Many, many years ago I read an article in a fashion glossy which confirmed my suspicion that I can skip expensive face cleansers and should, instead, splurge on face moisturizers and eye creams. Since then, I’ve consistently used face milk cleansers and tonics from Viva Cosmetics, produced by PT Vitapharm, which claims to have been making cosmetics in Indonesia for more than 40 years. The line currently includes an extensive skincare and makeup range; one of their star products is the eyebrow pencil, beloved by many FD forum members.
Viva has several variants of milk cleansers and tonics geared toward different skin types, with three variants for oily skin: cucumber, lemon and averrhoa (i.e. star fruit or belimbing in Indonesian). A bottle of cleanser or face tonic cost less than Rp5,000 each, and the fact that they’ve been around forever (it seems) attest to their effectiveness. Since my skin is oily, I’ve mainly used the cucumber variant, sometimes alternating with the other variants. Recently, Viva has released a new variant, Green Tea. A generous FD Forum member gave me a set of the Green Tea milk cleanser and tonic since she found them incompatible with her skin. It’s a welcome gift since the set wasn’t available in my local grocers at the time and I was curious to try it. A bit wary at first given my friend’s experience, I’ve been using the set now for 2 weeks.
