Sunday Riley's UFO Oil abducted my pores

Can one product invade your pores for the better? (Photo by David Yi/Very Good Light)

Aliens are taking over.

Or so it seems with so much chaos and confusion going on this week. After all, we just named a president that has the complexion of a Cheeto puff. It’s been a difficult few days and it’s obviously taken a toll on me. For one, my skin has become as problematic as the rhetoric of this country, but that’s for another day.

Obviously I needed extraterrestrial help and found that a beautiful serum somehow landed into my hands from space. The mysterious oil was none other than Sunday Riley’s U.F.O. (ultra-clarifying facial oil) from the beloved brand that’s become a hit with Sephora customers called Sunday Riley. The face oil goes for a whopping $80 for a 1 oz bottle. With a bottle full of beautiful, deep emerald green sludge, I practically begged it to invade my skin and bring it back to life. This is what happened:

Initial thoughts

I’m a sucker for packaging. And this is what made me want to do a Sunday Riley’s UFO review in the first place. I’m definitely one of those people who judges a book by its cover. The Girl on the Train

CUTE font I’ll take a glance. Danielle Steel’s The Award

? Ew what is that? Bye. The bottle, to my liking, is so beautiful I want to keep it as a trinket and leave it on my bed stand and pretend it’ll grant me three wishes. Made of glass, it comes with an elegant white dropper that attaches to a gold cap.

Background

Sunday Riley, a Houston native, concocted her own eponymous beauty brand in 2009. Riley’s entire ethos for her brand is to create products with A-grade raw materials. She once told the Wall Street Journal that they’re not “all-natural” but definitely created with “clean technology. “[It’s] sustainable chemistry with more purified ingredients,” she told them. “Transformative ingredients tend to be very advanced, the opposite of what you would find in most natural products.” Another one of her best seller is her stellar Sunday Riley Luna Sleeping Night Oil

, $105, (which I have yet to try). She can now add Sunday Riley’s UFO to that list.

Sunday Riley’s U.F.O.lays on thick. (Photo by David Yi/Very Good Light)

Shop Sunday Riley’s U.F.O. Ultra-Clarifying Face Oil, $80, HERE

Ingredients

Where do we even begin? This is an oil meant to battle acne, blemishes and blackheads. It has 1.5% salicylic acid, tea tree oil and black cumin seed oil to help fight acne without over-drying. It also has licorice root and hexyresorcinol, both natural ingredients to brighten dull skin. The former (a natural antibacterial as well) also gives the oil a nice, pleasant, clean fragrance. Kudos!

Test

Wait a second. An oil that fights acne? Isn’t that counter-intuitive, you ask? I thought so too. But looking more into oils, I’ve found that to combat oil, you have to use oil. No wonder cleansing oils have become so popular in the past few years. I was definitely skeptical at first having had breakouts with other oils in the past. I mean, I’m all for argon oils, for instance, but sometimes it seems to clog my every pore.

My Sunday Riley’s UFO review was the complete opposite. Instead of feeling like it sat on top of my skin, it soaked in immediately, replenishing it of the moisture I just washed off with my cleanser. More so, I felt like it was purifying my skin in an absolute instant. For someone with combination skin, this was a complete solution. For dry areas, U.F.O. gave it some added hydration. For acne-prone oily areas, it counteracted in the most pleasant ways. But with someone whose skin develops lots of blackheads (I have extremely small pores so oil gets trapped, it’s SUPER annoying!), I don’t see that U.F.O. actually cleared them like it said it would. I’ve tested the product for a good two months now and can definitely conclude better skin. But nefarious alien blackheads? Yeah, still there.

Alien takeover with green blood drip, drip, dripping. JK it’s just emerald-colored face oil.

TLDR:

Yes, this is a fortune. At $80 for a small 1 oz bottle, this isn’t for the feint of heart. But if you’re saving up for a solid product that will help with blemishes while hydrating your skin, this is definitely something I would recommend. An added bonus is that this product will instantly make your dopp kit or bathroom more swaggy. What I learned in my Sunday Riley’s UFO review:

Hydrates but fights acne with its salicylic acid
Clears skin of blemishes but not sure about its blackhead fighting ingredients
Contains ingredients like milk thistle, tea tree oil, black cumin seed oil, licorice root and lots more.
Beautiful, entrancing emerald color that blends into your pores and soaks in instantly
Smells fresh, licorice-y, and not too overbearing, pleasant, actually

SHOP the Sunday Riley U.F.O. Face Oil ($80) HERE