Fiche here! Meg asked me to check out this product when I asked her for a foundation recommendation.  It’s called Rx For Brown Skin.  And it’s not a foundation.  But as I am more pigmentally endowed than Ms Megs, I knew where she was coming from and if it can polish the ‘ole mug, maybe I won’t need the daily spackle to fill in the cracks, anyway.

So here’s the run down: It’s a three step process.  Not my bag. I try to avoid turning my bathroom into a chem lab. But at least I understand what each thing does.  

1.    

Gentle cleanser – no hocus pocus here. A non-foaming, greaseless cleanser that doesn’t sting my eyes or over dry my skin. The website says it has “bright skin complex” and “Green tea.” That’s nice. I’m sure those things are very effective in RXing my brown skin but I don’t know if the 20 seconds on my face before I rinse it down the drain does all that much. Still, as a cleanser it does good.  If you use a heavier/ long wear foundation, you might need to wash twice.

2.    

Absolute Radiance Intensive Exfoliating Serum – now we’re cracking open some eye of newt. MFA Complex (that means it’s highly educated, ya know), Hyaluronic Acid, and that neat-o Bright Skin Complex (soy and pomegranate- tasty snacks and good for your skin).  Now, when I slap on something that claims to exfoliate intensively, I expect to be flaking off epidermis like a bad sunburn with a taste for revenge.  Thankfully, I didn’t get so much as a tingle. I got a little liberal on the application and the result was a little shine on my cheekbones but otherwise, I didn’t really feel “intense” – and that’s a good thing.

3.    

Naturally Flawless Botanical Brightener – is it a moisturizer? I’m not sure. It says to use after the serum and before an SPF. Sounds like a moisturizer to me. It doesn’t list ingredients I recognize as moisturizers. Let’s see what the witches brewed into this potion: Melanostatine 5, Tyrostat, Beta-White. This divine trinity is supposed to reduce dark spots.  And I can only hope they’ve been moisturizing me, too.

But you want to know the result. Well, first of all, ANY time I switch face products – cleanser, moisturizer, foundation – I break out for a few days. Except this time. No break out. It was super gentle and super effective. My skin tone did even out noticeably and the texture did get smoother. I’m not so sure one has to be that far on the brown spectrum to benefit.  I think it might work for diminishing freckles on fair skin. But I can’t tell you that from experience, since I have neither freckles nor fair skin. 

Am I going to bask in the open air without any foundation like I did when I was a fresh faced teen? Hell no. But my skin does look better- maybe on the road to glowing- and I might (with some emotional support from Meg) take a break from the face paint for a day here or there.  My brown skin might just be on the road to a cure.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? Do you target your skincare to your ethnicity or do you use a product just geared to your skin type? Oily, Dry combination? Is you're of a darker shade do you take it into consideration?