A while ago, I placed an order on Cult Beauty and if you hit a certain monetary value with your order you’d be gifted a free goodie bag filled with skincare to try. I decided to give it a whirl and the Espa Night Balm was one of the goodies. Today I am reviewing this luxurious balm.
Spoiler alert: I did not like this. I will detail in this review what I had expected of this product going into it, why I didn’t like it and why I in fact stopped using this before it ran out. Not because this is a bad product, but it just wasn’t for me. Here’s why.
Skincare review: Espa Tri-Active Resilience Rest and Recovery Night Balm
The only price point I can find on this is for a full sized jar. A 30 gram jar retails for €71.10. And I actually think that this tiny jar is in face the full sized product if the product shots on Cult Beauty are anything to go by. Since I got this product in a goodie bag I went in with zero expectations. All I needed it to do was to not set off my skin’s sensitivity and I thought I would be fine. I was wrong.
What does this product have to offer?
Let me first be very honest with you: I first used it the wrong way. Judging by the size of the jar and the name balm in the title I figured it was a lip balm type product. After a few weeks my lips felt dry and chapped and so I decided to do a search and found out this was meant for the face instead. So I switched it up and started using it as a night time moisturizer instead.
What this product promises to do is to optimize your skin’s ability to regenerate overnight while having a relaxing scent. It should replenish, smooth, fortify and calm the skin. It is meant to be used as an overnight mask. There are no instructions as to how often to use this. It did say to apply this, pat it in and then use it as a bit of aromatherapy. And that’s where things went south for me.
How did this product work on my skin?
Let’s first have a look at the ingredients. They are as follows:
Coco-Caprylate, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, C15-19 Alkane, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Hippophae Rhamnoides Fruit Oil, Mauritia Flexuosa Fruit Oil, Fragrance* (Parfum), Cera Alba (Beeswax), Silica, Moringa Oleifera Seed Oil, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Rosa Canina Fruit Oil, Octyldodecanol, Himanthalia Elongata Extract, Linalool, Limonene, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Citrus Aurantium Bergamia (Bergamot) Fruit Oil, Citronellol, Epilobium Angustifolium Flower/Leaf/Stem Extract, Geraniol, Citrus Nobilis (Mandarin Orange) Peel Oil, Tocopherol, Pogostemon Cablin Leaf Extract, Litsea Cubeba Fruit Oil, Citral, Cedrus Atlantica Bark Oil, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Citrus Aurantium Amara (Bitter Orange) Flower Oil.
All in all the ingredients do not make it seem like something my skin won’t like. I have dry/ dehydrated skin and especially in the winter time (when I started using this) my skin needs all the help it can get to retain moisture. However, my skin can also be quite sensitive and with natural products like this, it can be a dream, or it can be a great way to agitate my skin and make it look very red.
Now, I didn’t get any sort of reaction while using this but this product just didn’t feel nice on my skin. It felt heavy and too occlusive on the skin. I would have to put this on hours before going to bed to avoid it staining my pillow. While I usually love super moisturizing products, this seemed to just clog pores and not do anything for my skin really.
But what I disliked most about this product was the scent. The product is described as having a calming fragrance (which is all natural by the way) but to me it was one of the most unpleasant scents I have come across in skincare. I didn’t like how this smelled and because it takes ages to sink into the skin it also took hours for the scent to dissipate.
Should you buy the Espa Night Balm?
While I get why a product like this exists, it is just not for me. I think this can be a great product for many people but the texture and scent made using this product not a great experience. You only need a little bit each time though, so the price point is justified if you go buy how many uses you can get out of a jar.
However, for me to be willingly paying over €70 for a skincare product it has to near perfection. This product just didn’t tick all the boxes for me. It was just a little too rich (despite it having a thin texture), I didn’t enjoy applying this, nor did I enjoy the way this smelled. I am currently using a fragrance free moisturizer by a much more affordable brand and I am loving it so much more than I did this.
If you were to ask me if this is worth the money, my answer would be no. However, if your skin is drier than mine or if you want that luxurious spa like feeling when using your skincare this is a good one. This could also work well if you just want to add a boost to your skincare routine a few times a week and use this more like an overnight mask. You can also use this on cuticles or other dry areas of skin. So it is definitely a multi-use product.
You can buy the Espa Night Balm here *.
*Link is affiliated.