When I first laid eyes on this, I was intrigued. That millennial pink! That rose gold cap packaging! As I inspected it further, I realised that this was meant to be something to apply on top of blemishes. I was fascinated and decided to pick it up.
To this day however I do not understand the product naming. As you can gather from the photos, it has an English and a French name – on their website however they call it a Prodigal Pen.
TL;DR: Might work on teenage skin but is definitely much too harsh on adult acne.
Ingredients:
Just looking at the ingredients list makes me shudder a little bit. If you go through it one by one, you will see that it is basically pure alcohol with a couple of highly irritating plant extracts that sensitive skin is bound to hate. It’s kind of like diluted hand disinfectant with some extracts. Have you ever wanted to put hand sanitiser on your face? Yeah, me neither.
Whoever thought to formulate this product was not being informed or very smart about it, in my opinion.
Size/Quantity: 6 ml
Price & Availability: I got this at Olive Young, though it is available through their website, too. At the time, I got this for ₩11,000 while on sale.
Opinion:
Application
The product itself is a clear liquid, housed in a glass container, with a metal roll-on ball on top. The packaging states that you can apply this over makeup on top of blemishes.
The first few times I used it, it burned, it gave off a strong herbal scent and it felt as though it were doing something. If you however, like me, have been an acne sufferer for a long time, you will know that a burning sensation is not a good thing to be had, most of the time. You think it’s burning off the bacteria, when in actuality, you’re probably burning the good skin around your pimple that could have helped you heal said breakout.
After a few weeks however, I found that it no longer burned or smelled of cloves as much as it did in the beginning. Alcohol being volatile, I am guessing that enough of it may have evaporated for it by then to be no longer as irritating.
Efficacy
As you might have guessed by now, I found that this was rather irritating. Especially on breakouts that have been extracted, this slowed down the healing process in my opinion. What I did find though was that it was slightly helpful on blind pimples – inflammation deep down in your skin that does not come to a head. On those spots, I found that the Prodigal Pen did a little to dry out that spot and make it retract. It was not a miracle product though and I have abstained from using it since.
I would also venture out so far as to guess that teenage skin might be better equipped to handle this pen, as younger skin might have a higher water contents and/or a stronger barrier function. I could potentially see this work better on teenagers with blemishes, but I still would not recommend it. Blemish prone skin tends to be sensitive skin, and these are not ingredients I would want to put on sensitive skin.
Final Thoughts
I don’t think that I will be repurchasing this, as it is simply too strong for my skin to handle. Love the packaging and the idea of being able to use it on top of makeup – that is actually a pretty innovative thought – but I was not too fond of the actual product.
The Empties Diaries 