Tosowoong Green Tea Essence Review
STYLE STORY Founder Lauren Lee is reviewing Tosowoong’s Green Tea Eco Brightening Essence. It’s one of two esseences in Tosowoong’s Eco Brightening line, the other being cult-favourite Propolis Brightening Essence. So how does the Green Tea edition fare?
Let’s find out!
What Is It?
Tosowoong Green Tea Essence is a brightening Korean Beauty essence that claims to soothe and calm red, irritated and sensitive skin. It contains star ingredient green tea extract, which is known for it’s skin soothing abilities.
How Do You Use It?
After cleansing and toning, you simply apply 2-3 drops of Tosowoong Green Tea Eco Brightening Essence to the face and and pat it in gently to aid absorption. Afterwards, follow up with your regular serum and moisturiser.
This essence is a gel type, so it’s quite a bit thicker than other watery Korean essences – it’s closer in texture to Benton’s Snail Bee High Content Essence, than say, COSRX Galactomyces Tone Balancing Essence.
What Does It Do?
Like many of Tosowoong’s other products, the Green Tea Essence is also designed to help soothe acne-prone, red and irritated skin. It plays very nicely with sensitive skin, making it ideal for anyone who’s skin is generally fussy or has recently been through a trauma (like sunburn, laser, over-exfoliation etc).
What’s In It?
The star ingredient is green tea, an anti-inflammatory that’s chok full of antioxidants. It work to protect the skin and revive dry, stressed skin.
Other ingredients worth mentioning including niacinamide, which is beloved for it’s ability to simultaneously brighten the skin, strengthen it’s moisture barrier, boost ceramides and improve blemishes.
An honourable mention goes to rh oligopeptide 1 – a small polypeptide of 53 amino acids that stimulate epidermal cell growth. It has been shown to speed the healing of wounds and reduce scarring, making it a good addition to a formula designed to soothe and repair skin.
Last but not least is galactomyces – a type of fermented yeast extract that’s also found in SKII’s First Treatment Essence, Missha’s cult classic Time Revolution First Treatment Essence and a host of other Korean Beauty products. Galactomyces has many great properties, including the ability to tone, nourish, moisturise, balance, brighten and repair.
What Results Did You Notice Using It?
Despite it’s thicker texture, the essence is not as hydrating (particularly on dry skin like mine!) as you might assume – I would describe it as lightly hydrating. That’s fine, as it’s only intended to be a light layer. It also means that it works with oily, acne-prone and combination skin types and plays very nicely when layered with thicker serums and moisturisers. It’s a good texture to apply night and day, as it’s not too heavy to go underneath makeup.
The formula is gentle and not at all sensitising, playing nicely with even the most sensitive of skins. I tested it out on my skin after undergoing a laser treatment and had no problems with it aggravating or irritating my sore skin – instead, I found it was very soothing and gentle and actually helped the redness to go away quicker.
I’ve been using this essence for more than 4 months (I’m about to move onto my second bottle) and I think it’s highly underrated, especially when compared to it’s more famous sister, the Tosowoong Propolis Brightening Essence. Propolis seems to get all the love these days, and Tosowoong’s propolis products in particular are cult-favourites so I can understand why, but I think this little essence deserves it’s own fan following!
If you regularly suffer from acne, breakouts, red marks, sensitivities or fussy skin then this essence will be a great addition to your skincare routine.
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