Soap and Glory Fab Pore Hot Cloth Cleanser Review

Regulars'll know I've been trying to get my hands on this for a few months and every time I entered a Boots, it scuttled off the shelf and hid itself from me. Well, it was either that or it kept selling out.

Probably the latter.

Anyway, I finally tracked a tube down and as Boots was doing an offer, it was only €10.79, down from a regular price of €13.49 for 100mls. While I get a lot of stuff sent to me for review as part of my job as a beauty writer, I'm still a total cosmetics junkie like the rest of you and will hunt high and low for stuff I've read great things about.

But I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if I'd like it. I have been lucky enough to try and use some amazing products in my time, the whole way across the spectrum of price and brand. So while there have been so many rave reviews about this, I've got quite a bit of experience with balm cleansers and wondered if it'd stack up.

Recently I've put my trusty Eve Lom away to give myself a chance to see what else is out there. And this one is a very good substitute, as it happens. Lets talk a little about price before I get into its abilities though: at €13.49 full price for 100mls, I don't think I'd get longer than about three weeks out of this with daily use, based on the instructions to use 'a generous splodge'. I use maybe a 10c coin-sized piece of Eve Lom to effectively remove a face full of product and the grime of the day, and I'd generally get up to three months from a €70 pot. At full price, Fab Pore Hot Cloth Cleanser would cost €53.96 for the same period.

That probably won't change anyone's mind but hey, I like working these sort of things out.

So, how is this in use? Firstly, you get a decently-sized pink-edged muslin with it which I was delighted about as all mine are grey and sad looking now, and the packaging and tube are predictably great. In use, this is nothing like Eve Lom really. There's none of that slight grittiness or dense texture and would be more like Liz Earle's Cleanse and Polish.  A thick, smooth white cream, Fab Pore Hot Cloth Cleanser contains sweet almond oil, synthetic beeswax, orange and lavender oils and panthenol, a conditioning ingredient.

You use like any other balm cleanser - massage into the face and then remove with the hot cloth. It's a very effective makeup remover and can handle mascara well. They recommend you don't rub right into your eyes  and if you do, follow with meticulous rinsing, but I've noticed nothing untoward about using it to remove eye makeup, barring a slight tingling. It smells nice as well, sort of menthol-y, which I like.

In use on my face now for over  a week, I'm not noticing a build up of Face Cheese in my chin, where I normally would if a cleanser wasn't doing the job, it's leaving skin clean and fresh but not tight-feeling and is all-in-all, a very good buy for a balm junkie who may be on a budget trip. It's also a good one for holidays and travel as the tube makes it very portable.

Thumbs up, Soap and Glory.