[Review] Mizon AHA 8% Peeling Serum

Good morning everyone!!! Happy Monday! And a caffeinated cheers to the oncoming Spring season! Here in Taiwan, things have been getting steadily sunnier and hotter. And I hear that back home, it’s finally warming up too! 😀

Today, I’m talking about my newest AHA product:

Mizon Skin Renewal Program AHA 8% Peeling Serum

 

The manufacturing date is on the bottom: 

It has the same dispensing technology as the Skinfood Royal Honey & Propolis Essence (reviewed HERE):

When you twist up the cap (roughly half a turn), the dispenser button pops up and simultaneously fills the pipette with product, making it very easy to operate with one hand:

Unscrew it all the way:

And press the button down to dispense:

This is one pipette’s worth of product. It’s enough for your face and some of your neck! A little goes a long way!

So, the key ingredients are: AHA 8%, Portulaca extract, sagebrush extract, aloe vera leaf extract, arnica flower extract, castor oil, panthenol, allantoin, papaya fruits extract, yarrow extract, gentiana extract

Now the bottle has a little blurb about it, but it sounds pretty wonky and a bit uninviting to me, personally:

“It is AHA 8% Peeling Serum which contain AHA 8% to be used for all the skin stably, removes unnecessary stratum corneum of the surface of the skin and keeps the skin soft and sleek.”

AHH! I’m pretty sure my stratum corneum is necessary. And I don’t want it all removed, hah! But I know what they meant. Urban Outfitters made a better blurb about this product:

“Refresh and rejuvenate skin daily with this facial treatment from the skin experts at Korea’s Mizon. Mizon AHA 8% Peeling Serum is a highly concentrated formula packed with stabilized alpha hydroxy acid and nutrient-rich plant extracts like aloe vera, papaya and arnica. Used once daily, it revitalizes skin by gently exfoliating dull skin for a glowing complexion.  Perfect for smoothing and brightening skin and lightening scars and trouble areas. Please note, each Mizon product is printed with the manufacturing date (not expiration date!) at the bottom.”

FULL LIST OF INGREDIENTS:

Aqua, glycolic acid, potassium hydroxide, butylene glycol, propylene glycol, sodium lactate, hydroxyethylcellulose, sodium hyaluronate, peg-60 hydrogenated castor oil, panthenol, allantoin, aloe barbadensis leaf extract, portulaca oleracea extract, carica papaya (papaya) fruit extract, arnica montana flower extract, artemisia absinthium extract, achillea millefolium extract, gentiana lutea root extract, alcohol, polyquaternium-10, disodium edta, methylparaben, propylparaben, fragrance

Only one ingredient came up in CosDNA as a problem for irritation/acne:

Butylene glycol (1) solvent/moisturizer

This dries fairly quickly if you pat it in, and it does feel slightly tacky after absorption, but the tackiness disappears after a few minutes. I usually apply this serum after cleansing and after my Mizon Witchhazel toner (reviewed HERE), and wait 10-15 minutes before continuing with the rest of my routine.

I was initially inspired to buy this product by the Pico Prince’s blog post on it (linked HERE). At the time I made the purchase, I’d been using Dr. Wu’s Mandelic Acid 6% for a month… and I’d thought at the time that I was going through a purging stage, but boyyyyy did this Mizon Peeling Serum prove me wrong!! With Dr. Wu’s Mandelic Acid, I’d been getting cystic acne, and I thought (very naïvely) that it was some kind of purging. I think it was my blind hope that Dr. Wu was my magical answer to acne! And mandelic acid was supposed to be the most gentle of the AHA’s, I think, so I was in total denial the entire time.

Thankfully, after I ran out of Dr. Wu, I decided to give Mizon’s Peeling Serum a chance. Once I started using it, my acne started disappearing!! I was horrified at what Dr. Wu’s product had done to my face… and that I’d let that happen for an entire month!! This was all a month ago, so the PIH has been able to heal/fade since then. I had no “purging” or any skin troubles whatsoever with the Mizon Peeling Serum, and it’s been amazing! I use it every other night. And I have noticed that all my closed comedones have been taken care of – SO happy!!! \(^.^)/

The only downside to this product is that you can’t see how much is left – so I have to kind of guess when I need to repurchase. I might have to just order a couple back-ups to have on hand for whenever I do!

I know this is a popular product and many people have tried it in the AB community! Have you tried it? What did you think? What was your experience? Yay or Nay?

❤ Bine Queen ❤