I never believed much in the need for a toner. This was of course before I realised that a toner can be very very useful in the sense that it prepares your skin for what is to follow. If I may be cheesy, think of it like when you bake a cake. If you do not line your tin with baking paper then whatever cake you made will struggle to come out of the cake tin in one piece. A toner is to ensure that whatever products you use thereafter have a nice surface to work on.

Now for those of you that are familiar with Asian Beauty routines, I am sorry this dumbed down version of explaining things offends you haha. We all have to start somewhere and considering I just did, I want to explain things to readers the way I understand them.

For those of you who know the secret, your toner will be followed by actives. More on that in a separate post. But all you need to know for know is that actives are the big boys of Asian Beauty routine. For these actives to have the most effect on your skin, your PH level needs to have come back to normal acidity which is anything between 5 – 6. After you have already cleansed your skin your PH level will be a lot higher.

There are two things you can do to get your PH levels back to normal:- firstly, you can wait after any toner for about 20 minutes or you can take a short cut and use a PH adjusting toner.

As far as I know the COSRX centella toner is not a PH adjusting toner so I wait at least 20 minutes before moving on to the next step.

I had always been under the impression that a toner was supposed to very harsh on the skin leaving a squeeky clean feeling and a toner to me had always contained alcohol. Well I have since come to realise that Alcohol is no bueno for my skin so it is awesome that this toner is alcohol free.

Ingredients: Mineral water, Centella Asiatica Leaf Water, Butylene Glycol, 1-2 Hexanediol, Betaine, Panthenol, Allantoin, Sodium Hyaluronate, Ethyl, Hexanediol.

Look at how short and sexy that list is. It has Centella listed as the second ingredient. Centella is said to have anti-inflammatory and healing ingredients.

How to use it and when?

I literally spritz 2 pumps directly on my face and pat it in with my fingertips.

Where did I get mine?

RRS

The routine so far looks like:-

STEP ONE:

1. Oil Cleanser

2. Foam Cleanser

STEP TWO:

Toner

Rating: 4/5

1 – What a disaster, section of the crime scene.

2 – Well, not what I expected probably will give it away.

3 – It will do and I will finish this bottle.

4 – Hubba Hubba, me likey but I want see other products. It’s not you it’s me.

5 – I will never, ever cheat on you. My precious, they will never take you away from me.

(You get my drift…)