My Summer 2018 Skincare Favorites

Summer is my favorite time to be in New York. It's finally warm, I get Summer Fridays at work, and there are so many fun events and outdoor concerts! But summer comes with some slight drawbacks as well like: hot subway stations, accidentally stepping in garbage juice, and the fact that my skin breaks out the second it gets humid. So, I've been taking my time to find products that actually work for my skin in the summer. Here are some of my favorites so far!

Farmacy Bright On Mask

I’ve seen the Farmacy Bright On Mask all over Instagram lately. It's a clay mask that works to remove excess oil, and it contains Vitamin C and AHAs for antioxidant and exfoliating benefits. As a bonus, it turns from lavender to a pale green color when you massage it onto your skin which is really cool!Vitamin C has been really beneficial for my skin, helping me to reduce some of my dark spots left behind by acne, so I had to find out if this new mask was worth the hype. I've only used it a few times so far, so I can't speak for whether or not I see any benefits from the Vitamin C, but I will say that it has helped to reduce my oiliness without making my skin feel dry or tight.

Leegeehaam Hope PLC Solution

It’s no secret that I love sprays and mists, and the Hope PLC Solution from Leegeehaam is no exception. It contains soothing ingredients such as Centella Asiatica and Aloe extract to calm irritated skin. I find it incredibly soothing to use after a day out in the sun or after my tingly AHA/BHA peel from The Ordinary. I prefer to keep this in the fridge for an additional hydration boost on a hot day. Lastly, I love how finely the mist is dispensed from the bottle. I'll not only be repurchasing this, but I'll be keeping the bottle when I run out to fill with other toners!

Krave Beauty Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser

If you've spent any time at all looking at my Instagram, you'll know that I have so much love for Liah Yoo's skincare brand, Krave Beauty. After months of using her glycolic acid toner, Kale-Lalu-yAHA, I finally purchased the Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser to go along with it. It is, by far, the gentlest cleanser I've ever used. It contains antioxidants and hydrating ingredients such as Matcha and Hemp Seed Oil, and my skin feels smooth and hydrated after I use it. Even my boyfriend, who usually couldn't care less about skincare, has commented on how hydrated his skin feels after using this!I'll certainly continue to use this cleanser year-round, but it made its way onto my summer favorites list specifically because in the summer I tend to wash my face twice a day (rather than just at night). Usually, I would feel nervous about cleansing more than once a day because over-cleansing can damage your skin barrier. But the Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser is gentle enough that I don't feel guilty on days when I need to cleanse twice. It has a low pH (5.0-6.0), it contains vitamin b5 to strengthen your skin barrier, and it contains mild cleansing agents that are less likely to irritate or damage your skin.

Drunk Elephant B-Hydra

I kind of feel like B-Hydra and I are in a tumultuous on-again-off-again relationship. I started off absolutely despising B-Hydra when I bought it this spring because the texture wasn't as smooth as I expected it to be (which I now know is due to the lack of silicones in the formula) and it wasn't hydrating enough for me at the time. It grew on me slightly when I started adding in a few drops of Herbivore Botanicals Lapis Oil, which helped make the texture smoother and pack a bit more hydration, but I felt that the $52 price was too spendy for a product that I needed to add something to.So why did this make my list of summer favorites? Last week we had a heat wave in New York and, with the intense humidity we were experiencing, I was finally so glad to have B-Hydra in my life. It absorbed quickly and didn't feel heavy or sticky, and it provided the perfect amount of hydration for my skin in the humidity.

Fur Oil

I wrote about Fur Oil in a recent blog post, but I loved it so much I'm writing about it twice. Fur Oil is a 100% natural oil that prevents ingrown hairs, irritation, and stubble. While it’s mainly marketed for use on pubic hair/skin, you can use it anywhere you have both hair and skin!And I'm about to get real: I rarely shave my legs in the winter. It's a waste of time when nobody can see my legs under the three layers of pants I'm wearing to trek through the snow! But once it got warm and I started shaving again, I was back to regularly dealing with ingrown hairs. I haven't had a single ingrown hair in the two months since I started using Fur Oil, and my legs are so smooth and ready for shorts! I've also been using this around my bikini line so that I won't have any visible irritation and ingrown hairs when I go on vacation.

Sunday Riley Saturn Mask and UFO Oil

The Sunday Riley Saturn Mask has been my go-to mask this summer! A few of the main ingredients are Niacinamide, Sulfur, and Zinc, which I already know my skin loves. I highly recommend it to my fellow oily/acne-prone peeps because it’s not overdrying, unlike most of the clay masks I use to keep my oiliness at bay in the summer. And considering it does contain sulfur, it smells pretty decent, and there's only a very slight sulfur-y smell of eggs when I wash it off.Sunday Riley UFO is a quick-absorbing oil that contains 1.5% Salicylic Acid, making it useful for controlling breakouts. Sunday Riley lists Tea Tree oil and Black Cumin seed oil as their “key oils,” (although the ingredients list a total of 12 other oils including Milk Thistle, Cucumber, and Pomegranate, so while it didn’t irritate me, be extra diligent about patch testing in case one of these many oils irritates you). UFO Oil isn't something I use every day, but it's been nice to combine my acids and oils into one step on lazy days when I want a more streamlined routine.You can read my full review of the entire Sunday Riley Space Race collection here.Tell me in the comments! What are your favorite products to use in the summer?~~~~~~~~~~~~Follow me on Instagram @Levitate.Beauty for your daily dose of skincare tips and mini reviews!