This is a new product from a brand that honestly receives less love than it should. And after using it I can tell you this toner also receives an underwhelming amount of love, it definitely deserves more!
Scinic isn’t a brand that gets enough recognition, but I hope you will read this and maybe give the brand a shot. It truly is a simple toner and I am more surprised with this toner than I have been with others.
Claims:
Low irritant, low pH (5.5).
From the package:
Weakly acidic mild toner soothes sensitive skin as it is absorbed fast into skin without any sticky feel.
The “SIMPLE FORMULA” containing only the essential ingredients soothes sensitive skin and makes skin healthy.
The “SIMPLE SOLUTION” containing Nymphaea Alba Flower Extract and Madecassonide soothes and protects the skin with weakly acidic gentle care.
Ingredients:
Water, Glycerin, Propanediol, Glycereth-26, Pentylene Glycol, Nymphaea Alba Flower Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Butylene Glycol, Madecassoside, Sodium Hyaluronate, Disodium Edta, Ethylhecylglycerin, 1,2-hexanediol
Volume: 145ml
How to use:
Apply an appropriate amount on the entire face in a gentle tapping motion to promote absorption into skin.
My Skin Type:
Combination (dry U oily T), sensitive, needs elasticity, hydration and moisture.
Dehydrated, sensitive, allergic and very pigmented lips.
Scinic The Simple Calming Toner pH 5.5 Review:
What a grey looking photo! But it was the only one that truly captured the shiny symbol that says “low irritant, low pH, weakly acidic mild care”. The design of the outer pack is really nothing special, but this detail makes it all worth it. They could have even made the outer pack simpler just because of this shiny stamp!
The bottle is a simple screw bottle. Now, I’m almost done using the toner but at the time of my first use I did remember to take a photo of this vinyl sticker, aren’t you proud of me?
I always mention when the products have a vinyl sticker or protection, but I usually forget to photograph it before I open the product… and always am left with the feeling that my explanation wasn’t accurate enough of which shiny-vinyl-protective-sticker I was talking about.
The sticker peeled quite easily and left no glue residue at all, which rests my mind a little (the amount of times I had to scrape glue off with my nail is more than I can count).
The bottle is really good actually. In all its simplicity it works perfectly, dispenses the right amount at once, without making it difficult, and without dripping too much at a time. They really nailed it!
I dispense it directly to my hands so that it can soak into my skin, rather than apply it with a cotton (because this toner is reeeeeeally mild and so with a cotton it takes forever to apply enough to even feel anything). And also because there are some toners that I feel like the hydration is more intense when applied with the hands, like this one, but it really is up to you.
The actual bottle is so beautiful! It is as beautiful as the Etude House Soon Jung one without copying it shamelessly like Korean brands tend to do. In fact, this design is very Scinic-like (I have tried and seen other stuff from the brand) it just happens to be in a transparent bottle, thus making it similar to the Soon Jung toner (and the rest of the line).
The bottle is lean, so it looks pretty and feels easy to grab. Also gives me more space on my vanity shelves. I truly love the design as much as I loved the Soon Jung one.
You could see it in the previous photo that it’s completely transparent, but here you can see that it’s as liquid as water. There is no smell at all. And it’s the lightest feeling ever, exactly like water.
So I guess this really is expensive water! But how does it perform?
I can’t review this without comparing it to the Etude House Soon Jung toner, which started this new fashion of sensitive skin products.
They both hurt zero, and burn zero on the skin, no matter the condition the skin is in (allergies, burns, pimples…)
The first difference between the Scinic toner and the Etude one is that this one relieves my skin when the cleanser burns. Which is very important in allergy season. The Etude House one of course doesn’t harm the skin in any way (it’s very perfect) but this one helps me soothe it a little.
I apply this toner usually in two to three layers, and my skin feels more hydrated. The Etude House one isn’t as hydrating as this one, requiring more layers of toner to give the same feeling.
However, the Etude House one balanced my skin’s oil-hydration imbalance and this one doesn’t do anything regarding that.
This toner truly is simple, and there’s only so much it can do to your skin, but it does everything it promises.
It doesn’t hurt nor burn the skin in any condition, and it soothes the skin. It hydrates a little (of course not as much as the Mamonde Floral Hydro Ampoule Toner, but definitely more than the Innisfree Broccoli Toner).
It does help the skin look healthier by making the redness and sore spots calm down, also un-puffing angry pores and hydrating the skin. And it does indeed absorb really fast.
And it does absorb without leaving any sticky feeling.
It was bugging me why the Scinic The Simple Calming Toner and the Etude House Soon Jung Toner were so different. They are both so simple, how did that leave margin for such big differences? So I inserted the ingredient list of this toner in CosDNA to analyze it. I highlighted the common ingredients.
When it comes to numbers, the Etude House one only has one more ingredient. I had previously wrongly analyzed the ingredients, but even after reanalyzing it properly there are things that make a startling difference in these toners.
The Scinic toner has Sodium Hyaluronate, which explains why it hydrates the skin better! The aloe for some reason didn’t read on the CosDNA website, but aloe has anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic properties.
The nymphaea alba flower extract (white water lily) doesn’t have information on CosDNA but other websites say it promotes healing of wounds and burns, moisturizes and regenerates the skin, brightens the complexion, soothes, and regulates pH.
It depends on how you extract and use it, I guess, and I don’t know what their specific goal with this one was, but whatever their goal was, it doesn’t hurt my skin in any way.
But actually I guess the reason why the Scinic toner manages to burn even less than the already perfect Soon Jung toner is because the Soon Jung toner has Camellia Leaf Extract, which doesn’t burn per se, but when my allergies are bad all these small differences are felt.
For some reason most flower extracts burn on my allergies (okay, for you to get a better picture of how my allergies feel like usually… it’s like having acid burn my skin – it even oxidizes lip products that normally wouldn’t oxidize), and usually Camellia is one of them.
Do I recommend it? Definitely!
Other than the summer season on which the Etude House Soon Jung toner may be more advantageous (because of balancing the oil-hydration of the skin), this one is better to me when it comes to soothing and a little more hydration (so outside of crazy nose sebum season, when I need the oil-water balance on my skin to be controlled, this one has more advantages to me).
I would say in the end it’s very close to the Etude House Soon Jung Toner, but it has small differences that allow you to choose according to what you wish from your toner. And to me, it’s this one outside of the humid season, Soon Jung in the humid season.
Out of all the soothing toners I tried, I must say if you have really sensitive skin you should choose between this one and the Etude one, because after your skin is calmed and not irritated you can focus on the other problems with your remaining skin care steps.
