Best of Reddit Experiments: Fermented Ingredients

Context: I rage deleted all my Reddit posts and so I'm reposting the key experiments here. 

The experiment took place roughly from March to June 2022. I've also added author note's - updates and editorial critiques - in italics. It's very funny rereading stuff I wrote nearly two years ago. 

Fermented ingredients are said to do it all: glowy skin, even skin tone, provide mild exfoliation (SK-II claim this), improve hydration levels, anti-aging and barrier support.

So can using more than one ferment improve your skin even more? I tried an entire routine of fermented products because why the hell not!

Background

My failed experiment with Purito Galacto Niacin 97 essence (irritation, possible rash or weird breakout) might have put me off ferment entirely. 

I should add a side note that I'd also tried a couple of other products with ferment, one before and one after the Purito Incident, neither of which produced the glow (The Ordinary Buffet and Beauty of Joseon Ginseng Essence Water - although, an update: three layers of BoJ is glowy but I didn't know that at the time). 

I got some fun money to spend and I decided to give ferment another shot with a mini of the classic SK-II Facial Treatment Essence: thought I might as well go for the (alleged) best product and work down. SK-II came through: it produced the glow with zero irritation. 

But..... the price tag. This was by far the most expensive product I've ever bought for myself.

Unbeknownst to me, because I foolishly forgot that Missha endlessly reformulates, I actually got the old version of the FTE (Rx Pro-Ferment, ver.4 iirc). And lots of people report not getting on with reformulations of the Missha.

However, I used it solely instead of SK-II as my only ferment for two weeks and I lost no glow!

In the interim, I realised I had a little bottle of Neogen Real Ferment Micro Essence that I'd bought to bump up an order to free shipping but had been wary to try it. This reminds me that ferment can be a bit off-putting if you haven't had experience with it, I try to remember this when engaging with people about ferment.

Feeling emboldened, I crack it open and it's beautiful. Using both, do I get double glow? No, but the glow is consistent and my skin continues to improve (to my subjective eyes) in terms of hydration and resilience. 

Of course I then decide to up my actives usage to two per AM and PM, which leads to some slightly drier, slightly redder skin. Sure, my actives are largely derivatives that are gentle but my skin is just so prone to redness and irritation at the slightest provocation. I back off on the actives but in the meantime, I'm thinking, what if the benefits of ferment stack - I could always use mega hydration, glow and resilience. Compared to back them, my actives are full strength now but I'm lazy about applying them for a lot of reasons. I strongly maintain that being able to use stronger actives comes down to the fact that ferments supercharge my barrier.

So there begins the project: regardless of whether I should, can I make an entire routine from ferment? 

What benefits might I get from pickling my face in ferment with every step of my routine?

TL;DR: this is a round-up of my thoughts on the ferment series. Do the benefits of ferment stack? Yes, up to a point! Doing a full ferment routine saved my skin during covid! I absolutely love having every single product being a ferment (apart from actives/SPF) I do use a fermented sunscreen now lol.

What I've Learned

The takeaway: do the benefits of ferment stack?

For me, yes - up to a point. Products that produce a lower glow can be layered to give me a better glow. 

There is a limit to how much glow my skin will produce and I hit that limit just using SK-II Clear Facial Treatment Lotion or Missha Time Revolution Artemisia Treatment Essence / Calming Essence. They reformulated and the name changed so I've included both variants here as I was using the original at the time. Lol more Missha reformulations, although I didn't notice any difference with the new version.

However, there are other benefits that seem to improve when I use multiple fermented products. I had covid a little while ago and my skin was significantly itchy and uncomfortable (plus random rashes, not on my face, thankfully). In order to keep my face skin comfortable with minimum effort, I slathered on the ferment! 

This meant I could just do a routine once a day or every couple of days at the beginning but still have a comfortable face (comfortable from a skin point of view, let's ignore all the other head area symptoms lol). 

Is there a limit to stacking ferments for resilience? This is much harder to answer. Whilst "glow" is subjective, I know what it looks like on my skin and I can, to an extent, measure it by looking at my skin in the same lighting conditions (bathroom, no windows so no other variables in lighting). 

But resilience is more difficult to discern, I have, however, tried to answer it below. I've really enjoyed my ferment experiment, learned lots about my skin and also about testing products!

Glow

There is a definite limit to how much glow it's possible to produce! Plus, I had just been layering ferment with no real method so, for some products, it's been hard to tell if they give glow by themselves! 

A further unscientific experiment: stop all ferment and just use the product I want to test for glow. 

Sure, it sounds easy, right? Wrong! Whilst stacking ferment doesn't amplify the glow beyond radiance, it does seem to affect how long the glow lasts. 

In order to do my retrospective glow testing, I found that if I had used more than one ferment or even just a particularly glowy ferment by itself, I had to cease all ferment for at least 24 hours and it survived multiple face washes. 

By my final wash PM, there was a very very slight glow, pretty much entirely gone, so I consider it fair to test whether, for example, Papa Recipe Blemish serum gives glow, which is does. 

And then, for the really effective FTEs, I've found the glow can last THREE DAYS (Missha Artemisia and SK-II Clear Facial Treatment Lotion are the ones for which I noticed this in particular).

Last week, I suspect even I'm From Rice toner was causing glow. I had to stop that too! I used ferment on the saturday and then didn't use any more. 

I was using I'm From Sunday to Thursday and it still took another two days until my skin stopped glowing 😂 Previously I've only had glow from ferments so this is very interesting! I'll do some further testing on this and report back in a later post. 

Whilst there seems to be a limit to how much glow it's possible to produce, my skin feels better hydrated, more resilient and possibly less reactive. Plus the longer lasting glow, of course. A sensible thing to do would be to see how long the glow lasts from SK-II Clear. 

If it lasts really well, use it to top up glow every three days or so, and also I wouldn't be using it often and so potentially it could be the cheapest option! 

I absolutely wasn't planning on repurchasing either SK-II but I've had generally calmer and pleasantly resilient skin after restarting SK-II OG essence with no other major ferments. Author note: that's interesting, I really thought it was only Sooryehan's The Black Serum that was calming! However, in the choice between SK-II and Sooryehan, I choose Sooryehan - better texture if nothing else and there are absolutely other benefits imo!

However, if I just used SK-II Clear every three days, then I wouldn't have ferment in my routine every day and I might not get the resilience benefits. Plus, I've found the process of glow testing, when I can't use ferment daily, just makes me sad! I want daily ferment and I haven't looked back.

Thankfully I've had other fun and effective products to use because I apparently have a massive stash and possibly a slight skincare shopping problem (which I'm trying to combat by switching out my products to cheaper ones from my stash without buying too many new ones, she says, having purchased quite a few new ones recently to replace things that have almost but not quite run out yet). Switching to cheaper things was a subsequent experiment which I will reclaim from my Reddit cull and post about next. I learned so much from that experiment too! 

Hydration

In fact, my skin feels so well hydrated and comfortable that I can wash AM, *only* apply moisturising SPF, reapply throughout the day where necessary and still have fairly comfortable skin until my evening cleanse.

This is a revelation for someone who used to have dry skin and I assumed my skin was continually dehydrated: actually, perhaps not so much any more. What was I smoking, I don't think I've ever had properly dry skin until recently lol. I think I'm talking about the fact that I struggled to find moisturisers that didn't rub off overnight.

And similarly, I've done my AM routine and then hugely reduced my evening routine to just cleansing and applying my nonAB HG moisturiser - I've found I wake up with perfectly reasonable skin. This was The Ordinary's NMF, old version. I'd forgotten that I'd considered it a HG for so long. Little did I know what I was missing out on...

PM routine comments: Cosrx 96 has been my HG ever since I first tried it but I didn't really have room for it with the sheer amount of ferment I was piling on my face. 

And I hadn't even noticed that I didn't miss it until someone posted this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsianBeauty/comments/vlffp2/your_favourites_is_there_anything_new_available/ 

I've realised that ferments in multiple steps plus some kind of HA toner does just as well as one (or no ferment) and other products with Cosrx 96. 

I'm not looking to ditch Cosrx 96 permanently but before I started ferments, it was one of those products that I never skipped if I was having a low maintenance routine. 

Now I barely use it on my face (still HG for my neck rn) as I've got other options that work really well, even outside of ferment. Barely use it on my anything now, it's been a slow death of a beautiful friendship but I'm over it now! 

Resilience

I can definitely use more actives more often now. I would never have considered using more than one at once previously, even though they're quite gentle, as actives go. See previous comment: this has changed if irregularly. Current routine rotates 10% AHA BHA serum, 2% salicylic acid, 20% ascorbic acid, 0.05% retinal. 

And I'll mention covid again: my skin was having a bad time when I had covid and ferment got it back to feeling reasonable. I would have stopped skincare all together if my skin wasn't uncomfortable so I'm grateful I had a lot of ferment to hand :) 

Skin tone 

I'd say my skin tone was more even now, although that is likely to have more to do with the aforementioned actives (retinol derivative, BHA derivative, azeliac acid, vitamin c derivative - although those last two are much more sporadic). Ha! 

An update to this is that I've barely used actives since Covid, the most I've done is Cosrx BHA Blackhead Power Liquid regularly and my skin tone is still looking generally more even. 

I hadn't used ferment consistently either as I was still working on glow testing a few things. Whilst several of the ferment products also have niacinamide, I've been using niacinamide in varying concentrations (up to 5%, which I dont think was good for my skin, 2-3% is more comfortable) relatively regularly for a year now with no noticeable effect. Nope, that was just an issue with the Purito Galacto Niacin. No Purito products have worked for me, I've tried three and stopped there.

It could just be everything together that's having an effect on my skin tone. I now feel comfortable enough to skip foundation entirely. I'm a very occasional user of base products but I've always preferred the look of my skin with them and I would always do it for a social event. Sadly getting dry skin messed this up but I have Sooryehan The Black Serum (and others from that line soon!)

However, now I find just a high quality translucent powder does the job and I'm really happy with my skin. This comment still stands, despite the fact that I found an incredibly good foundation (nonAB) that is properly skinlike and I can apply very little of it to get the effect I want. I don't think I would have managed that, even with this pricey foundation, before I'd been using ferments (and the newer actives). 

Cost

 SK-II essence: £20 for 30ml. 

Missha Artemisia: $21.99 so that's probably about £25 for 160ml. 

Clearly the Missha is the winner on cost. 

 SK-II with Stylevana discount worked out at £397.78 per litre. Missha, £156.25 per litre. 

But does the Missha do everything SK-II does? If I need other products to boost the effects, how does that work out? Does SK-II do enough by itself to stop using the other ferment products? 

To make the outlay on ferments roughly the same cost as just SK-II, I can still probably only use a couple of other ferments. 

I feel like the SK-II essence reduced my redness more than anything else but I still haven't retested it. 

Summation

As we now know the Missha Artemisia FTE gives me the 100 kWh beaming radiance of the SK-II, so the choice is easy in terms of glow. 

But, I also know that the Missha by itself doesn't give me all the comfort benefits of multiple ferment products on a work day. 

However, my routine has changed quite a bit, I've made more effort to focus on effective products (that also happen to be cheaper) and I've found some incredible stuff that's made a massive difference. 

If cost was no issue, I'd probably just use all the ferments, all day, every day, and only buy more ferments because I love it so much! How much has changed since I wrote this: not only is my routine almost exclusively made up of fermented things, it's also a lot more pricey. But then I managed to cut back drastically on how many products I use so there's a balancing act being performed here. 

But ferments tend to be more pricey for the most part, or the cheaper ones, like Kiku-Masamune, have things I can't use like fragrance or they're not easily available in the UK. I hadn't tried Sooryehan's The Black Serum at this point so I didn't know that fragrance is actually fine. I was working off a premise that I found fragrance irritating - and I still do to some extent for my body but it varies by product.

I feel like I've learned so much about my skin from this experiment! 

Top / Worst Products by Effect

Most Radiant

SK-II FTE and Clear, Missha Artemisia FTE, followed by Missha Time Revolution FTE Rx pro-ferment, Dr Ceuracle Kombucha essence, followed by By Wishtrend Pro-Biome Balance cream 

Least Radiant

Neogen Real Ferment Micro Essence, I'm From Mugwort essence, HaruHaru Black Rice Hyaluronic Acid Toner sensitive. 

Best Hydration Boost (that I noticed) 

SK-II Clear 

Most Immediately Hydrating 

Papa Recipe Blemish serum 

Least Immediately Hydrating

All of the FTEs 

Best Resilience Boost (that I noticed) 

SK-II Clear 

Best For Skin Issues (for me personally)

Missha Artemisia FTE, I'm From Mugwort essence, probably SK-II for redness 

Best Multitasking

Neogen Real Ferment Micro Essence, Papa Recipe Blemish Serum 

Most Likely to Repurchase

Missha Artemisia FTE (although it's been reformulated and I'm looking for cheaper stuff!) I repurchased this multiple times after I finished my Good Value Routine experiment 

Most Disappointing

By Wishtrend Pro-Biome Balance cream (because it maybe broke me out and I can use it, but not all the time) I am not sure about this particular judgement now as I finished the jar. I did have combo skin but my neck was drier, I finished the jar up on my neck and maybe it's time to repurchase it because it felt very calming on my neck. I think one of my issues is that it's not super cheap and rubbed off my face skin overnight, leaving dry patches. Nearly just repurchased this but I remembered that I have a ton of Mary & May Calendula sleeping mask to use up before I buy any more dedicated neck creams. Lol.

What Do I Enjoy The Most

Missha Artemisia FTE because the smell is wonderful, it's super glowy and the bottle makes me feel really fancy (smoky amber ombre glass, what's not to love?) The reformulation doesn't have such a nice bottle but it is pretty. There's just something about that smoky amber bottle that I really miss. 

Best texture 

Papa Recipe Blemish serum, By Wishtrend Pro-Biome Balance cream 

Most Useful Packaging

Beauty of Joseon Radiance cleansing balm (free spatula and compartment to keep in it, wonderful). I've seen lots of people complain about this packaging but I still love it.

Most Luxe Packaging

Missha Artemisia FTE. Keep in mind I only had plastic minis of the SK-II but equally, that Missha was gorgeous.

Most Expensive

SK-II FTE 

Least Expensive

Papa Recipe Blemish serum (in terms of price per ml for a serum and the fact that it does give a slight glow plus it's very hydrating), but I got some products on offer so Missha Artemisia FTE was relatively cheaper too.

2024

Ferment was my first major routine experiment. It was super fun. I followed it up with quarterly posts until August 2023 when it's all started getting a bit rambling because I was updating on anything I was still using from the original routine or had reviewed in previous updates. 

Plus I started my blog then and wanted to focus on it. I also felt that as my routine became more luxe, it became less relevant to the sub which doesn't really have a luxe focus. 

I find it more coherent to proceed with the format I'm using on the blog: mostly individual product reviews with follow ups when I pan them and noting how my routine is evolving.

Edit: I should have also said that I can post individual reviews of any of the products mentioned if you request it :)