Etude House Dear Girls Be Clear Moisturizer review

Dear Beauty Diary,

I have a little review on the Etude House Dear Girls Be Clear Moisturizer, which is part of Etude Houses's Summer 2013 collection. Its a day moisturizer with SPF30, PA++, and its main function is to whiten and protect the skin from UV rays. Its also somewhat organic, since the cover has this "5-Free, 5-Vitamin, 7-Organic" label, but its all in Korean, and I can't read it. Its retail price is fairly cheap, since its $10 ($7.84 USD). There's only one type of this moisturizer, without others made for other skin types, or without other shades. However, the packaging, as usual of Etude House, is super cute and girly.

Close up of the cutesy design :)

This moisturizer contains 50g and comes in a pump tube form. Here's the product description:

Formulated with a non-sticky gel type moist base, this whitening + UV protective moisturizer lightly glides onto skin, promoting a milky-white bright complexion.

[Directions] Every day after morning cleansing and toning, smoothly apply along skin texture. Lightly pat to finish.

Firstly, I don't agree with the product description. This moisturizer is a white cream that doesn't blend well into your skin, so it looks white, chalky and pasty on your face. If you layer a BB cream or foundation on top of this moisturizer, it'll make your face look super white, because of the white base of the moisturizer. However, this depends on what type of product you layer onto your skin. If you're lucky, your foundation may work well with this moisturizer, thus giving your face a healthy and radiant glow.

By the way, I know that many people love whitening products and products that make your skin look whiter. I don't feel that this moisturizer whitens, it just makes you look super pale. And especially for Asians, who have darker skin tones with yellow undertones, looking white (not the natural kind of peachy pink white), pale and chalky is not nice. I know, because I am Asian, and this moisturizer just didn't look nice on me. Sighs, oh well. Good thing about the moisturizer is that its very lightweight, even though its in a cream format. And well, I guess you really have to have very fair skin in order to look good with this product.

Swatch of the moisturizer

Ok, this is a moisturizer, but to me, it doesn't moisturize well. However, its not drying either. For dry skin types, this mositurizer may prove to be a little drying. So I suggest using a moisturizer before using this cream. I guess this cream will just become your sunscreen. And yes, I used to use this cream as a sunscreen, since it has SPF in it.

I feel that you need to apply quite a lot of product in order to cover your whole face. For me, I used to use 3 pumps of this moisturizer. However, I realised that no matter how much or little product I use, this moisturizer turns very oily after around 3 hours. I don't really like that.

I keep saying I used to, because I stopped using this moisturizer... Along with many other cosmetics or skincare products that I bought in the past. Its because I have gotten very jittery lately, and keep insisting to myself that I have to use products that are as organic as possible. Pure organic products, such as Suki, is extremely expensive, and I can't afford to haul the whole collection. Shall share in another post which almost 100% organic products I use, for all you organic-loving fans out there.

Etude House says this moisturizer is organic, but after looking through the ingredients list, I could still find ingredients like metals (eg. titanium dioxide), fragrance and a whole lot of polymers. All of these are getting absorbed into your skin and bloodstream. Heavy metals cannot be deposited out of your body, they will just remain in your liver, and may lead to problems with your liver after long usage. Fragrance irritates your skin, and artificial fragrance are made out of esters, a combination of alcohols and carboxylic acids. Polymers are many carbon chains linked together, and you never know the sub-groups or linkages, which may contain harmful products.

I learnt all of these in Organic Chemistry. Not that I am trying to point out Etude House's flaws, since many many many cosmetics include such ingredients. Which is why I got the chills after learning Organic Chemistry a few months ago. If you think all of these are a load of crap, no one's stopping you from continuing to use non-organic products. After all, loads of women use such cosmetics daily, and they haven't died of diseases linked to the long usage of such products. As for me, I just like taking precautions.

Mixed feelings about this moisturizer now. Want to share your thoughts about organic/ non-organic cosmetics?