I’ve had my eye on this product since 2008, but I just really purchased it for myself this year.  I’ve heard rave reviews of it from friends and other bloggers, who say that this cream is heaven sent and it’s been the only moisturizer that has managed their oilies.  Many of them share my oily-combination skin and weather problems, being in Manila.  Make-up mostly slides off my face at the end of the day and yes, I am one of those lazy girls who don’t retouch make-up once I slap them on in the morning.

So anyway, after Kira revived my online shopper tendencies in an old post–Assembling a Starter Kikay Kit–I find myself with 50g of Skin Hour’s Mattifying Day Cream, priced P530 including shipping. It’s also available in petite (20g, P250) and mini (15g, P230) sizes.

What it claims:

A day cream that is non-clogging and oil free. Controls excess sebum the whole day. Also acts as makeup base that makes makeup long lasting. Contains pineapple extract known for its skin clearing properties and carrot to fight skin aging. Serenity variant gives a sweet yet subtle surprise to one’s face. The day cream also has SPF 15 for sun protection.

Ingredients:

deionized aqua, organic mango butter, glyceryl stearate, sweet almond oil, organic goat milk, titanium dioxide, pineapple and carrot extract, a-tocopherol, sodium gluconate, organic non-solvent fragrance oils

The oil test:

To test it out, I put it on half of my face, leaving nothing on the other half.  I am currently using Shiseido Dual Balancing Foundation, so I wore that as well.  After about four hours, there were no visible differences on both sides of my face as I started to oil.  But when I decided to blot both sides, I noticed that the half of my face without the cream left traces of my foundation on the blotting paper.  The other half contained them, too, but I had to look closely as they were very scant.  Which means, the cream is a pretty good primer.

So yes, it occurred to me that the reason why the cream isn’t working for me like an oil vacuum is that I’m using liquid foundation.  I just can’t give up liquid foundation despite having oily-combination skin because I like how it looks dewy and natural.  Except when I start to oil, that is.  I always buy the oil-free ones, not that it matters anyway.

So I tried it again, this time just using it with my Ellana Minerals Finishing Powder. It was a bit better, but after a few hours my nose started to oil.  Dammit.  Can’t get a break.

I used the cream in the two photos below.  I was really oiling up at that UCB Fragrance Launch, and I forgot to bring my finishing powder. It doesn’t look very obvious in the photo, though.

The verdict:

I like that it’s organic, and the scent is lovely!  It’s not strong and it’s really pleasant (they say it’s pineapple).  Also, a little goes a long way.  It’s not heavy on the face at all, the formula is very light and it’s quickly absorbed by the skin.

As I’ve described earlier, I don’t find it to be the perfect mattifying cream, but I have never found anything that works that way anyway.  I suppose this it the closest I can get, so yes I will repurchase unless I find something that works better.  It acts as my moisturizer, make-up base primer and SPF for the face so it’s already doing a lot for me.

You can order from Skin Hour through their website. They’re also available at the following locations:

ShopSui (Factory Outlet) – Stall 41 Fashion Village, Tiendesitas, Frontera Verde, Pasig
Backstage -2C-18 2/F Serendra, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
U.R.U. (Shoppesville) – Ground Flr Shoppesville, Greenhills Shopping Center, San Juan City
U.R.U. (Markati Palazzo) – Markati Palazo, 4F The Podium, 12 ADB Ave., Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong

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