Suqqu Moisture Massage Scrub - review

As a reminder, swapping days with Emer (the ArtyMama) - her usual Friday post is here, go take a read if you haven't already!

According to their own PR, this Moisture Massage Scrub from SUQQU "enables you to get the benefits of daily face wash, massage and a scrub all in one easy step".  Although Suqqu products are not available in Ireland, with Selfridges just across the pond, and the miracle that is Internet Shopping, I reckoned I'd give it a review anyhow.


As I get older I tend to prefer to use a bunch of individual products to do a single thing, as my skin is getting temperamental, so sometimes when I do an at-home facial, I'll sometimes go heavy on the cleansing and scrubbing, and sometimes I'm going to get more excited about moisturising and relaxing.  Depending on the season, the weather, my mood at the time, and what my skin is telling me.  Even my travel toiletries kit (permanently stocked, and ready to go at all times - I'm nothing if not OCD!) tends to feature travel/decanted smaller sized versions of the individual products I find work so well for me.  So with the obvious exception of "now and then" (emergencies and festivals, mainly!) I find I'm not too bothered with "one size fits all" products.  That said, I do like Suqqu brushes, and some Japanese skincare I've bought over the years has been amazing, so I decided to give this one a whirl to try it out.

Rambling over, onwards, what did I find. According to Suqqu, this is a rich gel cream, designed to cleanse and moisturise skin, remove dead skin cells and leave your skin bright.  When Suqqu say it will moisturise your skin, I'm assuming they mean that this should not strip your skin, and that you'll still have to use your normal serums/lotions/potions/tonics and creams afterwards.  It didn't strip my skin, strangely enough, given that it stinks of alcohol - seriously seriously whiffy with the stuff.  It certainly left my skin feeling soft.  It cleansed it, sure - but it's not a makeup remover, so let's caveat it right there - it simply won't budge makeup.

In terms of removing dead skin cells, I'm sure it hasn't hurt in this regard - however the mechanical exfoliators contained therein are extremely sparse and gentle and really are not going to do that much for you.  As a daily exfoliator, this is likely to be fine, however, and these things are never intended to replace your once-a-week deep scrub.  I look on my daily exfoliator (actually, I use mine every second day, and it's a chemical version rather than a mechanical one) as something that just prepares my skin for makeup, as opposed to a scrub in itself.

Last but not least - in terms of leaving my skin brighter - not too sure about this one.  Maybe, if I squinted a bit and turned my face this way and that way, and tried to persuade myself it did.  Then again, it contains iron oxides, which will do this with some chemical trickery-pokery, so I guess it probably did, a little tiny bit.

Texture-wise, this claims to be a gel-cream, but it's quite glutinous, more like a the slightly slippery-slimy slinky feel you get if you mashed some banana and added some water and cornstarch, then some cream.  Yeah, I know that's probably far too descriptive, but it is what it is :-)  And no, I haven't done that to see if that's what it was.  Actually, what it felt like was like mixing a blended version of my Rice Mask with some (very small amount of gentle) mechanical exfoliators.  Kinda gloopy and sloppy and very slightly elastic.

Ingredients-wise, it's water-based, and contains glycerin, mineral oil, cellulose (that's probably the "thickened" feeling to it), castor oil, petrolatum, alcohol, fragrance (as previously mentioned, it really just mostly smells of alcohol to me) and a bunch of other stuff I'd rather not put too near my face, followed on by a bunch of ok stuff (olive fruit oil, rapeseed oil, fruit extract) and then more chemicals, including some parabens and the aforementioned iron oxide.  Not a bunch of stuff I'm terribly happy reading.

Price-wise, £40 sterling in Selfridges will net you 125g of this (on "straight" currency conversion this is around €50, ignoring any delivery charges, and ignoring the fact that, were something available in Ireland, it would cost far more than €50, given higher VAT, carriage and spurious "for the craic" additional charges that we seem to pay over here), so it works out at around 40c/g, whereas my usual CDLM Cleansing foam (at €95 for 200ml) works out at 47c/ml (for the purpose of this we'll assume g = ml as it is with water, although it's not an exact calculation).  So, much of a muchness, then.  I wouldn't replace my usual morning cleansers with this though.  It's not bad, it's not good, it's not cheap, and it has some distinctly dodgy ingredients thrown in for good measure.  Your call but I personally won't be repurchasing.  Look here if you want more (not much more) info.