beauty scoop | stark skincare cypress purity + defense oil

I’m off to New York City tomorrow for an extra-long weekend filled with fashion week events, natural beauty product hunting and maybe a trip or two to the best cupcakeries and macaron shops around.

With all this hustle and bustle — and the threat promise of crazy winter weather — I’m looking to Stark Skincare’s Cypress Purity + Defense Oil to protect my skin from city damage.

stark skincare cypress purity defense oil

{Stark Skincare sent me a bottle of its Cypress Purity + Defense Oil, which retails for $45, to review.}

If you’re unfamiliar with the Stark Skincare line, let’s backtrack a bit. Basically, it was created by a super-sweet chic in Canada who was fed up with conventional, toxic beauty products.

(Read my other Stark Skincare product reviews here and here.)

Living in the big city, founder Jessica Lafleur already felt she had enough toxins and pollutants griming up her body — so she created a line that was starkly different — and stark naked of all the nasties already in the air.

Thus my reasoning for taking this facial oil to Big Apple. This natural face oil is very different than my other beloved facial oils.

stark skincare cypress oil

{Stark Skincare’s Cypress Purity + Defense Oil has a beautiful light yellow coloring and a comforting woodsy scent.}

This is the one oil I own that has more of a woodsy (aka cypress) scent. Though I’m typically drawn to florals, there’s something very comforting about this cypress oil.

One thing I Jessica notes about cypress is its pore-purifying power; cypress oil has strong antibacterial and antiseptic properties, making it perfect for oily and breakout-prone skin.

Here’s the entire list of ingredients:

Rice Bran Oil, Apricot Kernel Oil, Sweet Almond Oil, Camellia Seed Oil, Argan Nut Oil, Vitamin E, Cypress Oil, Bergamot Oil, and pure essential oils

She’s got some old favorites in there — apricot kernal, sweet almond, argan and vitamin E — with an added twist of rice bran, camellia seed, cypress and bergamot.

This lovely combination is fast-absorbing, lightweight and, like most amazing oils, has a billion different uses. Hooray for multipurpose beauty products!

If you haven’t yet tried Stark Skincare, and you have oily, problematic skin (similar to mine and to Jessica’s), I highly recommend you give it a shot.

I always love finding new brands, but when I know that a line was created especially for skin like mine, it makes it that much more special because I know the person behind it hears me when I say “why am I still breaking out! I’m XX years old for crying out loud!”

So tell me: Have you tried Stark Skincare? Are you familiar with cypress oil? What scents do you prefer? Tell me in the comments section.


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