The beauty is in the Flannel, not the product! (Eve Lom Cleanser)

Member Name: BatCat

Product:	Eve Lom Cleanser
Date:	02/08/01 (7154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: the flannel, the flannel, the flannel

Disadvantages: the cleanser is smelly, scummy and over complicated, website customer service is wretched, cold cream does a better job

Now, before I start this opinion I always like to say what type my skin is, so that people who are built differently can head off and read something more useful to them (while still of course registering mine as very useful... because in a way it was...) anyhow: I have mid twenties usually crappy oily skin that up until recently I was at war with.
Ah ha! you say, this magical Eve Lom thing that smells so odd must have cured your crappy skin. But no, you would be wrong. For a while it actually frustrated my skin caused by the stress of having to deal with their customer 'service' department and actually order the thing. Personal note here, if you do decide to buy Eve Lom, don't buy it off their internet site, it is poorly run, poorly set up and the guy in charge of customer service will treat you like a sad moron even though he has no idea how the website works.

Eve Lom cleanser is basically a sort of solid compound, a bit like liquid wax, infused with a number of essential oils that assist your skin in decongesting itself and becoming clean and bright and fresh. The main ingredient appears to be eucalyptus oil, so it smells very eucalyptussy ( a bit like all natural cough lozenges) and not really very nice. You take a small gob of the stuff and rub it all over your face following the extensive instructions included in the box and using the patented Eve Lom muslin face flannel. There's then a whole business of using a warm flannel, then using a cold flannel that is supposed to tone and close your pores. This technique can also exacerbate the appearance of veins on the face (not a nice thing at all). It also takes a very long time in the evening. And! they don't tell you this in the adverts, but those of us with acne type prone skin are told only to use it once a week or so. So if you're looking for a magical product to help heal your face and justify thinking 'but I will no longer have to buy normal cleanser, toner and moist
urizer' then tough cookies.

Now, I didn't set about writing this opinion to merely take the piss out the Eve Lom cleanser. It does have some uses:

The Eve Lom patented flannel.
This is a muslin rectangle that is slightly rougher than normal face flannels. What has cured my crappy skin (for the past 2 months anyway) is leaving Eve Lom in her drawer and bringing out Ponds Cold Cream. I then apply the cold cream in a much more helter skeltery way than I did Eve Lom, take a basin of warm water, dip my special cloth in it, and wipe the Cold Cream off, revealing happy soft skinned me. Much softer and clearer using Ponds then it ever was using Eve Lom I can tell you!!

In short then, it isn't worth it laying out the money for Eve Lom. It doesn't smell nice, in some cases you can't use it every day and it scums up your sink. But! The flannel is worth every penny and is probably the reason why the cleanser has such a reputation. You can buy a pack of 3 for about a tenner off the internet (from a site other than Eve Lom and their dreadful customer service) and cold cream from Boots for 3 pounds and then spend all the rest of the money frolicking about rejoicing in your delightful happy skin.
By the way, if you still don't believe me about Eve Lom, live in the Belfast area and want to try it I will donate my half jar for somethig interesting in return.

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