July Empties Review

You know it’s summer when three of your empties are sunscreen. This review includes some hits, some misses and some holy grails. So let’s jump right into what I finished slathering on my dry skin this month.

Sweet Chef Oat Milk Latte Cleanser

This cleanser has lasted me ages, but it’s a good one — I used it every evening after my first cleanser for months. As you might expect given the name, the hero ingredients in this are from oat in the form of oat milk and oat kernel flour, as well as coffee in the form of coffee seed extract. The oat helps soothe the skin, while the coffee is a good antioxidant — incidentally, it also gives it that funky caffeine taste if you, like me, inevitably wind up getting cleanser in your mouth while rinsing. As a bonus, this cleanser has panthenol, a Vitamin B5 derivative, as well as Vitamin B12. Truly a gentle drugstore cleanser that feels bougie and fun.
Rating: 8/10
Price: $13 USD / 150 mL

Kate Somerville ExfoliKate Intensive Exfoliating Treatment

I’ve been using very gentle, daily exfoliants (Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow PHA +BHA Pore-Tight Toner, Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant) but was feeling the need for a heavy duty exfoliation this month. Since I had a sample size of this from a Kate Somerville order last holiday season, I gave it a go. This is intended to be massaged into damp skin, and then rinsed off after a couple minutes, which I did. And then promptly found it irritating. There’s cinnamal in here which makes it smell like cinnamon candy and made it tingle my cheeks. I also noticed that my skin looked a bit bumpy after I had rinsed and finished my routine. This is why we patch test, folks. I used up the rest of the bottle on my body, where I continued to loathe the smell. I will say, on my upper arms it actually took down my slight KP fabulously, so kudos to it there, I guess
Rating: 1/10
Price: $88 USD / 60 mL; shown in the 7.5 mL sample size

Sephora Collection Watermelon Mask Stick

I got this in 2020’s spring Sephora sale, figuring that at $4 it couldn’t be that terrible. It wasn’t that great, either, though. Like most Sephora Collection products it’s pretty basic, but delivers on being a kaolin clay mask with just a smidge of watermelon extract. While the mask itself was whatever, I wholeheartedly endorse the stick delivery mechanism, which made it easy to spread everywhere without wasting a lot of product because it dried on my hands.
Rating: 3/10
Price: N/A, discontinued

Peach Slices Snail Rescue Intensive Wash-Off Mask

This is not the first time I’ve emptied this mask, and it presumably won’t be the last. Peach Slices really nailed it with their snail line. This wash-off mask has a funky jelly texture due to its use of potato starch as a thickener, but it doesn’t dry out if you, like me, tend to leave your masks on for too long. True to its name it has 95% snail mucin, but also includes centella asiatica extract, licorice root extract, strawberry fruit extract and birch juice for an extra soothing, brightening and antioxidant boost.
Rating: 10/10
Price: $17 USD / 100 mL

Good Skin Days C’s the Day Serum

Another holy grail on the list. This is my go-to Vitamin C due to its 10% ascorbic acid, which they amplify with niacinamide, licorice root extract and arbutin for extra brightening. It also includes camu-camu extract, which is a natural source of Vitamin C, as well as magnesium ascorbyl phosphate, a derivative. White truffle extract, ginseng extract, crocus and hibiscus extracts as well as coptis japonica extract (familiar to lovers of Pyunkang Yul) round this out to make it a truly lovely, hydrating, anti-aging and brightening serum. It does oxidize because of the ascorbic acid, but it’s easy to use up before it does so fully.
Rating: 10/10
Price: $26 USD / 30 mL

Beekman 1802 Milk Drops Probiotic Ceramide Serum

As you all know, I’m a sucker for a ceramide serum — so when this went half-off during an Ulta sale, I picked up two. This serum has a lot more going for it than just the ceramide 3, though. True to all of the Beekman 1802 products, this leans heavily on goat milk. Goat milk, milk probiotics and colostrum (super fancy, early goat milk, basically) feature heavily, and are great for skin soothing and strengthening. Between the lactic acid of the milk as well as apple, aspen bark and willow bark extracts, some might consider this serum to be ever so lightly exfoliating. Personally, I found it to be lightweight and lovely to use, though I would consider it more of a general skin-barrier supportive serum than a ceramide serum per se.
Rating: 8/10
Price: $45 USD / 28 mL

Stratia Liquid Gold

Stratia Liquid Gold is a cult favorite for a reason. It’s quite striking to look at, if nothing else, since the sea buckthorn oil makes it that particular shade of gold. It’s super lightweight, so depending upon your skin type and routine you can use this either as a serum (I like it right before retinol), as an AM moisturizer (why I originally purchased it) or as a PM moisturizer (how my husband uses it). One of the many things that makes Liquid Gold special is its balance of ceramides, cholesterol and fatty acids, all of which are key components to the skin barrier and which it includes in ratios equal to those found in your skin. This is, incidentally, my husband’s first empty — he liked it so much that I let him keep it, though I occasionally stole a few pumps.
Rating: 10/10
Price: $27 USD / 60 mL

Chiasm Skin Wild Being

It’s not every day that you get to use something that was struck by lightning, but it is if you get the first round of this oil — it’s made with oil pressed from a 650-year-old juniper tree that was struck by lightning in Arizona. Keeping with the desert theme, this oil has jojoba infused with desert plants as well as extracts from prickly pear, agave and ocotillo. These make it a very soothing and moisturizing oil, with plenty of antioxidants (like added CoQ10) for good measure. It made me look like a donut every evening, and it was fantastic.
Rating: 8/10
Price: $42 USD / 15 mL

Derma E Skin Restore Advanced Peptides & Collagen Moisturizer

I originally purchased this for my mom, hoping it would be a good, reasonably priced and easily accessible peptide moisturizer. She didn’t care for it, and frankly neither did I. While the ingredients list looks pretty legit — matrixyl & argireline for the peptides; vitamin E, B5, C and A (the latter two a derivatiives); nice antioxidants and oils — the actual usage of it was such a bummer. It was pretty thick, and seemed to pill no matter what I did in the morning. It tended to pill pretty badly in the evening, too, unless I did my facial oil first.
Rating: 5/10
Price: $35 USD / 60 mL

Krave Beauty The Beet Shield

I know it’s discontinued. It continues to break my heart and I can’t wait until they can reformulate and re-release (and figure out their strategy for selling it in the US, for that matter). Super lightweight, super wearable, super lovely on the skin. Luckily my stash continues, so you’ll see more of these opened and emptied in the coming months.
Rating: 10/10
Price N/A, discontinued

OMI – Verdio UV Moisture Essence

I picked this up looking for a Krave Beauty dupe, particularly one at a good price. This uses similar filters and plant extracts to Beet Shield, and the texture and color are similar. Unfortunately this does go on a bit greasier — I find that if I wear glasses with it on, they tend to continually slide down my nose. It also doesn’t reduce redness like Beet Shield does. But the price is fantastic, the packaging is easy to work with, and it’s lightweight enough that my husband wore it occasionally too without complaints.
Rating: 9/10
Price: $9 USD / 50 g

Make P:Rem UV Defense Me Blue Ray Sun Fluid

This was one of the first k-beauty sunscreens I tried, and while I don’t love it for my face, it makes a great body sunscreen (spoiler alert but the large size is in my “openeds”). This is a mineral sunscreen that doesn’t have much of a white cast. It’s got a bunch of great antioxidants like madecassoside, heartleaf and raspberry extract, and a light fragrance to it from some of the oils and extracts in it. This is rated as SPF 50+ PA++++ but I’m not sure if it passed any external validation — they actually just reformulated and made it a combination chemical and mineral sunscreen.
Rating: 8/10
Price: N/A; discontinued in its current format and formulation

Primera Clean Berry Lip Mask

This is a pretty popular lip mask, but is currently nearly impossible to get in the US — I got this as part of a sampler kit last year. It’s quite waxy in texture, so it works well as a mask but not as a lip balm because there’s no hydration or emollience to it. That said, if you put some eye cream on your lips first, it works really well and they won’t dry out, even in the Colorado weather I struggle with.
Rating: 5/10
Price: $20 USD / 17g for the full size