Soap and Glory Glow Your Mind Nourishing Cleansing Balm Review

(affiliate links)

 A good cleansing balm or oil is a staple to every bathroom cabinet these days and I make sure I always have one to hand. Anyone who wears makeup or SPF (which should be everyone really)would benefit from an oil based cleanser. Either in liquid or balm form, there’s nothing quite like an oil to break down sunscreen and/or foundation and the rest of your makeup. If you partake in double cleansing, there’s nothing quite like a slippery, oily cleanser as a first cleanse.

Designed to suit every skin type, the Soap and Glory Glow Your Mind Nourishing CleansingBalm is a fairly straightforward, effective option that I’ve been enjoying lately. Perhaps the word ‘enjoying’ isn’t actually appropriate here. To be blunt, this is a rather joyless product, not counting the absolute satisfaction you might feel as your makeup, including waterproof mascara, is completely annihilated.

With added Vitamin C, the balm is a blend of oils including Avocado, Sesame, Apricot and Jojoba that starts off solid, becomes liquid as you work it into your face, and then emulsifies with the addition of water. It’s described by Soap and Glory as a balm-to-milk cleanser because it becomes milky once it comes into contact with water.

It rinses away beautifully – you don’t even have to use it with a flannel or cloth if you don’t want to – which makes it an extremely gentle option. I’ve used the cleansing balm both with and without a flannel and while I prefer to use a flannel, I was not left with any residue or film on the skin when I tried it without.

The reason I called the product ‘joyless’ earlier is because of the distinct lack of scent. To me, it smells like literally nothing. Often unscented cosmetics have a subtle, natural fragrance but this is truly unscented. A big win if you are sensitive to fragrance or just prefer your skincare unscented but if like me you prefer a nice smell to add to the cleansing experience, it does make the process a little…boring.

That said, a cleanser’s job is to cleanse the skin and this one does it very well. It’s worth noting it leaves my face feeling clean (though I do double cleanse so use another cleanser afterward) but not tight or stripped. Overall I would buy this again but I do prefer something with a little scent to add to the ritual of cleansing.

Soap and Glory Glow Your Mind Nourishing Cleansing Balm retails for £9.95 though, as it’s Soap and Glory it’s usually on special or part of some sort of promotion at Boots.

 

Soap and Glory Cloud of Dreams Whipped Night Cream

(post contains affiliate links)

 It's been a while since I've bought facial skincare from Soap and Glory. Probably years actually! I once had a bottle of the Peaches and Clean cleanser (quite nice if memory serves) and the infamous Glow Job tinted moisturiser with the little spheres of pigment that burst on application and adapt to your skin tone. I think my last purchase before now was actually the Night and Flight Moisture Miracle cream - you can read the review for that here.

Cloud of Dreams is a relatively new moisturiser but the smell of it is incredibly nostalgic - it's that sort of sweet, citrus-leaning scent that many Soap and Glory products have and I'm pretty sure Glow Job smelled exactly the same. It really took me back in time for a moment- I love how fragrance can have that effect.

Housed in an airless pump with a hygienic press down lid, the moisturiser dispenses out of the top in a cloud (flower?) for a nice touch. The whipped formula is so light it's almost soufflé-like, and, if I'm perfectly honest, feels like an absolute pleasure to apply.

Designed for normal and/or dry skin types, the night cream is spiked with hydrating Hyaluronic Acid, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter and Coconut Oil.

It also features humectant Glycerin (third ingredient after water and emollient Myristal Myristate, a fatty acid that comes from coconut and palm kernel oils).

With humectant and emollient Vitamin B5 acts as an anti-inflammatory while Ceramides lock in moisture.

The instructions say to use a 'grape sized' amount of product but I use probably about half that- just a quick press of the pump dispenses the right amount for me and it's definitely not quite grape-sized.

The cloud-like cream absorbs fairly quickly and leaves skin feeling soft and smooth to the touch almost immediately. There's no greasy feeling or worry about the product transferring onto pillows while I snooze either, just the result of waking up with comfortable skin with a slight glow.

You can find Soap and Glory Cloud of Dreams Whipped Night Cream at Boots for £14, where it's often on special or part of some kind of promotion. 

Soap and Glory Beauty Sleep Accelerator - a Night Time Revelation

Let's be frank here. I've become a bit of a skincare snob. I don't know how it happened but I always gravitate towards the slightly pricier options found in the likes of Space NK and Selfridges rather than among the three for two's in Boots. It came as a surprise then when I found myself falling for Soap and Glory Beauty Sleep Accelerator Night and Flight Moisture Miracle (try saying that quickly, I dare you.).

I've already briefly talked about this moisturiser in the Glow Getters post but wanted to go into a bit more depth since I've been getting so much use out of it. 

First of all, I quite like the packaging - the jar is very simple in design and doesn't look overly kitschy or girly, which is a world away from a lot of other S and G products. It's what's inside that counts though right? Right! This cream includes cactus flower, rose hip oil and sweet almond oil on the ingredients list as well as some trademarked additions including 'Peach and GoJuice' which is essentially peach and goji berry extracts that are rich in vitamin A and C and antioxidants, 'Highdration 24H' and 'Oxyginseng' technology.

I'm not huge on these mysterious trademarked ingredients because I like to have some idea of what I'm putting on my face so I checked out the Soap and Glory website and  found that there is a full ingredients list that seems to explain what these fancy pants additions actually mean. So in addition to the peach and goji berry extracts, cactus flower, rose hip and sweet almond oils, there's also orange peel oil, ginseng extract, beeswax, glycerin (which is the second main ingredient after water) and hyaluronic acid which we all know is super plumping and hydrating.

On application, the cream isn't overly thick and absorbs quite quickly, resulting in an instant hydration fix. The scent? This stuff smells so, so good. It has quite a refreshing fruity scent that smells almost good enough to eat.
The top reason I'm loving the Soap and Glory Beauty Sleep Accelerator is down to the way it makes my skin look and feel. I apply it over whatever serum or oil I'm using and wake up with a sort of dewy, fresh complexion without any oil slick factor.
I've only tried it as a night treatment but imagine it would be a great in-flight companion to perk you up during your journey and freshen your face before landing.
The cream will set you back a very reasonable £13 at Boots and in my opinion it's up there with some of my favourite high end skin treats. Have you tried any skincare by Soap and Glory?