Beauty Review: Mary Kay Botanical Effects Skincare

Hello again, and thank for coming back to my blog! Today I'm going to review the Mary Kay Botanical Effects Skincare for Normal Skin.

I actually do enjoy Mary Kay's products, and I used to be a representative years ago. After I spent all my money on the cosmetics and didn't sell a whole lot (selling just isn't my thing), I figured I needed to give it a rest. I know their TimeWise sets are the absolute best, and everyone knows about them and what they do, but I found this Botanical set and thought I would review these since they're not often being spoken about so some people have never even heard of these.

The products I'm going to be talking about are:
- Botanical Effects Cleanse
- Botanical Effects Mask
- Botanical Effects Freshen
- Botanical Effects Hydrate

These are all the items in the Botanical Effects 4-piece Skincare Set, and they are offered for Dry, Normal, and Oily skin types.

Being that I have combination skin, I figured Normal (Formula 2) would be my best fit so I purchased that one. I couldn't wait to receive it because it's almost half the price of the TimeWise set, and I really wanted to see if it would work just as well for my skin.

Let's start with the Cleanse. This products definitely feels refreshing on your skin, and it'll make your face feel clean. The downside to this product, at least for me, was that it really never lathered or felt soapy in any way. I couldn't tell if it was truly cleaning my face or if I was just rubbing watery lotion all over and washing it off. However, I got a Quimat Ultrasonic Face Massager and Exfoliator from Amazon, and it worked pretty well with this cleanser. Where I was thinking the cleanser fell short, this cleansing brush picked up and made me feel confident that the cleanser was working a lot better. I'm thinking this cleanser probably needs some kind of cleansing brush in order to truly clean off your face within the pores and everything.

I would rate this product (without the cleansing brush) about a 6/10. It's refreshing, but I just couldn't be sure that it was really cleaning everything without a brush so this was a little disappointing to me.

One product that was absolutely not a disappointment, though, was the mask! This mask could be used as an exfoliating scrub, as well, which I loved! Anything that exfoliates just makes me so happy because my skin just feels so smooth after I scrub it down. There's also no room to wonder if it's really cleaning anything because you can literally feel the scrubbing beads working your skin. I probably used this more than the actual face cleanser because I knew it was really cleaning out everything.

As a mask, this product is still pretty awesome. It's lightweight on your skin, it doesn't crack, and you only need to keep it on for about 10 minutes before rinsing it off. You can feel this product tighten on your skin as it dries, but it doesn't stop you from being able to talk, smile, or laugh, and I think that's a big plus since my fiancé makes me smile and laugh a lot, especially when he sees I have a mask on! After rinsing the mask off, your face feels clean, soft, and firm.

This product gets a 10/10 from me since this is one of the few items that I can use as a cleanser and a mask, and isn't limiting as a mask in how you can move your face.

Moving on, I'm going to talk about the product I used the LEAST because I didn't feel like it did anything, and that's the Freshen. This is a spray that pretty much feels like water all over your face. The details say that, for Normal Skin, it leaves your skin soft with a matte finish, and it treats the skin's antioxidant powers. when I used this, my skin felt the same as it did before I sprayed it. It didn't mattify my face or remove any kind of shine. As for the treatment of the antioxidant power, I don't know if it did that or not. What I do know, is that it cooled off my face to leave it feeling fresh (as it should've), but that's about it.

This product gets pretty much a 3/10 from me being that it just didn't live up to my expectations. On a hot day it would be nice to just use to spray all over your face to cool you off, but that's really all I could see it being used for. Maybe the formulas for the Dry and Oily skin have the desired effects, though.

Last but not least, I'm going to review the Hydrate, which is just a moisturizer for your face. This product definitely moisturizes! A little bit goes a long way, that's for sure! This used to be my every day face moisturizer (until I discovered Philosophy...refer back to my previous blogs), and it did exactly what I needed it, too. If I had any problems with this, it's that maybe it did its job TOO well. I would almost feel like my face was already oily not long after applying the moisturizer. Just to make sure it wasn't oil I was feeling, I would take an oil blotter to my face and see that my face wasn't oily after using this product. My face did get very oily throughout the day, though, but that's been my normal experience with any facial moisturizer before this so it didn't phase me a whole lot.

Therefore, I would rate this product an 8/10. It absolutely moisturized, but now that I know that not all moisturizers make your skin feel oily or greasy throughout the day, it made me think this product could do better.

This set absolutely had its ups and downs from my own experience, but overall it really wasn't bad for the price. I did make good use out of the cleanser, mask, and the moisturizer so it definitely was not a waste for me! Before recommending the set, I would have to say you should make sure you definitely know what skin type you have so you know you're getting the correct products. I think my face probably needed the Oily set, but then again, that could just be because the products made my skin overproduce oils...even though it was the normal skin type set that I used. I'm not so sure... I think I would still recommend TimeWise over this one because I feel like that was worth the money since it gave me better results when I used it back when I was a rep. for Mary Kay.

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Hope you all have a wonderful day! *kisses*

IG: ktparte
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