Thursday, January 24, 2013

Lancome Tonique Confort Comforting Rehydrating Toner

As soon as I landed, I immediately quitted the Clinique Clarifying Lotion 2 and switched over to this 1.7fl oz./50mL bottle of Lancome Tonique Confort Comforting Rehydrating Toner I received as a bonus deluxe sample when placing a recent order with Lancome. Sure, Clinique may have saved the day when my skin was clogging up like crazy in Taipei, but there was no way I could tolerate the drying and choking alcohol/menthol combination in the dry climate where my folks live.


The toner smells very nice, like a powdery rose scent, a tad strong but not insufferable. Despite it being a thicker milky pink viscous liquid like most Japanese lotions (toners), I use it exactly as instructed, by saturating a cotton pad and wiping my face with it. I only use it in the mornings though, as nights are reserved for the SK-II Facial Treatment Clear Lotion. This 50mL bottle has been lasting for, like, ever. I pour around 15 drops onto the cotton pad, sometimes more sometimes less but mostly liberal. And after a month of daily morning use, I still have about a little less than a fifth of the bottle left, which means I am getting rather antsy and can't wait to finish it up so I can move on to the next thing in line.


The toner goes on a tad cool, though perhaps due to room temperature as it's not supposed to be cooling. The down side is that it will let me know immediately when my skin has been dry and or cracking, because it will burn and sting, especially around the lips. This didn't happen so much during my visit with my parents, but while driving across the country for my move to SF, we went through Wyoming where the temperature got down to -6F at one point (about -21C!), and boy did my skin pay the price. I emerged from every nightly shower feeling like a freakin' alligator even if I went easy on the soap. And every morning, my face turned into a parched desert even though I only splashed it with water T.T

Yes, that would be me freezing my a$$ off, even in all that sunshine and a fluffy down coat! Brr...

So this Tonique Confort burned and stung the hell out of me during those few days. And to my surprise, it still burns and stings me here, where my skin has been shockingly dry even though SF is way more humid than where my parents are. I even kept up the same skincare routine I did back home, and still my skin is flaking like a puff pastry! What's going on, I wonder? Could it be the chlorine in the water? Either way, I now have a good excuse to stop using this toner ^.^

10 comments:

kuri said...

I don't know what it is about sf but my skin was super dry there too! I ended up resorting to vaseline and yuskin cause nothing else helped!

D. said...

Hi kuri,

Thanks for your comment! Now I know I'm not going crazy and imagining things after all!!

I'm pretty sure the climate is *not* dry in SF, so my only guess left is the water, perhaps they put too much chlorine in it?

Gah!

kuri said...

yeah, it must be the water - I'm guessing it's a lot harder? It could be the chloramines too.
I wonder if using thermal waters would help? It didn't bother me on previous trips, so I wonder if something changed in the last year.

D. said...

Hi kuri,

So I googled chloramine because I wanted to know the difference between chloramine and chlorine. Guess what popped up as the second result after Wikipedia's article on Chloramine - http://www.epa.gov/region9/water/chloramine.html
BINGO! SF changed from using chlorine to chloramine in drinking water the summer of 2011! One of the side effects of chloramine is dry skin and rashes, and I got dry skin while hubby got a few odd rashes he's never had before. Explains everything!

kuri said...

Wow, really? I didn't realize they changed it in 2011! That totally explains it. I wonder if filtering would help?

D. said...

Nope. Household filters don't remove either chlorine or chloramine, and our pockets are not deep enough to afford one of those crazy serious filters that are able to get rid of them, let alone showering with that filtered water to avoid the dry skin and rashes. Ha...

Well, I guess the silver lining is that I get a skincare makeover ^.^

kuri said...

true, more stuff to experiment with! And shopping options are pretty good in SF :)

D. said...

Any recommendations as to where I can indulge in some [more] Japanese skincare and cosmetics, please please please?

So far I have only found Nijiya and Ichiban Kan in Japantown, but both only carry a few, at least not as much variety as I'm used to in Japan and Taiwan. Pretty spoiled here, I know.

kuri said...

I'm sorry, I was thinking of the western shopping options like Sephora, Nordstrom (free samples!!!), B&BW, and Ulta.
I actually have never really shopped for Japanese cosmetics in SF as I didn't get into them until I moved to Tokyo.

D. said...

Ohh...haha! No biggie. I'll keep exploring then ^.^

I'm assuming you're a SF native? Any recos for food/places/fun things to do then?

Cheers,
D.

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