The Farmacy Honey Potion Plus is pretty good! This is an upgraded version of their original Honey Potion Renewing Antioxidant Hydration Mask. This time, the formula has added ceramics, upcycled apple and cica. It’s a great staple for those of you who need a boost of hydration during winter.
The Honey Potion Plus is a warming honey face mask that can be used during the day or night. I followed the instructions given on the website and used their spatula to scoop some and spread it on my face. It was pretty cool as the mask actually warms up slightly on my face as I rubbed it on for 2 minutes. The mask was in a nice shade of honey and I honesty felt like I was putting honey onto my face when I first rubbed it in. After it turned white during all the massaging I did, I waited for 15 minutes to wash it off.
Honey has been used for skincare for a very long time. There were rumors that even Cleopatra used a mask made of honey and milk on her face! Because of the powerful properties of honey, it is often a great product to hydrate and calm your skin. It is moisturizing, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory.
Because honey is a natural humectant, it draws moisture into your skin from the air when applied. This makes the Honey Potion Plus a great product to use during winter as your skin tends to be drier around these times.
I used the Honey Potion Plus at night because I felt like it would be the best time to put it on. Since it is a wash off mask, I took a nice relaxing bath while keeping the mask on for at least 20 minutes (they tell you to leave it on for 10 to 15 mins). It was like a nice destress spa night after a long day of work. Plus, it smells great! A beautiful scent of honey with a little apple after-scent.
I felt like my face did feel slightly smoother after using the Honey Potion Plus. The anti-inflammatory properties also helped calm the redness on my skin I had at night. It was a nice boost of hydration as the combination of ingredients in this product helps you absorb moisture and retain it.
This upgraded version added ceramides into their ingredient to help rehydrate, prevent moisture loss and replenish your skin barrier. Ceramides are fats that is found in your uppermost layers of skin, they make up for more than 50% of your skin’s composition. Aging and sun damage will reduce the effectiveness of the natural ceramics in your skin. Eventually, it will be depleted and weaken your skin barrier. By putting on ceramides on your face, you can help reinforce your skin’s moisture barrier and give yourself a more hydrated look with less wrinkles and fine lines.
What you should know is that to retain high effectiveness of ceramides, you need to make sure you tightly seal your Honey Potion Plus and avoid putting it somewhere it can be exposed to light. Ceramide will lose their effectiveness if it is exposed to air and light. Since the Honey Potion Plus is contained in a transparent jar, I would suggest you put it somewhere it would not be exposed to light.
Upcycled apple extract is another one of the key ingredients highlighted in the Honey Potion Plus. The apples are ‘upcycled’, which basically means they received leftover apple extracts from their supplier. This is basically a term for Farmacy to show that they have sustainably sourced the apples.
Apple extract is mostly known to be anti-aging and skin smoothing. Because it is high in antioxidants, it can protect your skin from free radicals in the environment. In addition, apple fruit extract often contains pectin, this is a type of fiber that can help improve your skin barrier and promote cell renewal on your outer skin.
Cica is the last ingredient that is highlighted in the new version of the Honey Potion. I was actually pretty hyped for this! Cica is short for centella asiatica, which is a plant that is native in Asia and have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries. In the last few years, it has been featured quite often in Korean skincare and now it’s starting to catch up in the West.
Often seen as a miracle ingredient in K-beauty, it is a very gentle ingredient that can be used by everybody. Originally, it has been used for wound healing and treatment of scars in Chinese medicine. When the ingredient is in your skincare product, it can hydrate and soothe your skin while also being antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.
Other than helping to hydrate your skin and protecting your skin barrier, it can also help increase your production of collagen in your skin! We all have collagen in our body, and as we age, our collagen decreases. Collagen is what keeps our skin from getting saggy and cica can help reverse the inflammation that damages the collagen in your skin.
All in all, this product smells great and feels great on my face. I’ll admit it is a little bit on the pricey side as it cost $38 for 50g. The Honey Potion Plus is a bit thick but it spreads quite well on your skin, therefore you don’t need a lot to cover your face. Because it smells so great, I had a great time putting it on and just relaxing in my tub waiting to wash it off. It was a real relaxing experience!
It is a great product that works well with all skin types. The Honey Potion Plus is very well rounded as not only does it hydrates your skin, it also helps promote skin renewal and protect you from environmental stressors. For me, I would clean my face before applying it and leave it on for at least 15 minutes to ensure you get the full benefits. After you wash it off, ideally you should put some moisturizers on to keep your face hydrated and the benefits from the Honey Potion sealed in.
One concern I do have is that although the packaging is really beautiful (comes with a magnetic spatula so you won’t lose it), I think they should have made the container UV proof. For example, ceramides are generally not stable, this means that the effectiveness is reduced every time it is exposed to both light and air. For some people, they might leave their skincare somewhere where light might hit it and since the bottle is transparent, UV will go through and decrease the effectiveness of the Honey Potion Plus.
Although this worked really well for me! I will always have a personal preference of using leave on masks over wash off masks. I feel like the Honey Potion Plus works really well, but for me it is more of an indulgent item instead of something that is a staple. It is definitely worth a try, but I would probably be sticking to their 10% Niacinamide Night Mask, which is a leave on night mask. Both of them have similar functions, therefore the only reason I would pick the other product is because it is a leave on mask.
Have you tried it? Let me know what you think!