence is more than 90% pitera, which the brand claims to help the skin's renewal process. You can find the entire list of ingredients here.
Packaging: The packaging on both of these products is so lux. Both are contained in heavy, glass bottles. You definitely feel the hefty price tag whenever you pick up each of these bottles.
Application: I've always read that the best way to reap the benefits of an essence is by rubbing some between your hands, then lightly patting and massaging it onto your skin. This works wonderfully with the May Coop essence as it has just perfect enough of traction. There's some stickiness for maybe 30 seconds or so, but after my skin soaks it all in the stickiness is gone and my skin is hydrated!
The SK-II essence is a whole 'nother story. Because it's almost as thin as water, it slips right off my fingers and about half the product is lost before I'm able to pat it onto my face. I tried using it with by drenching a cotton pad and swiping it all over my face and had better luck. But ultimately a lot of the product is still lost by the cotton pad sucking it all up.
Results: After a few weeks of using May Coop's raw sauce my aunt commented how my skin was glowing. The only thing I had changed in my skincare routine was the addition of this essence. It also helped get rid of a few stubborn dry winter skin patches I had. Overall, I found my skin to be a lot more hydrated and smoother. When I apply it prior to putting on my makeup, it prevented my foundation or concealer from clinging to dried up acne spots-- which is one of my makeup pet peeves.
I did find that the SK-II essence helped hydrate my skin. But because it was so much of a pain to apply, I stopped using it after a week and switched back to May Coop. Perhaps if I used it for a longer period of time I would have seen the same results as I did with May Coop's raw sauce.
The bottom line? Both have nice formulations that help hydrate my skin and prep it for my moisturizer. The main reason I still prefer May Coop's raw sauce because it's much easier to apply and is a better bang for my buck. If you're looking to try it out, they also have a 1.35 fl. oz bottle which is $14.
P.s don't forget to enter my giveaway! Read the original post here
After having a few breakouts over the past month, I've picked up the slack in my skincare routine. A product I've started religiously using again is essence (don't know what essence is? read this ITG article) and I've got two in my arsenal-- May Coop's raw sauce and SK-II's facial treatment essence.
I bought May Coop's raw sauce last year in the height of the Korean beauty phenomenon. You can read my first impression's of it in my Sephora VIB haul post. The SK-II essence sample I received as a free sample from influenster, in exchange for my honest thoughts on the product.
Before I start my review, I have a little bit of beef to pick with this SK-II essence. If you follow any bigger bloggers on instagram or use bloglovin', you might have seen one or two or a dozen sponsored posts pimping this essence. And in about 75% of said posts, the bloggers were either pretending they were applying the product atop a full face of makeup or overly-saturating a cotton pad with it (which seems like a massive waste of a $100+ product.) Then cue a litany of readers' questions about the product, "how well does this work," "when do you apply this in your skincare routine," etc. And 9 times out of 10, said questions are met with radio silence by the blogger.
If bloggers are getting paid thousands of dollars to advertise a product, but can't provide any actual helpful information about the product, I'm going to assume it's because either the product was terrible or because it seemed so unappealing they wouldn't even try it.
And the whole point of me complaining about this campaign was to say that I was already biased when I received the SK-II essence from influenster.
Ingredients: May Coop's raw sauce is 93% maple sap. I haven't found much background on the benefits of the sap, but the brand claims its molecules are so small that it absorbs into the skin better than water. You can read the rest of the ingredients at Sephora.
Sk-II's essence is more than 90% pitera, which the brand claims to help the skin's renewal process. You can find the entire list of ingredients here.
Packaging: The packaging on both of these products is so lux. Both are contained in heavy, glass bottles. You definitely feel the hefty price tag whenever you pick up each of these bottles.
Application: I've always read that the best way to reap the benefits of an essence is by rubbing some between your hands, then lightly patting and massaging it onto your skin. This works wonderfully with the May Coop essence as it has just perfect enough of traction. There's some stickiness for maybe 30 seconds or so, but after my skin soaks it all in the stickiness is gone and my skin is hydrated!
The SK-II essence is a whole 'nother story. Because it's almost as thin as water, it slips right off my fingers and about half the product is lost before I'm able to pat it onto my face. I tried using it with by drenching a cotton pad and swiping it all over my face and had better luck. But ultimately a lot of the product is still lost by the cotton pad sucking it all up.
Results: After a few weeks of using May Coop's raw sauce my aunt commented how my skin was glowing. The only thing I had changed in my skincare routine was the addition of this essence. It also helped get rid of a few stubborn dry winter skin patches I had. Overall, I found my skin to be a lot more hydrated and smoother. When I apply it prior to putting on my makeup, it prevented my foundation or concealer from clinging to dried up acne spots-- which is one of my makeup pet peeves.
I did find that the SK-II essence helped hydrate my skin. But because it was so much of a pain to apply, I stopped using it after a week and switched back to May Coop. Perhaps if I used it for a longer period of time I would have seen the same results as I did with May Coop's raw sauce.
The bottom line? Both have nice formulations that help hydrate my skin and prep it for my moisturizer. The main reason I still prefer May Coop's raw sauce because it's much easier to apply and is a better bang for my buck. If you're looking to try it out, they also have a 1.35 fl. oz bottle which is $14.
P.s don't forget to enter my giveaway! Read the original post here