Fourth Ray Beauty Wide Awake Set | Review

Hello, everyone! Today I’m doing a review of some Fourth Ray Beauty products I picked up two months ago; in particular, I will be reviewing the Wide Awake set. As a reference, I have dry skin with the occasional dry spots. My skin is not sensitive or acne-prone, but tends to have some texture issues, redness, and hyperpigmentation.

THE BASICS

Fourth Ray Beauty is ColourPop’s sister brand that focuses on skincare. According to the brand, they “promote clean beauty, balanced living, and total wellness – going beyond the skin to embrace the whole being.” Every product apparently contains a custom crystal blend that will not only help balance your skin, but your energy as well. What?? My honest opinion is that Fourth Ray Beauty is a skincare brand – no matter how many buzzwords you throw into your bio, you promote skincare first. I’m so not into that hippy-dippy energy stuff!

The brand’s products are sold on the Fourth Ray Beauty website, and a limited selection of products are sold on the ColourPop website. The brand is cruelty-free.

The Wide Awake set retails for $15 USD and includes full sizes of the:

• Matcha Face Milk
• Fresh AF Mist
• Watermelon Seed Oil

This products included in the set are meant to refresh energized and dull skin, which is something my skin needs.

PRICING

Seeing that Fourth Ray Beauty is a more affordable skincare brand, a lot of people thought that Fourth Ray Beauty would be a good contender to compete with The Ordinary. Let’s look at pricing and see how they compare.

First Ray Beauty and The Ordinary don’t actually have a ton of overlapping products. It doesn’t seem like Fourth Ray Beauty currently offers any actives, such as Vitamin C serums or AHAs/BHAs. Most of the products that are similar are face oils, and they both also carry hyaluronic acid serums. As you can tell, Fourth Ray Beauty products hover around the $0.70/mL mark, whereas The Ordinary products are approximately half the price per mL.

Before I get into the review, I just wanted to mention that my package came to me leaking. I think I talked about this briefly on Instagram, but when I opened my ColourPop order, I got a waft of something fresh and florally, and I knew that my package had leaked because I knew Always Cleia had had the same issue. Upon digging into my order, I noticed the bottom right corner of the Wide Awake packaging was wet, and it went all the way up the right side of the packaging. I took a photo, but I don’t know if you can see it well! Sorry for the quality, I took it at night in bad lighting when the package came.

When I opened the box up, the outside of the Fresh AF Mist had water droplets all over it, which meant that it was the product that leaked. The damage wasn’t horrible as I didn’t lose too much product, but nobody likes to see a leaking product in their order. I emailed ColourPop about it, who responded fairly quickly with a discount code for the value of the product for a future order. This will likely be wasted, since I don’t plan on ordering anything from ColourPop soon.

 

PERFORMANCE

Matcha Face Milk

A creamy, lightweight moisture booster to refreshen tired skin. Formulated with Matcha Milk, Jojoba Milk, Rice Milk, White Tea, and Kale, this formula will quench your skin with antioxidants for a more energized complexion.

The Matcha Face Milk was the first product that really caught my eye on the Fourth Ray Beauty website, because 1) I love anything matcha, and 2) a face milk sounds so hydrating for my dry skin. I get random red bumps on my skin that aren’t breakouts, so this sounded like it would be so soothing yet energizing for my dull skin.

This milk is an appealing soft pastel green shade. Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually smell like matcha, but out of all three of the products, I like this scent the most. It’s a very light floral scent that smells really fresh, and fades quickly after application. The Matcha Face Milk comes in a dropper bottle with a pipette dropper. I was really impressed by how expensive the packaging actually feels!

I don’t get breakouts in the traditional sense (pimples, acne, etc.) but my skin often looks dull, so I was excited to see if this face milk could bring some life back to it. I used this both during the morning and evening, on top of actives but under moisturizer. In terms of hydration, someone with dry skin like me won’t be able to use this on its own, but it was a nice product to layer underneath moisturizer for extra hydration. I completely agree with its claim to be a moisture booster, and my skin actually feels refreshed after applying it on my skin. Is it life-changing? No, it isn’t, but it’s a “nice-to-have” in my routine.

 

Fresh AF Mist

Instantly combats tired, dehydrated skin. A refreshing blend of Tibetan Ginseng, White Lily, Rose Water, and Cucumber Water deliver a burst of hydration to revive and energize the complexion.

Let me first start off by saying that the Fresh AF Face Mist is so Gen Z, both in name and packaging. I’m okay with that because I use the term AF in real life all the time, haha. It retails at $8 USD if you buy it on its own.

This mist comes in a pretty pink plastic bottle that doesn’t feel quite as weighty as the Matcha Face Milk. The nozzle on this releases a pretty strong but even spray; I find that I have to hold this further back than I normally would, otherwise I get doused in the face with liquid. To me, this has a pretty strong floral scent, but like the name suggests, it is fresh rather than cloying.

In April, my face was ridiculously dry (whyyyy skin, whyyyy). Usually my skin is normal with dry spots, but last month my face just felt very dehydrated all over, and my foundation looked like it was sitting on top of my skin instead of melting into it. I took this spray to work with me so that I could spritz myself with this a few times throughout the day to keep my foundation from looking cakey. I found that this helped the foundation settle into my skin and keep my face from feeling too dry during the day, but the effects are short-lived for me. My face would feel hydrated for the next few minutes after using this, before going back to its usual state, which meant I had to use it several times a day to give my skin a constant burst of hydration. Similar to the Matcha Face Milk, I enjoyed using this, but did not find it to be life-changing.

 

Watermelon Seed Oil

Rich in antioxidants, Vitamin A, and Vitamin E, Watermelon Seed Oil combats free radical damage, balances sebum production, and provides detoxifying properties.

Honestly, Watermelon Seed Oil would not have been my choice of oils to purchase, but since it came with the set, I didn’t really have a choice. This ingredient is not one that I am familiar with, but from the description, it sounds like watermelon oil is meant for oily, acne-prone skin, which isn’t my skin type. Either way, I tested it out for reviewing purposes. This also retails at $8 if you purchase it individually.

This packaging the Fourth Ray Beauty oils are no bueno. Nothing comes out of this dropper!

The packaging comes with a dropper that is built into the bottle instead of the pipette dropper style they had with the Matcha Face Milk. Nothing comes out of this if you just shake it. Nothing! I have to bang the opening of this product against the palm of my hand for anything to come out, and even then, it takes forever to get enough oil out to spread over my face. Fresh Ray Beauty really needs to rethink the packaging of this. It would probably work just fine if they used the same dropper bottles as the face milks.

In terms of performance, this didn’t work for me. It’s not an overly greasy oil, but it is quite thick in texture. It sits on top of the skin instead of soaking in, and I didn’t find this hydrating. As I mentioned before, this could be due to the fact that it’s meant for oily skin types. It honestly just does nothing for me. On the plus side, it hasn’t broken me out or done any weird things to my skin. The scent isn’t something I enjoyed, either. It smells a bit nutty, similar to olive oil, which is a scent I’ve never been a fan of.

SUMMARY

Overall, this set was just okay. After using them for two months, I feel like the products weren’t really needed in my skincare routine, and the benefits were minimal. Although I’m still interested in trying some of Fourth Ray Beauty’s face cleansing products, I’m not sure if I would repurchase any more leave-on skincare products.

Have you ever tried Fourth Ray Beauty before? Which of their products would you recommend?