The 3 step system is designed to take care of the three most imortant things for your skin, cleanse - exfoliate - moisturize. And that is really what it's all about when taking care of your skin. While that's a great way to take care of your skin (you should at least do these three steps no matter what products you use) I feel that they haven't really hit the nail on the head with the combination/oily skin 3 step products.
With the 3 step system for combination/oily skin you get a cleanser, the dramatically different gel moisturizer and an exfoliating toner.
I love Cliniques' liquid facial soap cleansers even for dry/normal skin, it really does a great job cleansing my face. And there's really not much difference between the formulations for the different skin types, so I suggest you just go for the one for you particular skin type as it probably will have some different ingredients that suits your skin a bit better than others.
The dramatically different gel moisturizer however have absolutely no power to it at all. It did feel nice and cooling on the skin at first but then when it sinked in to the skin the skin felt dry and not moisturized ebough. And when you have an oily skin you need moisture so your skin stops overproducing sebum (the skin oil) and I just didn't feel that the gel formula worked for that. Moisture is key for oily skin!! So I feel that the 3 step kit would be better with the normal dramatically different lotion istead of the gel..
Now on to the clarifying toner.... It's very very drying, and that is the worst thing you can do to your skin when it's oily as it tricks the skin to producing more sebum! However if you have problems with blemishes and stuff this toner absolutely works for that, allthough you do need a very moisturizing moisturizer after to give your skin that boost it needs after been dryed out..
So if you would get the lotion intead of the gel moisturizer I think this kit would have worked sooo much better for me than it did now, now I actually went from pretty good skin to bad skin with blemishes and clogged pores everywhere! It did not keep my oil at bay as it should have, it just made it worse!
So my final thoughts: I think if you are gonna use the 3 step system and have an oily skin, don't be afraid to switch out the gel moisturizer for the loiton, beacause it will make such a difference in the results!
I still stand by my Origins Balanced diet moisturizer or La-Roche Posay effaclar duo moisturizer and my he Body Shop Seaweed toner, and then I switch between Origins Checks and balanced cleanser and the Clinique liquid soap cleanser. Those products have actually changed my skin for the better, So I really sugest you try those instead of all clinique products =)
