Shea Terra Organics Argan Oil & Acacia Honey Facial Wash

The Argan Oil & Acacia Honey Facial Wash is made by the lovely people at Shea Terra Organics, who source their ingredients from Africa and promise cruelty-free products with certified organic and natural ingredients in 100% recyclable packaging. Their products have no artificial fragrance, SLS, or parabens. I have also tried a whipped shea butter from them, reviewed here.

This cleanser is something a little bit different to the usual cleansers. It can either be used as a typical cleanser and massaged into the face to be removed with water, or it can be used as a mask to be left on the face for 5 to 10 minutes. I have mostly used it as a second cleanse to allow the natural ingredients to penetrate my skin, rather than just using it to remove makeup, and I leave it on for a couple of minutes as I am brushing my teeth in the evening. The only thing to be careful of is that this can sting the eyes a bit, so be careful to avoid that area (another reason I would use it as a second cleanse)!

Original texture

This cleanser smells delightful, a rich, raw honey scent. It also looks like honey and was very liquid for the first couple of weeks of use. Once I was about halfway through the bottle, the product thickened up quite significantly and I found it much easier to use as it was not dripping off my face mid-use. I'm not sure if I needed to shake the bottle before use to mix the ingredients so that it was less liquid, or if it just started to thicken up as the weather became colder. You can tell I was a little confused about this one!

Thicker texture

Despite its changing properties, I actually quite enjoyed this cleanser. Once it became thicker, it was easy to leave this on for a couple of minutes whilst I was brushing my teeth and I was left with smooth, soft skin immediately after removal. There was no tightness in my skin and it did not feel dry either. However, removal was a bit of a process! When you leave it on for a little while and it sets, it forms a film on top of your skin which can not be removed with only water! So I found myself cleansing (again!) with a milk cleanser and a warm flannel to help remove the remnants. Yeesh! Otherwise you are left with a tacky film over your skin that is not the greatest feeling.

Ingredients are lovely, as you can imagine, comprising organic sunflower oil, acacia honey, organic argan oil, organic extra virgin olive oil, organic coconut cream oil, water, and salt. A beautiful mix of skin-loving ingredients. The cleanser comes housed in a gorgeous brown glass bottle with a pump, making it super easy to use. The glass bottle worries me slightly though, as I am so scared to drop it! But good to know that it can be recycled. Overall, a lovely and slightly luxurious multipurpose cleanser.

Shea Terra Organics also do a Rosehip Black Soap for deep cleansing and resurfacing, which is next on my list to try! (let's not mention the Moroccan Argan Oil or the Rosewater Spritz, eee!)

Price: $24.00 (Amorganica) [$0.17/mL]
Rate: ingredients, efficacy, multipurpose, pump packaging, organic, packaging, scent
Hate: texture, need to cleanse afterwards
Verdict: would repurchase purely for use as a mask rather than a cleanser

Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye

Estée Lauder has been around since 1946, formulating advanced high performance skincare and makeup. The company owns a myriad of brands including Clinique, MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda, Smashbox, AERIN Beauty, GLAMGLOW, BECCA, Too Faced, and most recently has invested in DECIEM, the company behind The Ordinary. Their skincare products are definitely on the pricier end of the spectrum though luckily they frequently release great GWP offers. The Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye (Synchronized Complex II) is the eye cream I have been trialling lately and it has been going great guns for me.

The Advanced Night Repair Eye (Synchronized Complex II) promises to fight all key signs of eye ageing, including fine lines, wrinkles, puffiness, dark circles, dryness, and uneven skin tone.

This is a smooth, gel-like eye cream that I nevertheless find to be quite rich and hydrating for the under eye area. It applies really easily and sinks in quickly, so it is perfect to use both day and night. Because of the cool, gel feel this eye cream is quite soothing to apply, especially on tired, sore eyes after a day of staring at a computer screen. It has a slight chemical scent to it, but this fades quickly once you have applied it.

After a spate of eye creams that have not worked so well for me (see this post), this eye cream has been a bit of a saviour! My eye area is not looking quite so shadowy and I've found that the skin is consistently hydrated and plumped. Still young at 22, I can't say much for its efficacy on wrinkles however the plumping effect has definitely reduced the appearance of lines around my eyes.

This eye cream is on the vastly expensive side at $95.00 for 15ml, however I was a little tricky and managed to get my hands on two sample pots from beauty boxes and the like so I have actually been able to trial 10ml of it. Not bad! It is one of the more effective eye creams I have ever used so I would be quite willing to fork out the dollars for a replacement pot if I do not come across something equally as effective in my trials. Estée Lauder frequently has great GWP's happening, so I would probably wait for one of those.

One unfortunate thing about this eye cream is the packaging. Whilst it appears very luxurious and expensive in its dark brown jar with shiny gold features, dipping your finger in to a pot is a little unhygienic. It looks like the full size comes with a spatula to negate this, but that just seems a bit too fussy for me. Put it in a tube or, better yet, pump packaging.

The formula has silicone base, which is a bit of a downside for me as it can dry out my skin. It does explain this silky smooth gel feel of this eye cream though. Basically, it has a whole lot of smoothing and emollient, or moisturising, ingredients with long, complex names. It also has some mulberry root extract, skullcap root extract, wheatgerm, and jojoba thrown in for good measure.

I also have a sample of the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair serum to trial so I will let you know how that goes for me soon.

Price: $100.00 (Estée Lauder website) [$6.67/mL]
Rate: efficacy, cool gel feel, ability to use both day and night
Hate: price, packaging, silicon
Verdict: would repurchase (with GWP!)