Refining Skin Texture With Glow Recipe

Skin texture is one of those things that I feel I’ve been constantly working on for years and years. In my teens and twenties, I had oily skin with large pores and some breakouts. Fast-forward to today, and I have normal to dry skin with large pores, fine lines, and expression lines. Hooray for aging! So in an effort to address those texture issues, I decided to give some of Glow Recipe’s products a try to see how I would like them.

Glow Recipe has a beautiful aesthetic to it. The color-coordinated packaging and the pretty bottle choices definitely catch my eye. Particularly, the pink line from Glow Recipe, which is their watermelon line that addresses dullness and texture. 

About

If you aren’t familiar with Glow Recipe, they are a skincare brand found in Sephora that uses fruit extracts throughout all of its products. Everything produced is vegan (with the exception of one product), leaping bunny certified cruelty-free, and is categorized as “clean”. The brand does use fragrances which can be iffy territory, but they stress that they use less than 0.5% of fragrance in their products and none of them include acetone or PCM compounds. 

I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what PCM compounds are and came up fruitless, or at the very least, only kinda certain of what they are. I think they should explain that a bit more, regardless, I prefer fragrance-free face products, but still use products with them. 

What I was happy to discover when researching the brand is that they are 100% carbon neutral as of April 2022, and they have also partnered with TerraCycle to help consumers like us recycle what we can responsibly and with more ease. 

Their Watermelon line promises to hydrate, soothe, and fight free radical damage to offset fine lines and wrinkles.  The two products I decided to try were their Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dew Drops and Watermelon Glow PHA + BHA Pore-Tight Toner.

Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dew Drops

Purchase at: Glow Recipe, Sephora.

I’ve been wanting to try the Niacinamide Dew Drops for a very long time.  Dew Drops has a light milky pink gel texture that is stiff enough to NOT run off the back of your hand when you dispense it. It does have a distinct watermelon scent that goes away when it dries down. 

Niacinamide, an antioxidant, is one of the key ingredients in this serum and has a few purposes. It can reduce the appearance of pores, but can also help with fading discoloration. Hyaluronic acid offers its hydrating and plumping abilities while Watermelon assists in hydration too. 

Glow Recipe says this is a highlighting serum and I have to agree that when layered under my makeup I believe it. It also suggests you can use this as a last step “glossing” but I think that would be very short-lived.  I think this is a fantastic serum for hydration and plumping. My skin does feel very smooth to the touch — and develops that sheen I adore. 

I thought it worked great under multiple foundations and tinted sunscreens and liked how the pump dispenser functioned smoothly and didn’t give too much.

Watermelon Glow PHA + BHA Pore-Tight Toner

Purchase at: Glow Recipe, Sephora

I don’t use a lot of toners, but I do like to use them from time to time before serums to prep my skin for more hydration. My pores are on the larger side and always have been. I have realistic expectations when it comes to any pore refining abilities a product may have. I know it’s not going to actually shrink anything — but rather clean out house, giving the pore the ability to reduce down to its normal shape. 

Dirt, oil, and makeup can all clog pores and over time can make them appear enlarged. By using a BHA type toner I can work on reducing the appearance of pores while boosting hydration. I used a serum from the Ordinary that also had the featured ingredient (PHA – polyhydroxy acid) and loved how it could boost hydration levels even better than an HA. Willow Bark, a natural source of BHA (beta hydroxy acid) is responsible for decongesting the skin with gentle exfoliation. 

The toner is watery, but still has some gel-like characteristics on it when you dab a drop on the skin. What’s funny is that this product doesn’t smell like watermelon at all. I had guessed celery but found out it was cactus water and cucumber. Not even close. Don’t enter me in any food sniffing contests. Lol

I experienced no irritation with this toner, and only use it at night. I can’t say that my pores look dramatically smaller or anything but I do enjoy how hydrated my skin looks when I use these two products. 

Final Conclusion

Would I consider these purchase-worthy? Dew Drops I believe is worth its price tag. The serum has a nice texture and does exactly what it claims to do for my skin. I’m not sure I feel the same way about the toner. It’s nice, and helped with hydration, but nothing that I felt I needed to continue with a second bottle. I’d also like to see a shift to no fragrance. The fragrance is so hit and miss for people. It can be really irritating for some, while others can coat themselves head to toe in products that are fragranced. 

Have you tried anything from Glow Recipe before?