science-based product review: glow recipe avocado melt sleeping mask
“Avocado Melt Sleeping Mask is a creamy yet breathable sleeping mask that nourishes and softens dry, tired skin overnight. It’s a quick fix to eliminating dry flakes and dull skin. Try it once and you’ll want to #avocuddle all the time, trust us.”
-Glow Recipe
Product Claims on Website
Hydrates
Soothes & Calms
Softens
Plumps
For Dry, Sensitive, and Normal Skin
For Anti-Aging & Dullness concerns
Product Claims on the Packaging
Moisturizing + Firming
For Dry to Normal Skin
Marketing Ingredients
Avocado
Manuka Honey
PHA
Kaolin
What Do You Get?
80 mL | 2.7 fl oz
A plastic-scoopy 🥄
$45.00 USD
My Personal Thoughts on the Below Statement
“Due to the highly natural makeup of the Avocado Melt Sleeping Mask formula, separation may occur. Mix the formula vigorously with the included spatula for a minute to allow the formula to return to its creamy, whipped texture.”
I honestly don't think that a product should separate or be unstable if it is going out in the market, even if it is "highly natural". If a product is unstable and separates while its on the shelves or when its still within the stated shelf-life of the product, then I find it to be a little lousy... lousy formulating & lousy stability.
I personally have not seen any signs of separation or instability with the product that I have purchased -- so I'm happy about that! 🙂 But as you'll see on the packaging, the product has a recommended 6-month shelf life... Hrmmm... I wonder why?
Initial Impression
Packaging: the box is sturdy & is extremely well-thought considering that when you open the inside of the box, you see a bunch of avocado halves (really cute! 🥑🥑🥑)
Component: an avocado-shaped green jar (I mean... the main marketing story circles the avocados 🥑🥑🥑)
I like how they provide a plastic-scoopy 🥄
Product Appearance: opaque, aesthetic green (looks like a fake green) emulsion
Product Odor: I'm currently sick, so I had to ask a few of my coworkers what they thought of the smell... I don't think their answer was worth putting on here lol I'll update this when my nose is up to par. UPDATE: I don’t like the smell.
Product pH: 4.30 - I honestly wish the pH was a little bit higher since they're marketing towards people with sensitive skin. It would be nicer to see the pH point be a little higher (somewhere in the 5.0-6.0 range) for people with sensitive skin. However, if the product is stable at this pH point, then what does my opinion really matter?
Ingredients List - First Look
The first thing that I do when I pick up a product is look at the ingredients list. I just look for things that I am interested in, but I know that many of you are interested in the 1% line.
What helps me determine the 1% line is by looking for traditional preservatives or fragrances & seeing where they are in the list. In this case... I was unable to find either one!
(Note: I don't really care if a product is fragranced or not, as long as the odor of the product isn't too... in the face.)
The website does state that Manuka Honey "Contains the enzyme Methylglyoxal (MGO), which has higher levels of antibacterial properties than other types of honey." If the brand is trying to use Manuka Honey as a multifunctional ingredient (antibacterial & moisturizing properties). For a product to be "self-preserving" with honey, honey has to be used at a much larger percentage than it is in this formula, but this ingredient is fairly low in the ingredients list. And so, I'm relieved that the brand doesn't have any "self-preserving" marketing claims.
Gluconolactone is sometimes used as a chelating agent (use level below 1%) or used with other preservatives to aid in efficacy, but I don't see any other preservatives on the ingredients list. This ingredient is the marketed PHA claim that the product has, so in regards to preservation... I don't see any. Chelating agent plus PHA ingredient? I'll take that.
Another thing that I look for is anything that would stand out, like this really artificial looking green color that this product has lol. To my surprise, there wasn't a colorant stated for this product. Therefore, the color of the product has to be coming from one of the ingredients -- most likely the avocado fruit. So it was a surprise that there wasn't a marketing story for the color of this product.
Are you really looking for that 1% line?
A second method that I use to determine the 1% line is by looking for a bunch of waters or extracts one after another, consecutively.
74% of the formula is the combination of the avocados 🥑 in the formula (bolded above).
There are 19 other ingredients.
100% - 74% = 26%
26% divided by 19 ingredients = ~1.368% for each ingredient if it was used evenly throughout
I highly doubt it was used evenly throughout!
Avocado 🥑 is the highlight of this formula. Why would the butter be all the way down there? My poor friend.
They said they used "a pinch" of Kaolin on their website. A pinch in my eyes is like... 0.1%.
Gluconolactone typically used below 1% -- Polyhydroxy acids (aka PHAs) are acids that are larger in size with more hydroxy groups (hence it's name). PHAs work at a slower rate than AHAs due to its larger size & more complex structure. Therefore, it causes less irritation & can work great for people with sensitive skin.
REMEMBER: Majority of THIS formula are the first 3% ingredients. They're really highlighting avocados 🥑. And so, I guess the 1% line doesn’t really matter?
First-Time Using the Avocado Melt Sleeping Mask
As a Cosmetic Chemist
Application: product is smooth with slip & has a cushion-effect; it also has a whitening-effect during rub in
Play-time: the product takes a bit to rub in due to the whitening-effect; you can avoid this long play time by applying a liberal amount to use the product as a wash-off mask
After-feel/look: skin was left with a radiant/luminescent look
As a Consumer
The product instantly made my skin look and feel well-moisturized. It looked and felt nourished & not dry at all. A little of the product went a long way when I massaged it onto my skin (cause you know I don't like washing off expensive product down the drain). The next day, my skin felt soft, supple, and moisturized! I was rather happy! 🙂
Fast-forward: I've been sick with an upper-respiratory infection, so I've gone through quite a few tissue boxes -- meaning, my nose is dry, flaky, red, irritated, suffering, dying, you name it. I was hoping that this product would help in moisturizing my nose while slowly exfoliating the dry skin without irritating it. I've been using this for the last 2 weeks and my nose hasn't really gained any of those benefits I've been hoping for. The rest of my skin has remained soft and moisturized, so there's that!
Conclusion
I think it's cool that the product highlights that 74% of the formula comes from avocados. I am a sucker for any product that is transparent enough to tell me how much of something is in their product. I usually think -- ahh, it has a good amount of good stuff, so it must be some good stuff! (I am the living, breathing example of the targeted consumer that marketing people in cosmetic brands market towards). I fall for anything that sounds good, even when I am extremely knowledgeable about the field. Go me lol.
The product definitely provides instant moisturizing properties & makes my skin feel really soft the next morning after use. The only sad thing is that it wasn't moisturizing enough for my nose-area during my sick tissue-using times.
The product has a recommended 6-month shelf-life, so if you are not the kind of person to religiously use a product until it's empty... This product is $45. I wouldn't get it if I were you.
Honestly, the product is a fairly generic emulsion & you can get away with something much cheaper that will do the same -- it probably just won't have avocados as its marketing story.
I think product would make a really cute gift because the packaging is really cute & avocados 🥑 are so trendy -- we're trendy.
Just things that I'd like for the future with this product or if this product were to ever get reformulated: I'd like to see some sort of preservative (can even be a "green"/"natural" preservative). I also couldn't find anything on how to properly store this product since I personally feel like it is REALLY important for this product to be stored properly when there is no actual preservative. This is probably normal information, but I recommend a cool, dry place.
UPDATE (Jan 2021): Someone commented on my original Instagram post of this product, and I actually can’t find this product on the Glow Recipe website anymore. Did they discontinue this product and replaced it with the retinol-avocado one?