[REVIEW] Mizon Snail Recovery Gel Cream

Hi guys!! 

It's been a long time since I posted anything because I got swept up in school and sort of forgot about this blog... whoops! But it's time I wrote another review!!

This is going to be a (pretty long) review for a product I've seen nothing but rave reviews for, the Mizon Snail Recovery Gel Cream. It's a gel based moisturizer that consists of 74% snail secretion filtrate, and boasts tons of benefits for skin problems. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to love it, my experience with this cream was..... not great! But I'll get into that later. 

The first thing I noticed is this cream comes in a super cute packaging, I really love the little snail design on all of Mizon's snail products.

The gel itself is a bit thick once it comes out of the tube, but it's not as sticky on the skin as I was expecting from other reviews I had read before I bought it. Actually it felt just like a thicker moisturizer. I used this after my normal night time moisturizer as I read that you're supposed to to seal in the moisture already applied to your skin, and it did melt really nice into my skin and made it feel super soft, which I was really happy with.  

Another big plus is all the snail goop that Mizon uses from their snail products is harvested in a cruelty-free method in snail farms, where the lil guys supposedly spend their lives happy and well fed in gardens, so if you like snails or are vegan, you don't have to worry, because no snails are harmed to make this goopy moisturizer.

The problem I had with this product is instead of giving me any of the great skin benefits that it claims to provide, it broke me out like crazy overnight every time I used it! One of the claims Mizon makes about this snail cream is because snail secretion is super good for healing (because snails drag their vulnerable bodies over rocks and things that could easily cut them), it's supposed to not allow any budding acne to come to the surface, so the time it takes your acne to heal and fade is supposedly faster. 

But instead, what this did was trap bacteria under my skin, giving me loads of small, super red, hard cystic acne bumps all over my face. Sure, the acne this cream gave me never exactly came to the surface as a whitehead, but it definitely didn't heal quickly (it took almost three weeks to get my skin back to how it was), and I hadn't broken out that bad since I was in high school. 

And on top of that, everywhere that I didn't have the horrible cystic acne, I had super dry skin to the point where it was flaking off if I touched my face. I have combination skin and can get dry patches, but it's never been that dry in my life before. My hands were even super dried out after applying the cream to my face, which I didn't think anything of at first (I should have caught on sooner...). 

My skin got so bad that my cheeks were constantly stinging during the day, the wind even hurt when it hit my face where acne had formed.

Sorry for the gross pic, but you can't even tell in the picture how red and flaky my skin was, I wasn't wearing makeup (except over the flare up by my nose) but I had about 10-15 cystic acne bumps all over each of my cheeks (and a few on my chin, one of which you can see in the pic) where the skin was bright red and constantly burning, and on the lower half of my face my skin was ashy and constantly flaky (seriously it was way worse in real life than in the picture). Worst of all? I took that picture only a few hours after moisturizing, and my forehead got over oily from how often I had to keep reapplying my moisturizer to my cheeks and chin. My skin hasn't looked this bad since I was 17, and it was horrible to deal with.

To be fair, I was getting close to my period the first week I used this, and I usually have small acne flare-ups during my periods, so at first I gave this cream the benefit of the doubt and decided to wait and try it again later. But nope, I put tons of work into taking care of my skin until the cystic acne and horrible dryness was gone, and as soon as I tried the Snail Recovery Gel Cream again, both the cystic acne and the dryness came back, just as strong as before.

Now, I do have really sensitive skin, so maybe that played a part in my face's reaction to this product. I've seen nothing but rave reviews and was really excited to try this, so maybe I'm the only one who had this happen. But just to be safe, I'm probably not going to use this ever again.

So, to recap:

♡Pros:

• super cute and convenient packaging
• non-scented!
• non-sticky application
• super cheap and easy to find, $5/tube on Amazon

♡Cons:

• gave me horrible, difficult to deal with cystic acne bumps all over my skin
• dried my skin out so bad it was flaking off
• no results for anything that Mizon claimed this cream would do

♡Repurchase?

• no way in hell, this cream was cute and cheap and an interesting product (I could see it being a really fun conversation piece since so many people are so grossed out by snails, much less putting snail goop on your face) but it's definitely not worth the absolute havoc it caused my skin