I had always knew that I have combination skin. There’s a point of time where the skin on my face was peeling. That doesn’t mean my skin is dry but more like dehydrated on the inside, oily on the outside. When the deeper layer of the skin is dehydrated, it will send a message to Sebaceous Glands in the dermis which is located in the middle layer of skin to start secreting more oil to keep the skin hydrated. For some unknown reason I am no longer combination but more like oily skin now. I thought as we age our skin is drier. That doesn’t seems to be the case for me. I’m going to embrace this while I still can haha.

Just when I was googling which is the best oil control product to use, this landed on my desk. I had put this serum to a 14 days test. Let’s see how this fares shall we?

The bottle that was sent to me came without a box. I somehow felt incomplete whenever I need to use a skin care or makeup that doesn’t come with a box. Fyi I always keep the box for reference until I finished the whole bottle. Sometimes I do need to refer back for some info.

The packaging is a plastic silver pump bottle that are matte on the middle, which is good as there won’t be a lot of finger prints on it :). The pump nozzle on the other hand is white in color. It may look plasticky but the pump system works perfectly.

The product content is just 18ml while the bottle looked like 30ml to me.

Elixir Sebum Gel ++ is said to developed exclusively for all skin type but specially targeted for oily and acne prone skin. How it works is that it helps to control oil secretion and then reducing it. This is also what attracts me into using this product. Besides that the Sebum Gel ++ helps to clear clogged pores, removes blackhead and whitehead and of course preventing it. It is also said to tighten pores.

The sebum gel dispense out in murky clear color that spreads out clear and transparent. This gel is like a serum – watery and smells a bit sourish to me. I tried using 2 pumps but it was too much for me. So I settle with a pump for each use. I really do have high hopes on this because of one thing and one thing only. It’s claim to control and reduce oil secretion. On my first day of using I expect to see a matte face for at least longer duration but I find that my nose area gets oily on the usual rate. Then I thought maybe I should use more. So I tried 2 pump instead but it doesn’t seems to reduce any oil secretion issue that I was facing. In fact it gets more oilier maybe due the fact that I used more. So I went back to just 1 pump instead.

One day I thought why not apply as usual and wait for 5 minutes for the gel to absorbed in completely before continuing with makeup. I find that this method is better than before but still doesn’t reduce the excess oil secretion that I was suffering. I had been practicing this method for about 2 weeks now. Let me tell you this required some patience and time as I was obviously lack of both at 5.30am in the morning.

The good news is this Sebum Gel ++ works so so much better without makeup on. I usually put this on weekend twice a day just to try out different method of improvising the effectiveness. My face became dewy instead of oily and it stays that way for the whole day. Having said that I am still disappointed that it doesn’t help with my problem on normal days where I’d have makeup on. I even tried skipping all other skin care and just apply this but still…

As I don’t target this for clogged pores, blackhead or even whitehead I cannot say much on this. Maybe because my blackhead wasn’t so severe to begin with. I think people who are suffering from bad blackhead problem would see major difference than me.

One thing you got to note is my skin is super oily. Not oily, not combination, not just T-zone but really oily overall. So if you are just oily on the T-Zone or you are combination skin…this might work for you. It just doesn’t work for me at all.

Disclaimer: Product was sent to me for review consideration. This doesn’t affect my judgement in the review in any way.