Day 11: BC SPA Facial Regenerating Tonic with PHAs
Okay, let's be honest: most of you saw that it was the tonic being reviewed today, and were more than a little disappointed. Some of your more appropriate responses (just because you didn't say it out loud doesn't mean that it's not a response!) were: "UGH!" "Lamesauce." "But WHYYYYY?!?!" "She's wasting my time." "I refuse to waste my time." and "NEXT!" No need to get your nickers in a twist, because by the end of this post you will be married to your tonic of choice as well. And I don't mean the kind you add gin to. Although if you want to sip gin while applying your tonic, don't let me stop you. What happens in your bathroom can stay in your bathroom!
Here's the deal: basic skincare isn't that complicated. In a fact, anyone can follow along, since the steps are pretty self-explanatory. Your cleanser cleans, your exfoliant exfoliates, and your moisturizer moisturizes. You may not understand why you should use each step, but it's clear what they do. Except your tonic. It gets you drunk? That's definitely not right. I hope. Please don't drink your tonic, bad things will probably happen. And not the coyote ugly kind of bad, either. (If you don't get the reference, you need to re-watch the movie in all of its white trash glory).
So what does your tonic do? And why is it tonic and not toner? And what does toner do? Why are they different? And why are we all SO confused about this? We buy it, because it's part of the set, and then it always just sits there while we use up every other skin care product & neglect the drugstore toner from our teenage years, which means it's likely not useful at that point either. (If it is, then I'm pretending that I don't know that I'm at least a decade older than you. Move on.) Poor toner. And tonic.
There's always a lot of debate and mis-information regarding toners & tonics, but this is what I've narrowed down for you tonics are in the toner family, but not all toners are tonics. Like the Christians/Catholics dilemma. Follow? Basically, a toner and a tonic will both:
- clear pores (that's why your cotton pad always looks dirty even though you just washed your face)
- help refine pores over time
- loosen the glue holding dead skin cells on your face so that they come off easier (it's a chemical exfoliant: hel-lo AHAs & PHAs!)
- encourage new cell growth (you'll be ID'd everywhere in no time! Like me, trying to buy champagne for new year's at the in-laws. Nothing says underage drinking at a family party where I'm the youngest! I don't care what anyone says, after more than a decade it stopped being flattering & started being inconvenient. Especially when the cashier is so rude about it. I know that it's her job to ask, but you do NOT need to be rude to do your job. I'm over it, obviously).
- I actually lost my train of thought, because now all I can think about is that woman who was SO rude & condescending when she asked for my ID & then started sucking up when she saw my birthdate. I'm so sorry that it took me longer to fish out my drivers license because it's wrapped in a giant piece of paper that proves it's still legal for me to drive even though the date on the card is expired. It's called renewing your license, and I'm sure she has to do it at some point in time too. It's not my fault that mine had to be renewed right before Christmas - I chose neither my birthdate nor the expiry date, and believe me if I could choose either one, they wouldn't have been at the busiest time of the year! Rude. I've worked in the service industry since I was 14 and even younger if you count baby, dog, and cat sitting. I understand that everyone has bad days, but there's no excuse for that kind of attitude. Your attitude is your business & your business is your livelihood, so get over your attitude quick or you won't have a business or a livelihood to be grumpy about! Ok I think my rant is over. About that tonic...
- helps to even skin tone
- prevents & clears up breakouts (this has to do with cleaning & refining your pores, but it's so important to me that I think it deserves its own bullet).
- I can't think of anything else right now since that rant exhausted me, I may come back to edit this in the future but for now that's it.
So what does your BeautiControl tonic have that toners don't? I'm glad you asked
- it balances the pH of your skin. That's a good thing, you like to be balanced, you like your life to be balanced, and your skin wants in on this deal! You'll like your skin balanced too. This is a tonic specialty, and what sets it apart from other toners.
- AHAs & PHAs. I love these guys. Literally, I probably don't need to marry my tonic, I just need to marry these two. And no, they don't normally come in regular tonics or toners. BeautiControl just likes to make it easier for us to fight the 7 signs of aging while following a normal routine.
Some things to note: even though my skin is really oily, it's also sensitive (thank-you Canadian winters. Anyone else tired of -39C windchills? My lovely American friends, I'm not translating that to Farenheit because your face might freeze just hearing that it exists. Notably our Texan and Californian friends. I heard you recently had snow. Congratulations! Upstate NY I know you can handle it, but you don't want to think about it either. Who does???). Anyways, with sensitive skin I always go for the PHAs. And actually, I find that sometimes the AHAs make my acne worse but the PHAs are just what the (not medically approved proverbial) skin doctor ordered. If you're not used to using a tonic, you may want to start by using it once a day or even once every second day, and work your way up. Even if your skin prescription calls for AHAs, you may want to start with PHAs while you adjust (if you don't already use a toner or tonic), then graduate up to the aggressive one. Oh right, and PHAs stands for poly-hydroxy acids. Maybe someone with a science degree can explain them to you better than I can. All I know is they are the ones less aggressive than the AHAs (alpha-hydroxy acids). A for aggressive, get it?
So while you're going to plan to tone the rest of your body after the new year, consider resolving to tone your face as well. Give it a few weeks for your skin to adjust, and report back here! What do you think?
I published this 4 minutes ago but I'm editing it already: remember those top 3 products you're supposed to have ready to go? This almost always makes my list. I'd rather you take away my cleanser than my tonic. But I assume you got that from the fact that I would rather be betrothed to this than any other product. Except my hand creme. It's a vicious love triangle, we're not talking about it. But my bacon-hating non-vegetarian sister also has this as her #1 product. Turkey-bacon-only food for thought.
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