Aritaum Bamboo Charcoal Peeling Gel Review

Aritaum is Korean brand mostly known for make up products. However in May this year they released skincare line Bamboo Charcoal. Products caught my eye and as soon as I started to run out of my Lemon D-Toc Peeling Gel I ordered Aritaum's one.

Product description: Aritaum Bamboo Charcoal Peeling Gel removes old, dead skin cells with bamboo, charcoal & cellulose. Keeps clear skin tone with excellent skin turn over effect. Controls dead skin cells and has moisturising ingredients.
How to use: 1. Wash and dry your face 2. Apply proper amount & spread it to your face all over evenly except the eye & lip area 3. Massage until peels of dead skin cells come out from your skin, then rinse it off with warm water. 4 . It's good to use this product once or twice a week but the number can be adjusted depending on your skin condition. 

Why bamboo and charcoal?

• Bamboo contains silica, that improves skin health by helping the body absorb essential minerals such as calcium, potassium, and magnesium. Bamboo extract also offers anti-irritant properties, soothing the skin when applied directly through lotions or creams. It also contains anti-oxidants, helping to minimise wrinkles and naturally boost youthful radiance.
• Charcoal has natural detoxifying properties, it draws bacteria, poisons, chemicals, dirt and other micro-particles to the surface of skin. Charcoal powder can adsorb thousands of times its own mass in harmful substances! It's widely used in skin cleansing and purifying products, mostly face masks.

Unpacked bottle

Product comes in 150ml plastic bottle with pump applicator. I must admit that pump is one of the main reasons I've bought this particular peeling gel - so far I was using gels in tubes, when pump is so much more handy! The bottle was wrapped in foil and the pump was protected with blocking clip.

Serial number and date of manufacture

The gel it self is grayish cream, with visible cellulose bits. There are two types of peeling gels - smooth ones like Ginevra Marvel Gel and cellulose ones, like this one. I find that the second type is more popular, from 4 peeling gels I tested so far, 3 of them had visible cellulose bits in it.
Product has lovely, fresh and floral scent.

As you can see on the pictures, after massaging into dry skin cellulose connect with impurities and dead skin cells and rubs of the skin. After washing it off with lukewarm water, skin is smoother and appears brighter. This peeling gel is effective, yet very gentle - I use it every day and it works well for me. Because of my acne I'm not allowed classic scrubs, as they irritate my skin quite badly. Once I had an every day face wash with scrubbing particles and after two weeks I had to stop using it. The cellulose is much more gentle, suitable for use even on sensitive skin.
The downside of it's mildness it that it may not be enough if you have very rough and dry skin. If you need a lot of exfoliation you may try using this every day and support it with scrub once or twice a week.

Now, the problem with cellulose containing peels is that there is always a doubt if they actually cleanse skin on just roll on their own. To check it I always perform my "plate test":

1. I apply peeling gel on clean plate

2. I rub the gel for a minute or so in a clean glove, so it doesn't react with skin on my fingers

3. I check the results:

As you can see the gel didn't roll either on the plate or on the glove, what makes me think that it does really react with impurities in the skin.

Price: around £8 on e-Bay.

Pros:
+ handy pump applicator
+ a little goes a long way - I use it every day from two months and I hardly used 1/3 of the bottle
+ mild, even used every day doesn't irritate my skin
+ skins is brighter after use, pores appear smaller
+ nice scent

Cons:
- opaque bottle, we need to take the pump out to figure out how much we got left in it
- if you are looking for heavy duty exfoliation this may be to gentle, even used everyday


 Summary: I really enjoy using this product I would strongly recommend it :) however I'm not sure if I would buy it again, because I like testing new stuff so much ;)

The whole Aritaum Bamboo Charcoal line contains:

From left: mud pack, peeling gel, bubble gommage and cleansing foam. I think that gommage is especially worth attention, as a type of peeling gel suitable even for very sensitive skin with visible capillaries, as it doesn't contain any type of grains (even cellulose), but enzymes that renew skin.