Microalgae Oil: What Your Skin Is Missing

When it comes to being excited about putting oil on my face, I'm just not your girl. I'm sorry. I know — all these different natural oils will nourish and/or replenish my skin cells and make me a radiant goddess who will never wrinkle blah blah blah. You guys, it's oil, though. I break out just standing over a veggie stir-fry.

But, then I heard about Algenist's new Advanced Anti-Aging Repairing Oil, the first ever skin treatment to be made with something called microalgae oil, and my interest was piqued. Algenist is a skin care brand from San Francisco that uses biotechnology to discover the skin miracles that can come from algae. For some reason, oil from algae didn't sound all that icky to me, plus the press release said that third party in vitro testing revealed a 42% increase in cell repair and regeneration. It also said that 96% of subjects saw instant results. I like it when things are instant — I'm a millennial, I can't help it.

I used this on a Thursday night and again the next morning, which is probably the point in the week when my skin is the worst. After a whole week of a long commute, not enough sleep, breakouts, dryness, etc., my skin definitely needed the nourishing I was promised. To my complete surprise, I'm officially obsessed with this product. For the record, I can't believe I'm saying this. It's an oil that goes on your face; it goes against everything I believe in. But it has quickly worked some miracles.

I only needed three drops of microalgae oil to cover my entire face, and while it felt greasy for about a minute, it pretty much disappeared into my skin, which immediately perked up. Usually when I look in the mirror all I see are my acne scars, so this is a big deal for me — my skin looked like I had just slept for 12 hours and then took a dip in a geothermal spa filled with minerals and angel wings. I did look slightly "dewy," as they say in the business, but not in a way that bothered me. And, it was light enough that I could put my moisturizer over it without feeling like I was going overboard.

After only using it twice, my skin feels so soft that if I told you I've never had a zit in my life, you might just believe me. Also, I've had these really sensitive dry patches on my eyelids for months, and now they're gone. Gone! Science is amazing.