Sunshowers: The Struggle Bus Chronicles, Japan: 化粧水

for all my lovelies who cannot read Japanese/did not feel like google translating the blog title (I see you), this little bit is entitled keshyousui, which is face lotion.

So, I forgot to bring my go to facial moisturizer from home (woops), and only brought travel sized facial cleansers (yes, I use separate product for my face and body, like my momma and grandma taught me) so, I'd been planning to buy said products for weeks. However, my facial endeavor was halted due to the glaring fact that I CAN'T READ LOTS OF KANJI/SOMETIMES READING LARGE BLOCKS OF JAPANESE HURTS MY BRAIN. I also forgot to bring a large sized face wash, but I bought one of those already; I remembered what I used with the Kitagawa family last year and just got that.

Well, I only dislike attempting to read Japanese in small print. Because, it's small, and I have to squint. I'll look into reading glasses one of these days.

I'm not familiar with the terminology used for Japanese personal products, so for the first couple of weeks I got so overwhelmed looking at the shelves packed full of bottles with labels I couldn't read and bright confusing labels, I couldn't tell the difference between a moisturizer or lotion. I soon became able to determine what was probably a cleanser vs a moisturizer (75% accuracy), but then I started noticing a kanji that I did understand: 白（しろ、white). I then noticed, in small catchy lettering, that many of the bottles had some helpful English words on them, that went a little something like this: 'Moisture, Emulsion, Brightening, Whitening'

Moisture? Okay. Emulsion? Sure, okay.

Brightening? Hmmm, what you mean?

Whitening? Uhhhh.....no.

And then, all of a sudden, I started noticing that a lot of bottles had 白 or Whitening/Brightening somewhere on the bottle. I then concluded, like the smart person I am, that lots of these 75% either facial cleansers and/or moisturizers had a 95% chance of containing some sort of skin "whitening/brightening" element. I became even more confused, because I'm not sure if whitening/brightening actually means something different in the Japan cosmetic market like it does in the USA, so I was so paranoid. Like, there's a good chance my basic Japanese knowing self would have accidentally bought a whitening lotion/cleanser, and then started freaking out as my face magically got lighter (~~I'm dying y'all, hellpp)~~

I'm not here for that. I am also not here to throw shade or talk ill of people who use lightening products either. I'm just still not over the fact that I struggled so hard/it took me so long to find the patience to wade through search through the endless assortment of facial products and find a plain old moisturizer. In case your wondering, it took me three weeks to find a facial moisturizer.

3. Weeks.

I did not really expect buying basic toiletries to be such a struggle. But, I should not have been surprised.

HOWEVER, I finally found a moisturizer (with the help of Ikuko). I actually got two things; Freshel Moisture Lotion, and Freshel Moisture Emulsion, both with Kanebo. The Moisture Lotion is actually, well, not any type of lotion I'm used to. It's a liquid, which is quite cool and different for me, but I read somewhere that liquid moisturizers are more common in Japan/Asia as a whole due to the lighter nature of it being useful in hotter climates/just the fact that the Asian beauty market is ridiculous/where dreams are made of (unless you are in my boat, and have no illusions of being able to buy any makeup other than lipstick, eyeshadows, mascara aka anything that doesn't need to match your skin tone)

Well anyway, here are pictures of me holding my 'moisture lotion' and 'moisture emulsion'. I've been using them for a few days, and my skin is agreeable to them, so I think I made a good choice. The big one is the liquid lotion (clear, slightly viscous/sticky) and the small one is the emulsion (opaque, milky looking, a more creamy liquid texture).