Product Review: Allies of Skin, Promise Keeper
I love the Promise Keeper.
However, like most love stories, I didn't have a good impression of this product initially. I bought this last year, right when my skin was at its worst - highly sensitised, pimples just couldn't stop popping up one after another. Not too sure why, maybe it was because I was using a bunch of products that couldn't work well with one another. Anyway, I was expecting this to be a miracle product of sorts for my problematic acne skin, after reading countless good reviews on it. I was so sure it was going to work for me.
But it didn't. It did not make my skin condition worse, but it didn't do anything to make it better too. Looking in retrospect, it could also be because I didn't give my skin enough time to repair the skin barrier before testing this out? Just speculating here.
But anyway, some time after, I decided to stop using all the garbage that I'd been putting on my skin and stripped down my skincare routine to just 3 steps in the night-time, 1 step in the morning.
Morning:
1. Sunscreen
Night:
1. Cleanser
2. Humectant - Clinique Moisture Surge
3. Moisturiser - Etude House Soon Jung 2x Barrier Intensive Cream
Yeah, I don't use a cleanser in the morning. Because I wanted to focus on re-building my skin barrier, I didn't want to strip it even further by cleansing it unnecessarily. Plus I cleanse my face the night before, so it should be quite alright.
After about 2-3 months of doing so, my skin became better but I wanted the pesky post-acne discoloration/hyperpigmentation to go away so I started searching around for a good product that would do that for me.
And that was when I re-discovered the Promise Keeper.
Here's what I found online:
“Azelaic acid, the main ingredient in this formula, not only has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties that treat acne, but it can also minimize red marks and acne scars,” she says. When it’s combined with the other two hero ingredients in the serum—caffeine (which constricts blood vessels to make pimples look less red) and lactic acid (a pore-clearing and bump-smoothing exfoliant)—it turns into a zit-fighting machine. -Marie Claire
Prior to chancing upon this article, I was watching Dr Dray's video about how using azelaic acid helps to lighten acne marks. Azaleic acid helps to suppress the little guys that causes hyperpigmentation and helps to get rid of some of the bacteria responsible for acne - basically it is really good for folks with acne and even helps with the acne marks post-acne. For anyone who's interested in what it does exactly (and in scientific terms), I've included the video here:
I now use the Promise Keeper every night, between step 1 and 2 in my night time routine - after cleanser, before the humectant step. I have to say, it really helps to lighten my acne marks quite a bit! In addition, whenever a new pimple pops up, I feel that it does help to calm it down a bit - it doesn't entirely disappear the next day, but the size definitely shrank.
Allies of Skin's Promise Keeper is not cheap, but it's definitely worth it.
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