Review: Hortaleza, M.D. Facial Soaps

After so many months, I can now finally share with you my thoughts on these facial soaps from one of HBC's skin care lines, Hortaleza, M.D.

I was able to try three variants of the facial soaps - Illuminous, Acnesol and Puressence. I believe there are a total of four variants. The fourth one is the Total Solution facial soap :)

Let's talk about these soaps one by one, shall we? :)

Illuminous Plus (with gluthatione and arbutin) - for skin lightening

The soap itself has a black color, and as far as I can remember, it doesn't have a strong scent. Don't be scared of the color as it doesn't come off onto the skin or onto your soap dish when wet :)

Plastic-wrapped inside the box

The Illuminous Plus soap claims to lighten skin including blemishes and dark spots on the face and to have a mild glycerin-based formula. I used this because I had dark areas and pimple marks on my face. I basically just wanted to even out my skin color. After every use, my face felt clean and bright. I wouldn't say it's a moisturizing soap but it didn't leave my face feeling tight and dry. I still didn't skip applying moisturizer afterwards, though. After about a month of using the soap, I noticed that my face over-all seemed brighter. Not significantly lighter, but brighter, still. My pimple marks didn't totally disappear but they did lighten. This soap also helped clear my left shoulder area where I had developed rashes (who knows how) that turned to small dark, scaly spots - something that my previous soap wasn't able to do.

Acnesol (with tea tree oil) - for pimple control

Now this soap, unlike the Illuminous Plus, has a translucent green color (sorry, no photo :/ ), and it has a strong (ish) tea tree scent that didn't really bother me but it's not what I would call 'fragrant.' I guess I'm just not a fan of the tea tree oil scent. Anyway, the Acnesol soap claims to help dry out pimples and exfoliate the skin and to have a mild glycerin-based formula. Before I tell you about my experience with this soap, let me remind you of my skin profile. I have oily skin but it's not acne-prone (and I'm really thankful for that). But I still get pimples, especially during that time of the month. I found that this soap didn't prevent pimples from popping out of my face but it did help dry out the pimples that showed up although not too quickly. This soap also didn't leave my face feeling tight, which is good, but I still made sure to use moisturizer afterwards.

Puressence (with Glycerin) - mild skin care

Now this soap looks like a giant nata de coco because of its translucent white appearance (and again, sorry, I don't have a photo of the soap itself :/ ). And as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't have a strong scent. The Puressence soap claims to cleanse without drying the skin. And it did just that. My face felt clean and smooth after every use. Despite the clean feeling it gave, it didn't leave my face feeling tight and dry.

Over-all, I like that these soaps did what they claimed to do. Moreover, they lathered up and cleansed well without leaving my face tight and dry, and they didn't irritate my skin in any way. Just how I like my facial soaps/facial washes. I forgot how much these soaps cost but I'll update you guys :)

That's it for my short review! Have you tried any of these soaps? Share your experience by commenting below, ok? :)


Disclaimer: Products were sent by the company but the views and opinions expressed in this post are purely mine and based on my own experience with the products.