DISCLOSURE: All products in this post were purchased by me with my own money. All links in this review are regular non-affiliated links.

Rituel de Fille Thorn Oil Priming Facial Elixir and Thorn Milk Hydrating Skin Mist

I bought the Thorn Oil for half price via Ulta just one year ago, but the Thorn Milk Mist I bought in May 2023.

On the bottle, the brand suggests using 5 to 10 drops of Thorn Oil on the face. Even though I have dry skin, it takes way too long for my skin to absorb even five drops, and makeup doesn’t settle properly on top. So, I’ve found that 2-3 drops is actually perfect for me. The oil is more of a yellow-orange color and the red coloring gathers after a while on the bottom or sides, so it has to be shaken thoroughly before each use. The glass jar has round balls in there (like the agitator mixing beads in some nail polish bottles) to help with that. When mixed properly, it doesn’t make the face noticeably red, however, there is a faint tinge I’ve seen via camera photos. It’s basically no more intense than certain sunscreens that can leave the tiniest blue or purple tinge that’s only visible on certain areas of my skin. So, I’d still consider it clear or clearish.

I have loved using this product, and considering how long it takes me to go through even travel sizes of primers, using nearly half of this bottle (at a rate of 2-3 drops per use) is impressive for me. The downside is that I couldn’t finish it before it started to change in smell. It’s listed as being good for 12 months and when it comes to Rituel de Fille products and their preservation system, definitely don’t expect things to last longer than it says. In fact, I’m surprised I got the full year out of this one. The smell changed from a beautiful slightly rosy herbaceous smell to smelling vaguely like fish oil by the end. In addition to makeup priming purposes, I would sometimes even use this as a facial oil in my skincare routine on days I needed extra hydration.

As a priming product with this much oil, I’ve noticed a few of my products can’t stand up to the formula. For instance, my KVD Good Apple Concealer breaks down super fast if I accidentally get some of the Thorn Oil in my eye area or top of the cheekbones where I have to carry down some of the concealer onto. I forgot which foundation of mine also broke down a little faster with this as a primer. And I’ve had some foundations that were a bit more transfer-prone with this underneath. However, this product helped save the Hourglass Ambient Glow Foundation for me and I don’t have issues using this at the same time as my Givenchy Prisme-Libre concealer. So, I’d say there’s a learning curve to figuring out which products go well with this. Theoretically, it would be easier to assume silicone and oil based will work fine. Water-based products could potentially have issues.

If I used the Thorn Milk Mist as often as the oil and didn’t have another skin mist I was trying to use up first, I imagine I’d have gone through this product in two months. In a month and a half using it not very frequently, I used up nearly half of the bottle. It may be the case that I over spray because I’m trying to chase the results I get from the oil, but it’s meant to be a lightweight product that imparts less moisture. After dousing my face as a prep step before applying makeup, I always feel unsatisfied with the moisture level and end up adding the oil on top afterwards. Using it in conjunction with the oil doesn’t feel like it makes much of a difference from using the oil on its own. Misting my face as the last step is supposed to give subtle dewiness, but any shine lingers for just a moment. It’s like my skin sucks it up too quickly. For those who find the Thorn Oil to be too intense for their makeup, perhaps the mist would be a better option. However, for my skin type, the Thorn Oil is the only one I’d repurchase.
I got both of these discounted, and as much as I’ve grown to enjoy Thorn Oil, it isn’t so great that I’d get it at full retail price. I like the glass bottle, the dropper dispenser, plus the color and smell adding to the pampering experience, but $45 is probably my limit.

Lisa Eldridge Skin Enhancing Treatment Cleanser and Luxuriously Gentle Cleansing & Exfoliating Cloths

To make it easier to follow the steps I use with the cleanser and cloths, I put them in bold black font. The surrounding information in regular font is still very important, including issues I ran into, but I wanted to make it easier for someone to be able to return to my blog and skim through for instructions if needed.

For the first two weeks, I used these products as instructed by Lisa Eldridge in her demonstration video. This includes using it to remove eye makeup as well, but I didn’t like having that area moisturized on top of my lids continuing to be oily.
So, my normal routine begins with me using either my Skinfood Rice Cleansing Tissue with Bioderma or my Makeup Eraser Cloth with Bioderma to remove my eye makeup, plus the concealer under my eyes. Then, I apply the blueberry size of product into my palm and rub my palms vigorously until I can feel it get warm from the friction. The consistency of the cleanser is like a slightly less sticky version of sap. It’s thick and not easy to spread evenly across the face unless it’s worked into the hands and thinned out prior to applying it to the skin. It has a lovely smell that reminds me of oatmeal or cereal when I put it on. That might be the case because the sap smells close to honey and I used to pour honey on my oatmeal (which was what I had for breakfast for most of my youth along with cereal), so I might be associating the sap smell with that experience. I could swear it has a slightly grain-like scent to it though.
Also, I’ve seen some tiny blueberries and huge ones, so I wasn’t sure which amount to go with in the beginning. Through trial and error, I found that a small to medium size blueberry amount works for me. Using too little isn’t as effective, but when using too much the worst that can happen is just wasting product. So, it’s better to use slightly more than using less. It only took a few times before I naturally started squeezing out the right amount.

Then, I spread the hand-warmed cleanser all over my face, avoiding the space between my eyelids up to the brow bones. Because my under eye area is dry instead of oily, I make sure to apply the cleanser there too, but more lightly than I would if I needed to actually remove makeup from that spot. As a treatment product, Lisa suggests leaving this on for at least two minutes. What I like to do is leave it on for at least two minutes for regular cleansing purposes. So, I put it on, wash my hands, and then do other things before I come back to the sink to remove it. I usually skip putting it on my lips. If I feel like they need some extra help, I prefer to apply the treatment to lips after my face has already been cleansed. Then I leave it on for a while before I remove it with a wet cloth.
It doesn’t need to be done separately, but my way makes it easier to keep the cleanser’s time on my face shorter than the time on my lips.

When the cleanser gets wet and rubbed, a milky film is produced. It easily rolls down the face taking droplets of makeup with it, so it was hard to take a picture of it and I didn’t want to leave my bathroom with the pigment dripping to get to a spot with better light. Sorry about that!

What I like to do after the two minutes are up is to wet one quarter of the cloth on both sides. These cloths are even bigger than the full-size Makeup Eraser, so I’ve found that I can get at least 4 uses out of a single cloth if I wipe my face with just one of the corners each time.

Then, I squeeze the excess water out of the cloth and into my hand so that I can use the dripping liquid on my fingers to wet my face, getting that initial milky film layer going as I rub it all over. The cleanser breaks down the makeup, but because it’s so thick, I feel like the makeup doesn’t remove as well unless I wet my face and it lifts to the surface like pouring water into a glass of oil and watching the oil rise to the top to be separate from the water. That’s the best analogy I could think up to try and describe the makeup mixing with the water and separating from the rest of the sap layer.

I make sure to keep my head hovered over the bowl of the sink so I don’t get pigment filled droplets everywhere, including down my own clothes. I take the muslin side of the cloth and wipe around my jaw first to catch the rolling droplets. Then I continue swiping the cloth all over my face, but avoiding the eye area. At this point, the layer of cleanser should be gone and only shiny residue showing at most. I flip to the fluffier side of the cloth and clean my eye area, as well as passing the cloth over the rest of my face until it feels clean of everything. I add extra water to the cloth and rub it over my face again if necessary.

Something I noticed when using these cloths is that I was getting at least 3 eyelashes on it every time. It’s not unusual for me to lose an eyelash or two while removing my eye makeup, but I was seeing it happen on non-makeup days too. The inner lashes of my eyes where I apply more pressure to clean the crevices between my eyes and nose were getting sparse. Eventually, upon closer inspection, I realized my lashes were getting stuck in the ultra tiny thread holes of the muslin side specifically. This is why I no longer use the muslin side in my eye and brow area. I still think it’s necessary to use it on the other parts of my face because it’s great at exfoliating, which also means it’s strong enough to lift off the sappy cleanser layer. When I tried switching to using this cleanser with the Makeup Eraser, I felt like there was too much residue left behind. The appeal of the cleanser is that it’s supposed to keep the skin moisturized, so I don’t need every trace of it to be gone, but what the Makeup Eraser left behind was just too much. And I do believe using a cloth with this cleanser is necessary. Trying to wash it off with nothing but water left my skin feeling very uncomfortable, like it was dirty. Using the fluffy side for the eye area has worked out better, and my inner lashes are almost back to full regrowth. I started testing out the cleanser in the middle of May 2023, and I didn’t pay attention to the lash issue for a very long time. So, it took ages for my already slow growing hair to come back. Plus, I sometimes forget to avoid the eyes with the muslin side and end up losing extra lashes again. This was user error on my part for not noticing it sooner, so I don’t hold it against the cloths. In fact, they’re so useful that I ordered a second pack. I only buy Makeup Erasers for 30-50% off, particularly as a half off Beauty Steal from Ulta. But that’s $10 for one versus Lisa’s at $12 for a pack of two and each of those two being larger than the Makeup Eraser. So, it’s a great deal. I will give the Makeup Eraser credit for feeling softer on the skin than even the fluffy side of the LE cloths. I use the LE cleanser most days of the week since buying it, but on the days that I’m using a different cleanser, I prefer to use the Makeup Eraser with it, unless it’s a thick cleanser or oil based one. Then, I use the LE cloth with it. So, there’s still place for both in my collection, though the Makeup Eraser is mostly delegated to being my cloth for wiping my makeup brushes between uses or my fingers between doing swatches.

After my face is washed, I like to do one final splash of water all over my face before patting it dry with a regular face towel.

I’ve always taken on the philosophy that I would not spend over $20 on a cleanser. When I used the one from rephr, it was discounted. So, this cleanser from Lisa Eldridge has been the one exception. It’s significantly more expensive, and I love using it, but I still don’t know if I will repurchase it or not. I have so many other cleansers (that are admittedly less enjoyable to use) that get the job done, but my dry skin loves the bonus moisturizing benefits. This is the type of product that takes care of my skin without changing it. I want my skin to be moisturized, but I don’t want it to turn combo-oily either, like some dry-skin products do. My skin feels more balanced since using the cleanser and I enjoy the luxuriousness of it and how it feels like I’m pampering myself even when I use it solely as a cleanser and not a treatment. This product made me finally enjoy having a skincare routine. Plus, it has been so great not needing to double-cleanse. For those reasons, it might be worth it for me to get it again once I run out. Lisa’s video has all the details on the benefits and the special ingredients. Some people might not think it’s worth the price, or some might think it’s amazing, but still too expensive to spend their money on. I think it’s an amazing cleanser that lives up to the claims when used properly, and I easily recommend it, but I also have to decide if I’m going to buy it again when the time comes.

There are supposed to be 200 applications worth of product per tube. The photo above was taken on September 19th, so roughly four months after I started using it. The amount I have left is about what I’d expect. Since I’m still occasionally using other cleansers to try not to waste them (and I’m still testing some out while contemplating whether or not I want to do a big cleanser comparison post in the future), I estimate that I’ll run out by March 2024.

Tatcha Forest Awakening Cedar & Hinoki Body Milk and Body Oil

I bought the travel size oil in April 2023, but the full-size body lotion was purchased a year ago. I like the light cedar-green scent to the products. It’s not my usual preference in scented products, but it isn’t that strong and it doesn’t clash with any perfume I decide to put on afterwards.

The Body Milk absorbs into the skin fairly fast, which is great because the thing I hate most about lotion since I was a kid was my skin feeling greasy and/or my hands having a filmy feeling that took a ton of soap and multiple washes to remove. I hated the feeling of pants sticking to my legs because of the moisture left from lotion that took ages to absorb. So, I love that I don’t have that problem with this one. It’s not all that long lasting in keeping moisture locked in (most of the day but not all day), but I still use it sometimes. As for my elbows, which are the driest parts of my body that almost nothing keeps it from looking ashy for longer than a few hours, this lotion doesn’t do much for that area.

The Body Oil I purchased after rave reviews from Tara Lynn who said the combination of the body oil with lotion was where the magic happens. I like that even though it’s an oil, it also absorbs quickly into my skin, but pairing them only increases the moisturizing benefits to my skin by a small amount. Considering the full retail price of both products, I don’t feel like it was worth getting them both for the end result. Tara Lynn mentioned that the oil combined with lotion from other brands is how she loves the oil, so perhaps that could make the difference to someone. As it stands, I don’t feel like either one was worth me buying and if anyone is super curious to try it, the brand started offering travel size minis individually and in sets a few months after the products launched.

---

Based on my experience with these specific high end skincare products, I don’t think they’re generally worth the price for me. I have to admit that when they’re good, they’re very good. More times than not, though, I tend to get the same efficacy or better at lower prices.

Thank you for reading! This is my 200th post on this blog! It feels a bit more special to have it be a topic that I don’t write about as often. For those diligently reading all this time, I thank you and I hope that you’ll continue to find my posts useful. Those that are new, I hope you’ll considering clicking follow or bookmarking this page to come visit again soon!

-Lili ❤