Review : Origins Never a Dull Moment Skin-Brightening Face Polisher

I had mixed feelings about this product when I first bought it. The texture feels nice on the skin, it smells delicious, but did it do anything?

This exfoliator is formulated like a really, really, thick paste. Something like the squidgy sweets in a packet of Haribo all-stars. (It smells like sweets too.)

You only need a small blob to cover your face, and I find it spreads better if your face is slightly damp. Keep massaging and you’ll have a fine layer of jelly on your visage … but you can’t feel much scrubby stuff in it. The “grains” are just specks dotted here and there. It's kinda like the bits of sugar that stick to your face after eating Royal Dansk biscuits.

So without much scrubby stuff, what was I doing massaging pasty goo on my face? I thought it was £25 down the drain, but my skin felt surprisingly smooth and soft afterwards - something in it worked.

I’ve been using it for a few months (since December to be precise), more for the sake of using it than because it makes a difference. I try not to waste products and to be honest I quite enjoyed washing my face with a jelly baby paste.

Two months later and I’ve finally made up my mind. It works. AND I HAVE PROOF! Behold!

>> Warning: gross pictures of my face coming up. I know you’re going to look anyways <<

I’ve been using Benozyl Peroxide to treat Mt. Vesuvius, which REALLY dries out your skin. After a week of use, I had patch of dry skin resembling fish scales. Naice.

Cleansers and hydrating masks didn’t make any difference - I needed something to slough those cells right off. I could either pick it off like Goldmember or be sane/hygienic and use a peel. That’s when it occurred to me that this would be a good test for Origins - if it got rid of the flakiness, it must work.

And sure enough, it did.

  

Cheesus Crust, I can't believe I'm putting this up on the internet. This pic came up supersized on my computer and for a moment I thought I was looking at an aerial photo of the sea!

Anyhoo there it is. So how does it work? Quite a lot of (negative) reviews point out that it lacks a scrubby texture. No beads, no oomph. That's a bit unfair to Origins, because the ingredients indicate that isn't a  grainy scrub. In any event, you do not want a fruit scrub to be filled with bits of crushed papaya and apricot kernels. You scrubbing your skin with jaddegy bits = you cutting your skin.

{ Ingredients }
Water, Citrus Aurantium Amara (Bitter Orange) Flower Water, Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Coco-Betaine, Decyl Glucoside, Tea-Cocoyl Glutamate, Sodium Cocoyl Sarcosinate, Sodium Isostearoyl Lactylate, Methyl Gluceth-20, PEG-7 Glyceryl Cocoate, Sodium Chloride, Barosma Betulina (Buchu) Leaf Oil, Citrus Paradisi (Grapefruit) Peel Oil, Eucalyptus Globulus (Eucalyptus) Leaf Oil, Abies Sibirica (Pine) Oil, Prunus Amygdalus Amara (Bitter Almond) Kernel Oil, Mentha Arvensis (Field Mint) Leaf Oil, Rosa Damascena (Rose) Flower Oil, Limonene, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Fruit Extract, Carica Papaya (Papaya) Fruit Extract, Yucca Schidigera (Yucca) Extract, Quillaja Saponaria Bark Extract, Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe) Leaf Juice, Polyquaternium-6, Bis-PEG-18 Methyl Ether Dimethyl Silane, Butylene Glycol, Polysorbate 20, Phenoxyethanol, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone

Other reviewers say that you got what you bargained for - this is a “face polish” not a “face scrub”. Err… there’s a difference? There is, apparently: a face polish is gentle with fine granules whereas a face scrub has big thick granules. So in other words, the former is what a face scrub should be like and the latter describes crap from St. Ives.

It’s all words and spades to me. It’s an exfoliator. It works. The end.

Would I Recommend it?

We've all heard that exfoliating is a key part of your skincare, sloughing off the dead skin cells blah blah fresh and even skin tone. For people with normal skin, this product is OK. I myself - with abnormal spot-prone skin - steer well away from any kind of exfoliators with grains/microbeads. My skin has the added joy of being quite sensitive, so using scrubs is just painful. I prefer to use liquid exfoliators that you apply in the same way as you do a lotion (or toner). Just bear in mind that these products don’t go round calling themselves “liquid exfoliators”. They’re often marketed as “brightening” which can point you in the right direction. Read the ingredients and look for glycolic acid, lactic acid (AHAs), fruit acids and salicylic acid (BHA). AHAs are good for treating hyper-pigmentation, and BHAs are for spots. (As for how I ended up with this when I constantly complain of skin woes, I bought it at a point when my spots had cleared up, to help prevent future breakouts and do something about the post-spot blemishes.)

Would I Repurchase?
It's good, but I think I can find better. It works to slough off dead skin but I don't think it's strong enough to treat residual marks. For those, I need something more hard-hitting. I have REN's Clarifying Toning Lotion which contains lactic acid in mind for that :} At £12.00/150ml, it's half the price of Never a Dull Moment (£25/125ml)

Celine