Cup of Reviews: Clinique Take the day off Cleansing Balm

One of my wonderful best friends, Helen, has gotten me for my B-day the Clinique cleansing balm. Thank you, Helen! She was one of the first people to encourage me to start this blog. So naturally I needed to dedicated my first review to her gift. I know she went all out to find something that would satisfy my hunger for beauty products. So the store assistant showed her this brand new product and said that it is excellent to remove make-up.  Though you know, my hunger is never satisfied, hahaha, I was super happy with this gift. I’ve never tried any cleansing balms before, and I was dying to give this a try.

To me, a cleansing balm is not a new concept. For some time now, I’ve seen cleansing balms in the Korean beauty world. I’ve been wanting to try them out, but haven’t gotten around to order it. One of the best known cleansing balms on the Korean market is from the brand Banilo Co, called the Clean it Zero. I will definitely order this in the near future to try out and compare. But in the meantime, I am very excited to talk about the Clinique product.

When I opened up the gift, I got this huge jar, that came with a pretty little colorful pouch. The material of the jar is of a hard and sturdy plastic, with an aluminum lid, like most of the Clinique jars.

The product looks like a hard, white, Vaseline-ish consistency. Most of the Clinique products don’t have any scent at all, so this product is no exception. When I first saw this, I wasn’t sure where to start. I first tried rubbing with my (clean) fingers over the surface and then apply it to my face. But it would be dirty to dig in there again to re-apply. So I used a little spatula, that I got from another product I have, to scoop out a pea-size amount.

When spreading this white substance over the face, it melts completely to a milky oil. I massage this all over my face and especially around the eye area, because I do tend to go colorful with my eyeshadow. The great thing about this product is that because you use your fingers, you can feel where there is still some make-up left over. For me this is important, because I only wear waterproof mascara (I’m not blessed with luscious long, curly lashes, but was born with short and straight lashes). Usually, it takes forever to get it off and I then have to use several cotton pads soaked into product. After massaging the face with this product, you end up looking like a hot mess.

But O…M…G… when you rinse it off, it leaves your skin sooooo soft and clean, and with no make-up left on your face. After using this cleanser, I of course still go in with a gel cleanser to be extra clean. The picture below was taken immediately after I used the cleansing balm, no cleansing gel used yet. Result… a squeaky clean egg-face hahaha.

I’ve been using this product for over 6 weeks, on a daily basis now and I love it. A little minus would be that it doesn’t come with a spatula. Or mine didn’t come with one anyway. Now, I have a dry to mixed type of skin (with greasy forehead), and it doesn’t feel dry or uncomfortable after rinsing. I would definitely recommend this product for all skin types.

This concludes my first review. Please leave your comments and subscribe.

I’ll talk to you soon!

Sarah