A Battle in Essence: Clinique vs SK-II

Clinique, essence, skincare, sk-II, dry skin

If you have read my previous post on Clinique's Step 3 toners you might be a bit surprised by what I am about to say......I LOVE THIS ESSENCE. You guys seriously this essence is life. So I, being the skeptic that I am, absolutely refused to hop on the essence bandwagon. When they were first introduced to Sephora, they were EVERYWHERE. Every brand launched beautifully packaged essences in sleek glass bottles, each one claimed to be the missing component in consumers skin care regimens and by adding this one additional product absolute miracles would be produced. As I do with all new products, I bypassed the wild over exaggerated claims on the front of the box, flipped them over and read the ingredient lists. Repeatedly each one read incredibly similar, filled with alcohol and fragrances, and lacked skin beneficial ingredients one would expect to find. 

When our store received SK-II I was blown away by the price tag, $99 for a 2.5 oz!  While it did lack garbage ingredients and skin sensitizers that others had, SK-II only had ONE main ingredient (galactomyces ferment filtrate) aka pitera. Here is what you need to understand, there is NO SINGLE INGREDIENT that is going to miraculously transform your skin. If galactomyces ferment filtrate was the only ingredient needed then why are we not just bathing in it every day and going on with our lives no longer needing to obsess over skin care? If I am going to invest $100 in a product, you better believe it is going to be chocked FULL of beneficial ingredients. 

So, in comes the Clinique Even Better Essence, a bit late to the game, but well worth the wait. I was immediately impressed with the ingredient list and did a little happy dance over the occlusion of alcohol as is the dominating ingredient in Clinique’s step 3 toners. This Essence contains many of the ingredients that are in my beloved Drunk Elephant B-hydra gel watermelon extract, lentil extract and apple extract which act as antioxidants to protect the skin and prevent free radical damage. This Essence also contains an additional antioxidant that is not derived from fruit....are you ready for it?!...galactomyces ferment filtrate. Yes, that's right it contains a heaping helping of the same main ingredient in the SK-II essence. See I wasn't just rambling, everything comes full circle with a little patience. 

So the Clinique essence is $44 for a 6.7 oz while the SK-II essence is $179 for a 5.4 oz and the Clinique essence contains much more than just pitera. I have used both and much prefer the light lotion-like texture of the Clinique Essence (I use the 1,2 for dry skin), as opposed to the water-like texture of the SK-II essence. 

Honestly, with spending this amount on the SK-II essence, it is utterly stressful to make a small pool of the thin liquid in your hands and frantically splash it on your face in a desperate attempt to not let the ultra-thin liquid seep between your fingers, potentially wasting a couple drops ultimately costing you around $10. It also has relatively ZERO spreadability as well, so I never felt it to be evenly distributed on my skin and felt the majority was wasted on my palms.  

So to sum things up I am an essence believer now, but only if the ingredients are right. I enjoy having the extra step as I feel it is a way to give my skin the additional beneficial ingredients in a light non-pore clogging way. The Even Better Essence is no longer on Sephora’s shelves but it is still available on Sephora.com and I assume you can find it at Clinique counters.