Skin & Tonics : Skincare Guides & Product Reviews

Who wants a sticky face? Anyone? No?  Yeah, me either. Because of that, I’m currently in a limbo state when it comes to moisturizer.  For a long time I used Estee Lauder Daywear, and it hydrated wonderfully. However, I didn’t feel like it was doing anything exciting for my skin in terms of firming or brightening, and I got bored with it.  I tried Origins Starting Over, and again, it moisturized nicely, but it was boring.  Along came Perricone MD Face Finishing Moisturizer, which was loaded with skincare actives like DMAE, vitamin C, and Alpha Lipoic Acid. Unfortunately, it was rose scented, and I am one of the few people on earth who have a reaction to roses in skincare.  My sister, also on a quest for the perfect moisturizer, did a search for one that had similar actives to the Perricone cream.  Her search brought her to Juice Beauty Green Apply Age Defy Moisturizer, which didn’t just have the same actives as Perricone – it had more.

It was an exciting find at the time –Green Apple Age Defy Moisturizer ($45) contains tons of actives: CoQ10, DMAE, Alpha Lipoic Acid, fruit acids (AHA), Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and a slew of nourishing natural oils.  When it arrived at my house, I was so pumped to try it! But as soon as I did, I became conflicted.

The texture of this cream is very, very thick. It’s so thick that I found it hard to rub into my skin. Every night I’d have to smear it around my face for minutes, sighing and rolling my eyes, until finally my skin had finally absorbed it. My sister compared the consistency to cake frosting, which is a very accurate analogy.

This is how the moisturizer looks inside the jar. It’s as thick as it looks.

Once the cream had absorbed, I had another problem. My face. It was sticky. It wasn’t greasy, and it definitely wasn’t shiny. It was just sticky, as if I’d washed my face with juice.  Indeed, organic juices are some of the main ingredients in this moisturizer, but I really didn’t expect it to feel like this. With the stickiness came a feeling of tightness. When I would touch my face, my skin felt perfectly moisturized, but otherwise the sticky feeling was a lot like the feeling of having tight, dry, skin.

This is how it would look on my face even after rubbing it in for a minute or two.

Normally those things would be immediate deal breakers, but the thing about this citrus & herb scented moisturizer is that it actually did wonderful things for my skin.  Any redness I had in my face disappeared. I wasn’t getting any breakouts, and my complexion seemed brighter after just a few days. I didn’t want to stop using something that was working so well.

I gave it a couple of weeks, and the performance continued to be great. My skin tone continued to become more even and my face continued to be smooth.  Unfortunately, the annoyance I had with it being absorbed, as well as the stickiness that followed, actually got more annoying as time went by.  I tried all kinds of techniques to alleviate the problems – using less moisturizer, warming it up in my hands before putting it on, patting it on my face and letting it warm up before rubbing it in – nothing worked.  Ultimately, I decided to send it back.

To summarize:

Pros:
• Loaded with actives – CoQ10, DMAE, Alpha Lipoic Acid, fruit acids (AHA), Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and nourishing natural oils
• Not greasy
• Alleviated redness
• Improved skin texture

Cons:
• Really difficult to absorb
• Face feels very sticky and tight after applying

If you have the patience to deal with the texture of this moisturizer, and you don’t mind a sticky face for at least an hour a day, then Green Apple Age Defy is actually a pretty good choice.  It’s available at Ulta and the Juice Beauty website.

As for me – my quest for the perfect moisturizer continues.

Follow me on Instagram:

This post contains affiliate links. Shopping through these links help support this site!