It was one of those summer days when I was browsing through the sale aisle of my local Shoppers and I came across a bottle of Pacifica Kale Water Micellar Cleansing Tonic. I bought it used it on a whim and oh my god. It was amazing!
Pacifica isn’t a new brand – I’ve used their Sea Foam cleanser and I love it. More on that later.
So I logged on to the Pacifica website to purchase more of the Micellar water. And as I browsed, I was tempted to try other products from this brand. I finally purchased the Coconut Milk Cleanser, Moonflower Otherwordly Eyeshadow Palette, Himalayan Patchouli Berry Shimmer Solid Perfume, Lavender Moon Body Wash, Lavender Moon Body, Bath & Shower Oil and Lavender Moon Lotion and Lavender Moon Body Lotion (Travel Size).
About the brand
Now this is supposedly a clean brand but isn’t completely. For example, their Lavender Moon Body Wash contains Sodium Benzoate which is generally safe but is restricted in countries like Japan. What I love is that their products are safe-r than using mainstream beauty products at the price point that Pacifica sells at.
What I don’t like is that they keep discontinuing stuff almost as frequently as Mac!
Product Reviews
Kale Micellar water
I love this Micellar water. I’m not sure what in their “clean” ingredients does a good job of reducing my cystic acne (thank you, Covid vaccine) but it does such a good job of managing my skin. It does contain Glycolic Acid, but I never thought that that would help my skin so much. But here’s the rub: they’ve discontinued the product. I don’t know why they’ve discontinued it; none of the ingredients are particularly troublesome. They’re not clean but they’re not troublesome.
Coconut Milk Cleanser
Ever since I ran out of the Pacifica Sea Foam cleanser and decided to try other brands, I’ve been looking for a good cleanser. After the Drunk Elephant debacle, I’ve been a bit anxious about experimenting with cleansers. Apart from Pacifica, the only other brand of cleanser I really like is the Inkey List.
So it was only natural that I would go back to Pacifica to look for a cleanser that helps my dry and acne prone skin. While I like the Sea Foam cleaner, I find that it dries out my skin. You need to use very less to ensure that you don’t strip your skin. But the Coconut Milk Cleanser is perfect. It makes my skin feel clean without stripping it of it’s oils. It does contain perfume so if you have sensitive skin, either skip this product or purchase a sample size.
Moonflower Otherwordly Eyeshadow
I was apprehensive about buying this palette. It seemed to be a hit or a miss palette with many Influencers giving it negative reviews. I purchased it nonetheless with the understanding that, if it didn’t work out, I’d add it to my pile of awful makeup that does not work for me.
And here’s the twist in this review — this palette has replaced my Natasha Denona Circo Loco Palette! Two shadows are powdery and do have fall out, but I realized that they work the best without a base on my oily lids. They last around 6 hours for me. They are so blendable and so easy to use.
The palette has 10 shades and each shadow contains 0.57 grams. At USD 18, that’s $1.8 per shadow which makes this palette expensive. I have to warn you though, it does Contain coconut and if you are allergic to Coconut this would be a pass. I like that the shadows are small because it helps me get through palettes quicker.
I’ve observed that I love the the nudes, Celestial, Stella, Athena, Eclipse and Mercury and I’m okay with the purples, Ultraviolet, Luna, Venus, Firefly and Moonray. But if you’re the kind who uses purple quite often this palette is perfect. I work in an office (rather from home) and I can’t get away with a purple look.
A bit more about my favorite shades:
- Celestial is a light pink that looks so good on my brown skin. There’s a similar pink in Circo Loco called Cotton Candy and Plush Tulle in Olivia Palermo’s Soiree. But I love Celestial over them. It’s so easy to use and blend. Unfortunately, I dropped the palette and broke this shadow.
- Stella is a beautiful purple pink that is wearable. It does have a bit of fall out but nothing I couldn’t manage.
- I hate brown shadows. But Athena and Eclipse look so good on me. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re cooler shades but they look so great on me.
- Mercury is the best of everything I love — a pink brown that is everything on my brown skin.
- The purples are a bit difficult to work with. Some even have fall out. Out of the 5 purples Moonray and Luna are the easiest to work with, but they don’t translate well on my brown skin. Firefly is a bit confusing — it’s a greyish- greenish-purple and I really don’t know how to use it. Ultraviolet and Venus are beautiful shades, but they do not look good on me.
This is my favorite clean eyeshadow palette and I love it. I’d recommend this to any brown skin person looking for a colorful palette. Sure, I would’ve loved it better without the purples that I don’t use, but I’m fine with that.
Himalayan Patchouli Berry Shimmer Solid Perfume
I bought this product on a whim (and to meet the minimum shipping requirements) and I like it. While I don’t understand the use of shimmer in this product, I love the scent. To really test it, I used it as a deodorant before heading to the gym and I’m impressed. I was smelling fresh after a 2-hour workout. But it does end up feeling oily on your underarms. And while it didn’t leave an oil stain on my gym t-shirt, I can’t guarantee it won’t stain your T-shirt or top, if you used it as a deodorant.
This is not a new product. I’ve used similar products from the Body Shop and it’s not something I remember to use on a daily basis. I understand the use of this product — if you were to use the perfume and solid perfume of the same scent, you’d smell really good. If you use the body wash and lotion of the same scent, you do end up smell like you were born with the scent!
But I’m lazy, I tend to spray my perfume on my wrists before I head out. Unless I’m using the solid version of my perfume, Chloe, to really add layers of scent, this product will most likely clash with my existing fragrance.
(Sidebar: Chloe, feel free to send me your perfumes in PR 😂. I love Chloe EDP and Chloe EDT. My next purchase will be the Chloe Absolu.)
Bottomline: Unless you’re planning to buy the Pacifica Berry Patchouli perfume and adding this solid perfume to strengthen the scent, this is a skip. I do like Scent and if you’re looking for something unusual, consider trying the Berry Patchouli Spray Perfume instead.
(P.s: It’s now discontinued!)
Lavender Moon Body Wash
This body wash does not smell like Lavender! If anything, it smells like Lychees to me. I don’t dislike the scent but I’m not particularly impressed with it. If you like fruity sweet scents this Body Wash might be for you. The scent doesn’t last long on your skin but it does give you a decent foam. I liked using this product after using the Laline Dead Sea body oil which does not foam up much, I liked the foam. It leaves my skin feeling clean which I love. But, of course there’s a but, but it dried out my skin! I have very dry skin on my legs and got it itchy after using this body wash. Also, this product is not clean — the second ingredient is cocamidopropyl betaine. This is a skip.
Lavender Moon Body, Bath and Shower Oil
This product takes a bit of time to get used to. It really helped when the body wash made my skin itch. It does leave an oily residue but if you have very dry skin this can be good. It does not have any foam unlike other oils which have some foam. I would repurchase this in a larger size.
