While this is not an Asian beauty product, it was hyped up a little bit not too long ago. Read on for my honest first impressions and how you can win some awesome sheet masks! Photo heavy post, AHOY!

Skin Type: Dehydrated/Oily/Acne Prone. Combo in the winter.

On the Subreddit /r/AsianBeauty, I came across a post about a product called Liquid Gold by Stratia. It almost looked like egg yolk in a bottle and I was convinced this stuff was going to be as thick as tempera paint (which I learned is also made with egg yolks so maybe I was on to something). I immediately tossed the idea aside since user /u/Indagata_Serena marketed it as a product for repairing your moisture barrier and I did not feel my routine warranted such a necessity. So I moved on.

Later that evening, my best friend asked me if I had read the post about the Liquid Gold to which I replied in an “eh” kind of way. I hadn’t even read the entire post since it didn’t seem like something I needed and the post was pretty long. She started to talk about it more and it began to look more necessary than I originally thought. I had started Curology in December of 2015 and loved it. Even with the base prescription they give pretty much every one that starts with the free trial. About three months ago I asked my doctor about adding Tret into my prescription to help with my hyperpigmentation and she agreed, adding 0.09% to my prescription and changing it a bit. I was fine at first. Even to this day I never experienced any flaking or terrible purging and I was feeling pretty confident. I did notice my skin seemed to get a little angry easier than usual but my doc and I talked about putting my prescription between a couple of layers of moisturizer and I did so. It made no difference. The problem became apparent when I realized that even if I went a week without using my Curology prescription, I still had angry skin. It was more red, sensitive, and needed more TLC. No burning or anything extreme, but not exactly comfortable. Now Liquid Gold started to seem like my next purchase.

Excitedly I added it to my cart and checked out with it within minutes of ending our conversation. I didn’t need to be using actives to need help for my skin. My impatience took care of that.

There was a slight delay in shipment but by a couple of days at the most. The seller did e-mail me to let me know this way before I was to receive it so that was nice. I am a mailman lurker and she saved me the trouble of sitting at the window like a puppy.

So today rolls around and I received my package a day sooner than expected and I was excited as ever. After rolling around in the driveway to take artsy-fartsy pictures, here is my first impression review of the Stratia “Liquid Gold”.

Like I mentioned earlier, the Reddit user made this seem like a product geared towards repairing the moisture barrier of your skin so I will test it out in the future based on this information. The website claims:

“A lightweight but powerful moisturizer that fortifies your skin’s moisture barrier to help heal, hydrate, strengthen, and soothe. Your skin’s moisture barrier (the stratum corneum , or outermost layer of the epidermis) has a bricks-and-mortar structure: the bricks are skin cells called corneocytes, and the mortar is a fatty mixture made up ofceramides, cholesterol, and free fatty acids. This mixture keeps your skin healthy, clear, and resilient. If it’s compromised, it can lead to skin that’s: Flaky

Simultaneously dry and oily

Lax, sallow, or dull

Itchy and/or easily irritated

Extremely sensitive

Acne-prone Liquid Gold is formulated with ceramides, cholesterol, and fatty acids to mimic and strengthen your natural moisture barrier. By healing your dehydration and replenishing that fatty mixture in your stratum corneum, you can address the above symptoms and discover healthy, bouncy, resilient skin. It’s great for all skin types, and works especially well on dehydrated or over-exfoliated skin. Like all Stratia products, Liquid Gold is unfragranced, gimmick-free, and formulated based on hard science. WHAT’S WITH THE COLOR? Liquid Gold gets its gold hue from two types of sea buckthorn oil, both of which are fantastic sources of a wide range of fatty acids and are also bright red. While it may look a little unusual, for the vast majority of users, the color disappears when you apply it and won’t dye or tint your skin. However, a slight orange tint may be noticeable on extremely pale skin (lighter than MAC shades NC10/NW10).”

Short, simple, informative. Perfect. No need to be a hype-man for a product that basically sells itself.

The ingredients are as follows:

“INGREDIENTS Water (Aqua), Propylene Glycol, Ethoxydiglycol, Niacinamide, Polyglyceryl-3 Methyglucose Distearate, Rosa Mosqueta (Rose) Hip Oil, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) Seed Oil, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) Fruit Oil, Panthenol, Dimethicone, Glycerin, Squalane (olive-derived), Cetyl Alcohol, Vaccinium Macrocarpon (Cranberry) Seed Oil, Tocopherol, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Ceramide NP, Ceramide AP, Ceramide EOP, Phytosphingosine, Cholesterol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Sodium Lauroyl Lactylate, Carbomer, Xanthan Gum, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Disodium EDTA.” It is a 60ml bottle which is a pretty good size for the price. If only Shark Sauce were that great of a deal *cough cough* PLEASE I LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE SO GREAT BUT SO ‘SPENSIVE. All in all I paid $24 for the product and $3 for shipping, so $27 total USD. ON TO THE PHOTOS!

This is a first impression post so I cannot talk about it in action, but I can tell you from what I have experienced so far.

The color is an opaque egg yolk color. The photo may show it a little brighter but it is the EXACT color of egg yolk. It comes in a frosted glass bottle with a kind of frosted label that won’t get destroyed when around moisture. Smart move, Stratia.

I was trying to find an artsy-fartsy pose for you guys and the animals got interested!

Bert is very photogenic.

AAAAND Lucy who decided it was time to tinkle as I was trying to snap her photo.

I was losing daylight fast so I moved inside.

After being rubbed in, it felt like a pretty heavy load of moisturization without being heavy or greasy AT ALL. It was so rich and decadent that I was sad I used up a little and it wasn’t on my face. Once it gets in there your skin feels AMAZING and you kind of want that initial feeling to last forever. It is not heavily scented and the scent goes away after a couple of minutes (not even) but it is kind of like Elmer’s Glue or paper mache. Or like silly putty. One of those three. I will definitely say as a walking grease ball, I’d recommend this for ALL skin types. It’s got the heavy moisturization that drier skin needs with the non-greasy formula that I definitely need. It also dries fairly quickly so once you start spreading it, don’t play around. Get it in your skin and keep it moving.

Now, I am obviously a little darker, so I used a blank piece of paper to demonstrate how it looks once rubbed in. I know there are some very fair skinned beauties out there and I wanted to give everyone a fair chance to see how it may take to their skin tone.

So that is my review for the Liquid Gold serum from Stratia. Once I try it I will update this post or make a new one and let you guys know about the results. Now, ON TO THE GIVEAWAY!

[-This particular giveaway is for Reddit users in the US only-] All you have to do to enter the giveaway is follow this blog and leave your Reddit username in the comments. In the Reddit post this is linked from, you must tell me your skin type or concerns or just what you’re looking to get out of AB and the full name of my brother’s cat. That’s it. Winners will receive FOUR SHEET MASKS at random pertaining to your skin type/needs. They can be anything from My Beauty Diary to My Scheming or even Lovemore. I have plenty of brands and plenty to share.

Thank you again for reading yet another post from Holy Grail Snail and as always, Love your skin and each other.