Today's review is about Secret Key's Starting Treatment Essence (STE), which is a watery essence that some people even say is a dupe of SK-II Facial Treatment Essence (FTE). As long as i know, Secret Key is a korean brand, and SK-II is a japanese brand, so i don't see any hints of copying. I never use SK-II FTE, so here's my honest opinion about STE ^^
The bottle is made of matte plastic material with silver cap, just like SK-II. It has the word, "Galactomyces Contained" on it. I bet some of you know about this already, but if you don't, you can google it :) basically galactomyces is a type of yeast that produced in the process of sake-making. There's no enough proof of the effects on skin, but there's some medicinal journal about it.
Here's one of them:
http://www.mattek.com/574-effects-of-galactomyces-ferment-filtrate-on-epidermal-barrier-marker-caspase-14-in-human-skin-cells
Okay, back to the review :)
The bottle has a quite wide mouth, i found it hard at first to control the amount of product i'll use. But you'll getting used through times.
The texture is watery, and it has a quite strong alcoholic smell, which in my opinion, comes from the fermentation process. Well, luckily i don't have any issues with cosmetics or skincare that have strong smell, so it's okay for me. But if you're a type that will be annoyed with strong-smell-cosmetics, maybe you should think twice before trying this.
Pros:
(+) cheap! I got it for about IDR 150k from local's online shop.
(+) moisturizes my skin well
(+) calming my skin
(+) acne scars gone, and i don't go through any weird purging with this product
(+) minimize blemishes
Cons:
(-) strong alcoholic smell, some people may find it too strong
(-) the bottle could get bulkier through times
(-) the 'mouth' is too wide
Overall:
I use it twice a day, morning and evening, after i wash my face. I slide 5-6 drops on my palm and tap it on my face and neck. I've been using this for about 3 months and quite happy with the result. My acne-prone skin is getting clearer and my avne scars are going away too ^^
Have you use this one? What do you think?
I would love to hear from you! ^^
