Shiseido White Lucent: Myth or Reality?

April 9, 2010 at 10:42 am | Posted in Miss G: Beauty | 10 Comments
Tags: Beauty Review, Shiseido White Lucent

The Shiseido White Lucent range is a line with more than 12 products that aims to present a complete approach to perfect radiance. After all ,whitening is not about turning pale and ghostly white, but the whole concept is to brighten and enhance your skin tone.

I had a set of 5 White Lucent products that I used in the correct sequence to gauge if my skin reached the level of radiance that Shiseido promises. I tried the products for one month.

One blanket view on Shiseido products, they are generally quite gentle on the skin. For the impatient ones, this means that you need more time with the products to reach the desired effect. However, I always have the peace of mind when using Shiseido skincare knowing that I would not break into rashes or have pimples.

1. White Lucent Brightening Cleansing Foam ($57)

I love the cleanser because it gets foamy after a light lather. I really enjoy washing my face with the foamy cleanser and touching my face after cleansing. My face feels spotlessly clean and oil-free. It is supposed to have brightening effect too, although I think that the impact was gradual.

2. White Lucent Brightening Balancing Softener ($79)

I was told that Shiseido does not believe in Toner before Serum. Instead, they introduced  the “Softener” which softens your skin and open your pores. This prepares your skin for better penetration and thus, better absorption of the serum. The texture of the softener feels like a toner to me and it does soften the skin after use – which would allow the spot targeting serum to achieve its maximum effect. As a standalone, the softener does not achieve any effect (since it is to be used hand-in-hand with the serum) and I feel that the hefty price tag of the softener could be a huge deterrent.

3. White Lucent Intensive Spot Targeting Serum ($159)

This was marketed as the “most powerful whitening serum ever”. The regime is to massage the serum on the face after applying the softener. I only used the serum at night, although it can be used in the day too. The serum is one of my favourite products (after the cleanser) because of its light and dewy texture.  It gets absorbed very quickly too. My skin tone was visibly fairer and I noticed that I was able to carry my makeup colours a lot better. One other claim of the serum is the ability to get rid of stubborn spots. After 4 weeks of usage, I could tell that the spots had lightened, but they were not totally eliminated. I guess I needed more patience to get rid of them.

4. Day Moisturizer – Brightening Protective Emulsion ($85)

I like the texture of this SPF 15 moisturizer. It is white, slightly watery, light and not too greasy. I use this as a makeup base and I think it does serve some brightening, sun protection and moisturizing purpose.

5. Night Moisturizer – Brightening Moisturizing Gel ($90)

The night moisturizer is gel-like and richer than the day moisturizer. It keeps my skin supple and hydrated but I would have preferred my night moisturizer to have some firming benefits too. I added more night moisturizer on my eye bags every night and I think coupled with the effect from the serum, the dark eye circles indeed diminished.

Verdict:

If you are constantly troubled by dull skin and pigmentation, I think the White Lucent series, especially the serum, will be able to help you solve your problems. And rest assured, you will not turn ghostly white as the products do have brightening effect for radiance.

However, I wish Shiseido could pack more ingredients into their products to introduce other effects such as firming and pore minimizing. Now I really hope there is this single power-packed product that just solves all the common skin problems! And I’m willing to pay more for that!

Technorati Tags: Shiseido+White+Lucent, Spot+Targeting+Serum, Whitening, Radiance, Japanese+whitening, beauty+reviews, brightening, yomogi, , research, japanese+skincare