La Roche Posay Efficlar Duo Review

It seems as though every blogger has been talking about the Effaclar Duo range, so I thought I'd throw my opinion into the mix. My sister actually bought this for herself but it didn't suit her skin type as her skin was going through a very dry and this is suited for oily skin. My skin was going through a pretty bad stage with lots of spots and so I thought I'd give it a go as it's had so many rave reviews.

The set costs £32.50 from Boots, and consists of the Purifying Foaming Gel, Clarifying Toner and Corrective Unclogging Ant-imperfection cream. The foaming gel is soap free, and is designed to 'reduce excess sebum and leave skin feeling clean and fresh'. To use this I got my hands wet, squeezed out a small amount (you don't need much) and worked it into a lather before massaging it all over my face. I like using foaming cleansers because they make my face feel so much cleaner. although I have heard that foaming cleansers are actually bad for your skin-something to do with turning it alkaline? This says its pH is 5.5, which is on the acidic end of the scale (from what I can remember of my chemistry lessons) so I think that means its fine. Let me know if you have a better understanding of all of this and can explain it.

I  like the toner-it smells good and dos leave my face feeling tighter, but not stripped of moisture like some toners do. This is also non-comedogenic. Comedogenic means something that will block pores, potentially causing blackheads. All sounds good to me. I  suffer from blackheads on my nose and whilst using this did notice that they reduced. I think the cream is my favourite part of the set though. I used this all over my face in replacement of my moisturiser. I think the US version has slightly different ingredients however and is more potent so if you're in America just use it more as a targeted spot treatment. This calmed angry red spots and also worked well under my makeup.

I used these three products solely for around  2 and a half months. Did I see an improvement in my skin? Well, it's quite hard to say because I think the reason my skin was so bad was hormonal, so as soon as that time passed it cleared up anyway. That being said, I do think this helped. I had lots of horrible big under the skin spots, a few of which came to the surface and looked even worse and using the Effaclar Duo dried them up well. It also claims to fade marks, and I'd say this is what I was most impressed by. Big red marks healed well and within a couple of days had faded lots and weren't nearly as noticeable. However, I don't think it prevented new spots from forming, and so I've now changed my skin care routine a little, which I'll do a post on soon.


Has anyone else tried these products? What did you think?

Helen x