[Review] Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence VS Missha First Treatment Essence

Today I'll be doing a review on both the highly raved Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence as well as the Missha First Treatment Essence together side by side!!! 

They are both well known for being the dupes of the SK-II Facial Treatment Essence and I'm so excited to do this review because when I was doing my research on these two products before my purchase of them, there are rarely any reviews out there which features these two products side by side to compare their results! SO, I decided to DO IT and share it with all the ladies out there!!! ^^

Just for your information, ALL pictures in this blogpost are 100% unedited in order to show the ultimate accurate results of the products. 

Anyway, I didn't managed to get these two items when I was in Korea as I only discovered them after I came back :( But still, I got them both in a smaller size from Carousell so that I can try them out first before I purchase the full size one!

And this is how the products look like!!

The Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence comes in 80ml and the Missha First Treatment Essence comes in 30ml!

They are both meant to be used before you apply your entire skincare routine! :) It's meant to prep up your skin so that it will be able to absorb all the other skincare products that you have in your routine better as well as they're suppose to perform other wonders on your skin as well :) The main wonder will be to improve your skin texture which is a major issue of my skin as I have bumpy skin texture (my skin type is oily combination by the way)!

So here's how the review (experiment) goes! 

I used the products separately on different sides of my face so as to compare the results side by side! I used all products religiously twice everyday until the Missha FTE runs out! :)

Firstly, when I first started using the products, the status of the left side of my face was pretty bad with breakouts and the right side is pretty smooth! (Just for your info, I started using these two products back in the end of February so the results is not in anyway influenced by my Clarisonic Mia 2! The review is only up today as I want to be sure with the results of the two products :D )

Hence, I decided to apply the Innisfree one on my left side of my face and the Missha on the right side as the Innisfree one is not so strong in my opinion as compared to the Missha! I did not want to further stress out my left face and that's why I decided to go with the above arrangement :)

 This is how my face look on Day #1 of the experiment!

Left face (ugly breakouts ugh ><)

Backview of the Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence which goes on the left face!

Now this is how my right face looked! It's much clearer compared to the left side! :)  

Backview of the Missha FTE which goes on the right side of my face

Here are some of my first impressions of the two products:

Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence:

- It's odorless! (major love <3)

- The product looks thick but feels very light on the skin!

- The product is very smooth and easy to apply with both cotton pad or bare hands!

- Super fast absorption rate

Missha First Treatment Essence:

- The odor is pretty strong! 

- The product is of watery consistency!

- Applies better with bare hands compared to cotton pad

- Average absorption rate

So in the Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence wins in terms of First Impression as I really like how the product just simply glides onto my skin without leaving any sticky residue or feeling behind! The product gets absorbs almost instantaneously whereas on the other hand, the Missha FTE will need to take a couple of minutes to be fully absorbed. 

Also, the Missha FTE applies better with hands as due to it's watery consistency, a lot of product get wasted if you don't watch the amount you pour out carefully on to the cotton pad! 

For me, I still stick with using the cotton pad with both essences so as to ensure fairness for both products and also I personally feel that applying with cotton pad is more hygiene as compared to our bare hands :)

Moving on to Day #2 of the experiment!

This is how my face looks after using both products for one day!

Left face!

Right face!

As you can see from the pictures above, my right side (Missha) is slightly brighter as compared to the left (Innisfree)! :)

Now finally, after 1 month of usage of both products, here are the results on my face!!!

Overall, if you don't look up close, my face does not have much difference to be honest! But there's a huge difference in the closeups!

I'll start off with the left face (Innisfree) as usual first! 

My breakouts became much smaller and it healed faster with the usage of the Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence!

My skin texture has also improved rather significantly after using the Innisfree one as you can see from the above pictures! Previously it was really bumpy on the left side of my face (probably because I lie on my left face more when I sleep at night)!

Now time for the right side!

As you can see, new zit came up on my nose and what irritates me more is this:

Saw those bumps??

Look at those red patches, small zits and the patches of bumps! SO GROSS!!!

It totally did not work out at all even though it started off better than the Innisfree (not to mention, it was applied on the better side of my face!)

So as you guys can see from the pictures above, without any further explanation you can already tell that the Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence won this experiment as great improvements were witnessed after using it whereas the Missha FTE was a total disappointment!

Summary:

Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence:

- Makes my skin texture much smoother

- My skin feels more moisturized

- Calmed down my zits and made them better!

Score: 9/10

Missha FTE:

- MADE MY SKIN WORSE!

Score: I don't wanna even talk about it.

So without further ado, I went ahead and purchased the full size Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence after the experiment and applied it on my entire face!! (I wanted to calm down all my zits ASAP!)

This is how the full size bottle looks! It comes in 150ml and it looks much classier as compared to the smaller one!

And to my surprise!! After using the Innisfree for another half month, my sebum production level got reduced by a lot as you can see from the oil blotter sheet below!!

Before the usage of the Innisfree Essence, the entire oil blotter sheet would have been completely absorbed with all the oil on my face (even when I am in an aircon room for the entire day! crazy oil production man seriously)!!!

So this particular improvement was really a surprise to me cuz my sebum production level has never gotten down so tremendously before!!

Therefore, if you're looking for a SK-II Facial Treatment Essence dupe, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Innisfree Soybean Energy Essence!!! It's totally AWESOME!!! (Y)(Y)(Y)

In fact, it's cheaper than the Missha one as well! And I would probably just stick with the Innisfree one from now on and forget about even getting the real deal (which is the SK-II FTE) as I'm really happy with the results I see (and still seeing :D) after using it :)