As you all know, Essence has a pure skin line. In it, there are lots of care/cover/clean products. One of those are this anti-spot nose stripes. You can get them for a really good price.
The description says: Refine that problem nose area and banish troublesome blocked pores. regular use helps to prevent the formation of new blackheads and keeps skin pore-deep clean. Okay, sounds great! I opened the little box just to find three of those things. No worries, I don't give up so easily even if I was quite shocked.
After that I opened one of those little bags;
There I see the first problem. It's shaping. Okay, not really the shape but the lack of the little cuts on it, that should be there for easy applying. Okay not such a big deal, you might say. So let's move on. The instructions says:
- clean the face
- peel the stripe off from the plastic liner with clean and dry hands (why dry?!)
- apply stripe to moistened nose with the shiny side facing your skin (if that wasn't obvious?)
- gently smooth the stripe to ensure a good skin contact, leave it on for max 10-15 minutes
- its active agent conjoins with the blackheads and excess oil
- carefully peel off the dried stripe (wet with water if necessary), taking off impurities in parallel
- rinse residues with water
- avoid using on skin which is sensitive to bandages or peel-off masks and on irritated, extremely dry or sunburned skin
- for the nose area only, use every-third-day maximum
So far I get it. But the thing is, that when I used this stripe for the first time... it did nothing! Like, really. I think I'd get more effect if I put any sticker on my nose and peel it off. Now I'm hoping for a better result. I really don't like the smell. It smells like alcohol and a bit artificial too. Not nice. I waited the maximum of time, so 15 minutes. After so much time it gets really hard. This time, I was really surprised. It actually DID get out some of those filled pores (no, I'm not taking any pictures, it's gross). Not bad, not bad at all. That gives it a big plus! But my nose itches?! Weird. Well, I wouldn't really suggest this product because for like a bit more of money you can get so much more. Like six nose stripes and forehead stripes. But if you want to just try this kind of product and don't want to use too much money, then this would be the product for you. I'm not sure if I'm going to buy this product again, but for a here and there use is really good. It would be perfect if it had the small cuts in the stripe (but it's not such a big deal it being without them), and if there were more stripes in the little box. I mean just three?! C'mon! If I could give it a grade it would be 3/5. Not bad, but not even great for the price. Rating: 1/5 ♥