(According to board-certified dermatologist Dendy Engelman, however, the snow mushroom particle size is much smaller than that of HA, allowing it to absorb into the skin's layers more easily.) And anyway, the cream has HA, too, plus soothing rice water and niacinamide.
It is a dense and creamy blanket of moisture, formulated foremost with snow mushroom extract, a moisture-binding organic ingredient with roots in Chinese medicine that behaves similarly to hyaluronic acid. The last product, the Humidifying Cream, is inspired by the downy atmospheres of the places Williams has lived and loved - his hometown of Virginia Beach, his now home of Miami, the mist-covered Japanese archipelago. Formulated foremost with glycolic acid - a favorite ingredient of Williams, I am told from a press release - at the relatively high concentration of 8 percent, the cream invites new and fresh cells to the skin's surface. To repair your face from all of the general damage it experiences, you exfoliate, using a chemical peel like the Lotus Enzyme Exfoliant. I had to actively remind myself to stop touching my face, it was so soft after I rinsed it off. "The Rice Powder Cleanser's got a frothy, slightly gritty consistency that buffed away all that dead skin.
"The dry flakies emerging at the center of my forehead alerted me that my skin had given up asking politely for a scrubbing," she says.
The Rice Powder Cleanser quickly won over digital editor Jihan Forbes, who says her skin was (in this case, conveniently) in desperate need of exfoliation when she first tried the product. (The acids, not the needlessly descriptive language!) Over half of the cleanser formula is kaolin clay, a common skin "detoxifier" mined for centuries for the manufacture of porcelain. A dime-sized dusting of the stuff, mixed with water, produces a milky, lightweight emulsion that gently exfoliates using fruit alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) - compounds that dissolve the bonds between dead skin cells until they can flutter away like snowflakes into a passing breeze. Jones and Williams might hope that you'll use Humanrace's Rice Powder Cleanser, which arrives dry. To prepare your face to receive skin care, you wash it. And lucky enough for myself, plus two of my fellow ishonest editors, we had the opportunity to do all three ahead of the line's official launch. In Jones' words, the three Humanrace products endeavor to fulfill the most basic requirements of a skin-care routine: Prepare, repair, protect. "He wanted a routine to follow, and he’s dedicated to a skin-care regimen. "What struck me most about my first meeting with him was how committed to his skin and health he was at his age," Jones tells me over the phone later.
On set, early in his career, he'd chat up models about the kinds of products they used, and he eventually sought out a dermatologist, Elena Jones, who has treated him since and who consulted on the line. Williams credits this to a love of skin care he has been cultivating since his mid-20s. But his celebrity has also been accompanied with public fascination about his good looks, which have been on display for decades and somehow have not changed, unless they have somehow gotten more imperceptibly handsome with time? Chief among them: His talent as a hitmaking producer and recording artist, able to unite the nation's club revelers and six- year-old Despicable Me fans under one enchanting bass line. His cheekbones are painted in radiant pixels. When he smiles, the mustache flattens into a bold underline. A thin line of facial hair suggests his age (47) although not very well. Williams appears via Zoom from the expansive white kitchen of his Miami home. Sometimes you just need to be humidified, brought to life. "Sometimes you've got to get rid of some bad habits. Sometimes you've just got to get rid of some dead skin." Pharrell Williams' voice washes over its listener clean and cool, like a stream of water descending on a pebble. Sometimes you just need to cleanse your mind. "Sometimes you need to cleanse your spirit. Curated by Claudia Shannon / Research Scientist / ishonest