Elancyl Shaping Smoothings Concentrate & RoC Retinol Anti-Cellulite Intensive

As we approach summer many of us start to worry about having to expose certain body parts that we are not so confident about... Summer means short shorts, tank tops, and bikini! I'm not over-weight or have particular problems with cellulite but being someone who hasn't gone to the gym in almost a year, the coming of bikini season isn't all that welcoming. The fact that I've been living on those gigantic Toblerone chocolate bars since the past holiday (I received 8 giant ones as gifts during holiday and bought countless ones myself when I finished up all the holiday gifted ones) is another reason I'm dreading summer.




So I decided I need to tone up for summer. As I get older my skin elasticity is just not the same. Aging along with years of not exercising regularly has finally caught up! My skin feel loose and flabby around the thighs and upper arms. There are no visible cellulite build ups yet, unless I start squeezing my skin taut at which point my skin looks like those orange peel skin that everyone dreads!lol


I thought about re-joing my local gym where I was a member for about 3 years. Then I remembered that during those 3 years I went to that gym about 12 times or maybe less. So instead of wasting more money one something I'm not likely to use I decided to try out some anit-cellulite treatments!! Meh.. I could've decided to exercise at home or outdoors but trying out new products that sound too good to be true seem more fun!


I tried two anti-cellulite products that I bought at local drug stores: RoC RETINOL ANTI-CELLULITE INTENSIVE and GALENIC ENANCYL Shaping Smoothing Concentrate.


Both products are pricey. I bought the RoC product for $35 and it was on sale and the Elancyl product costs $50-100 (I bought both "Shaping Smoothing Concentrate" and "Shaping Smoothing Specific Flat Stomach" but I will only review/compare "Shaping Smoothing Concentrate"). Elancyl has various anti-cellulite smoothing products. Some even come with massage tools to stimulate blood circulation while attacking cellulite and costs over $200. I decided to try their most popular Shaping Smoothing Concentrate and compare it with the RoC product. Using one bottle of a skincare type of product usually is not enough to get its full effect. So I decided to try the two different products on each of my leg and then buy more of the product that is more effective.


RoC RETINOL ANTI-CELLULITE INTENSIVE comes in aluminum container with a pump.  Main ingredients are retinol and C barbatus root. This product reminds me of a mousse can. The actual product is pink mousse-like gel cream. It has a pleasant light scent and feels cooling on the skin. I love how fast absorbing and non-sticky this product is! My skin felt refreshed and smooth. I used this product twice a day (morning and night) on my left leg and it ran out after 3 weeks. RoC says this product will firm skin and redefine the body by reducing appearance of cellulite. It just made my skin smooth. Perhaps it did "firm skin" by smoothing it... But there was no significant difference. I could've achieved same results by using one of those firming lotion/moisturizers that costs much less. It did indicate on the container that I should be using this product twice a day for two months.

GALENIC ENANCYL Shaping Smoothing Concentrate comes in a clear test tube like bottle with a pump. The pump on my product broke off the 2nd time I used it so I had to open the top and pour it out each time which got really messy. The main ingredient for this product is caffeine. It's designed to release ingredients to the skin for over 24 hours once it's initially applied so it only needs to be applied once a day. It feels like water-down gel. It has a strong scent which is not particularly unpleasant but I found it to be too strong. It takes a while for the product to be completely absorbed and even after it's visibly gone the skin where it was applied remains sticky. I tried this product on my right leg and even when I waited over half hour before putting my pant on my leg still felt sticky under the pant. And my pant smelled like the product after. Gross. 

Products for the skin gets absorbed best right after a shower when your pores are open so I used both RoC and Elancyl products right after washing up. However, the strong nauseating scent and the stickiness that remained from the Elancyl product often made me want to shower again! The Elancyl product is meant to be used once a day for 14 days in a row to achieve visible results. So I kept telling myself this gross-ness has to bring results just like how medications that are gross are often the better ones...lol 

The result: I used each product on each of my leg for 3 weeks (RoC twice a day and Elancyl once a day) and both legs looked exactly the same. The leg where I've been applying RoC product feels smoother. What a disappointment!! 

I thought about repurchasing the RoC product. It said on the container that it should be used for two months but I only used it for 3 weeks so I thought perhaps another bottle will be a good idea... But at this point I decided to actually do some research on anit-cellulite products before potentially wasting more money on products that don't work. I found out quickly that no skin product has ever been proven to actually rid cellulite. LOL

These type of products can be a great addition to exercising. Some of them definitely have potential to really help firm the skin but without exercising and/or eating right they won't deliver noticeable results.

So, in addition to actually exercising, there are other things you can add to using anti-cellulite products: massaging! Massaging the skin where these anti-cellulite products are applied is a good way to get more out of them. The products won't effectively get absorbed into the skin without massaging in the products and by doing so you are also stimulating blood circulation which is also beneficial for smoothing and firming the skin. As I mentioned above. Elancyl offers massage tools especially designed to work with their products but using other massage tools (like the wooden massage tools in the picture to the right) will be just as effective.


I've seen Korean spa shows where they would use caffeine infused gel like products like the Elancyl one on the legs and use saran wrap to cover up the legs and massage vigorously using wooden massage tools for a good half hour and then leave on the wrap for another hour or so. And then they would measure the legs (before and after) to show that they lost inches (usually about .10-.50"). I might have to try out this method! LOL