Dr Wu Daily and Intensive Renewal Serum with Mandelic Acid

Beside moisturizing my flaky dry skin, the biggest skincare concern I have is hyper pigmentation. I consider my cheeky sunspots hopeless (I had them since third grade), my acne scars have been getting out of control the last two years. Basically, it has gotten so bad that I had to start to wear foundation to look presentable (I would rather not spend to much finding the perfect foundation because I like to waste money on fancy eye shadow and lipsticks instead).

Spot-removal is a tricky business because most of my spots were result from irritation from sunscreen and...anti-pigmentation, exfoliating and/or brightening products. A good deal of the dark marks I have are from products meant to remove them. 

I first heard about Dr Wu Mandelic Acid serum from Driveler Kate (who stopped blogging three years ago). The AHA serum supposed to have large, non-penetrating molecule that it does whatever AHAs do while being super gentle. 

I first got the 15% Mandelic Acid Intensive Renewal Serum (Mandelic Acid 18%, Tinocare GL, Sodium Hyaluronate, Biophytex)two years ago, while it was immensely effective when used as a serum (I used a few drops allover cheeks and the lighter marks are literally gone overnight), it was actually very stripping on me. I either get thinned out skin or breakout allover. It was more user-friendly when I use it as spot treatment once every 10 days or so, it became hard to remind myself on such an odd schedule that I ended up using it whenever I remember. 

Later on, I got the 6% Daily Renewal Serum (Mandelic Acid, Salicylic Acid, Pyruvic Acid, ABS Desert Blend, Pentavitin). The much lower percentage means that it's less potent (to have visible effect after a few uses but) can be used daily. AHA generally requires some wait time before I use other products, something I don't have time every night so I didn't have much use with this bottle either. 

At the end, I mixed up the two and the result is an effective target spot treatment that I can use weekly. All I need to make sure is to have a great sunscreen during the day and layers and layers of oils and moisturizer after application. While I count on vitamin C and niacinamide for the daily spot fighting, Dr Wu is a valuable little boost to my routine. 

The texture of the serum (in both percentage) is a light liquid that's just a bit sticky. It smells like callery pear (so it stinks a little) but nothing unbearable. This would be a great stuff to get when you are in Hong Kong or Taiwan as the prices on American sites is generally 10 bucks more expensive.