Review: Laneige Basic & Water Bank Moisture Kit

Last month, I got a sample of this Laneige Basic & Water Bank Moisture Kit. In case you don't know, Laneige is a popular Korean beauty brand so I was pretty excited to try this kit. The kit comes with 5 items below which sounded pretty much like greek to me.

1) LANEIGE Power Essential Skin Refiner 

2) LANEIGE Balancing Emulsion

3) LANEIGE Water Bank Moisture Cream

4) LANEIGE Water Bank Essence

5) LANEIGE Water Bank Eye Gel Cream

I was told that there was a particular order to use the products for best effects. As you can tell, the names pretty much doesn't sound like the usual cleanser, toner & moisturizer terms I was used to so I paid full attention to the steps. The first step is actually to cleanse your face, and none of the 5 products above are cleansers. Surprise surprise. I am sure Laneige has some cleansers out there but this kit is pretty much what comes after cleansing. After cleansing, comes the toner a.k.a. Power Essential Skin Refiner. You pour this on a cotton pad and dab it around your face just like how we normally do it with a regular toner. The liquid doesn't quite feel like a toner, in a sense where it doesn't sting your skin. That's always a good sign! 

Once you're done with that, the next product to use is the Balancing Emulsion. Now, you gotta be careful with this product as it can be pretty heavy for skin types that are normal to oily. The entire Water Bank series is to hydrate your skin so if you don't have particularly dry skin, it is advised to use very minimal of this emulsion. This emulsion goes onto the same cotton pad you have used for the toner so it blends with the leftover toner to make the consistency less heavy. 

Next up, is the Water Bank Moisture Cream which is the equivalent of a moisturizer and following that is Water Bank Essence which is the equivalent of a serum. The last step is to use the Eye Gel Cream (I know right, is it a gel or cream?) around your eyes to finish off the routine. Then be prepared to wake up to dewy skin the next morning :) Personally, I  used this consistently for a week and saw significant difference to my skin. My skin tone did appear more even and there was a healthy sheen on my skin. However, one thing that happened was my forehead got oilier than usual. I decided to stop using the Balancing Emulsion everyday and used it every other day instead. My forehead didn't get as oily once I altered the routine a little so I would advise people with oily skin to skip or reduce usage of the Balancing Emulsion. To conclude, I would say this moisture kit does work, but for people who don't have particularly dry skin, I think that they can afford to skip this.