Why do I think it’s a good idea to do makeup/face cleanser/moisturizer experiments when I have to actually go somewhere to go to work? I work at home most of the time. Why doesn’t it occur to me to try something new when I am going to be at home, with no one around but the dogs? That would make way more sense than before I head off to speak in front of two hundred people. But whatever.

For the past couple of months I have been using Korres Watermelon Lightweight Tinted Moisturiser SPF 30. It is all natural and organic, which is what I am trying to move toward with all of my skincare. Prior to this I used the tinted moisturizer from Dermalogica, but it has parabens and other terrible stuff in it so I went searching for something better for my skin. Immediately I liked several things about the Korres moisturizer. It smells good, is organic, was reasonably priced, didn’t irritate my skin, and at first seemed to work pretty well. Then I realized (especially as I got farther away from my summer tan and my skin got paler) that the color was kind of….yellow. And it dried really fast on my skin so if I got too much somewhere I had to fix it immediately or it dried in place. And the coverage was more than I needed, so much so that I got the yellow line on my neck.

However, because I didn’t want to waste it, I decided to get a non-tinted moisturizer that didn’t dry so quickly and try mixing them together. I bought the Juice Beauty Oil-Free Moisturizer after trying it out at Sephora. The two mixed like a dream, giving me the color, consistency, sheerness, and drying time that I wanted. However after I put it on my face would get really warm for a minute, and I was worried I was having some kind of reaction.

So fast forward to my last day in Manila, getting ready for work. I decide, hey, maybe I should just put on the Juice Beauty moisturizer and see if that’s the problem. Genius, right? So I get it on, and sure enough, my face turns red and gets warm. Issue discovered! Then, before I can really worry about it, the warmth and redness fades and I begin to look like myself again, albeit with a slightly less even skin tone than I have after using my tinted moisturizer. I went to get dressed and give my moisturizer a chance to dry, then I went back to finish my makeup. And the  moisturizer had not dried, not at all. It was sitting on my face like oil on water. Um, not good. I have approximately 7 minutes before I have to walk out the door and no makeup or shoes on. I frantically grab tissues and start blotting like crazy. I end up getting most of the goop off my face, and getting a shortened makeup regimen done before slipping into my shoes and running out the door.

Lesson learned: the Korres is too drying, the Juice Beauty is too wet, but together they are perfect. The warm face goes away pretty quickly, so I should be okay doing this from now on.  And don’t , for heaven’s sake, do makeup experiments before work anymore. Let the dogs be the judge of how well something is working!

Thanks for listening.