Review: Mir Skincare

When I ran out of cleanser and moisturiser recently, I decided to take the plunge and purchase a Mir skincare sample kit, having heard good things about the range via other blogs and Twitter.  Created as a minimalist, holistic alternative to overly complex products which can irritate sensitive skin, the Mir range doesn't subscribe to the "organic is better" mantra that's become so fashionable in recent years.

I chose sample pack B, which contains sample sizes of the main Mir products:  cleansing gel, gentle exfoliating cleanser, skin refresher (toner), Argan beauty oil, Silk Skin lotion (which doubles up as an eye cream), and moisturising lotion.  The samples range from 5ml to 20ml and the set costs £16.95.  I was slightly disappointed to find that the sample sizes were essentially decants; the jars had sticky paper labels on, which isn't particularly durable (especially for me, with my clumsy elbows which knock things into the bath), and doesn't look all that professional.

The products inside, however, are pretty nice.  The Cleansing Gel in particular is a lovely light, cool product which cleanses effectively and is incredibly gentle.  It left my skin feeling completely clean but not stripped of moisture.  The exfoliating version is slightly scrubby, non irritating and definitely skin smoothing, albeit not the most dramatically effective exfoliator I've ever used.

The moisturising lotions seemed to be the most unique products that Mir makes - and the Silk Skin lotion definitely stands out.  Despite being a thin, light lotion, it packs a pretty impressive moisturising punch, and leaves the skin feeling quenched.  Impressively, it isn't too rich for the eye area, and I found that it made an effective and refreshing eye cream, although it didn't help out at all with puffiness in the mornings or my rather dark shadows.

The brand's recommendation is that most people believe that their skin is more dry than it actually is, and that such a rich moisturiser isn't necessarily needed by everyone, and I found that to be true - my skin, which usually requires a fairly rich cream, felt overmoisturised after a few days of using Silk Skin, although unusually it didn't break out as a result.  Having determined that I didn't need the rich moisture of the Silk Skin cream, I moved on to using the moisturising lotion, which was even lighter in texture.  While still being decently moisturising, the lotion was very thin in texture, which I found hard to get used to.

Overall... I'm not bowled over by Mir.  The products are refreshingly simple and definitely gentle on the skin, but for me, I didn't notice any improvement in the overall condition of my skin.  In fact, as I stopped using my usual shadow-reducing eye cream, I found that my dark shadows increased with this regime.  If you have sensitive skin which reacts badly to many high street (or high end) products, you might well find that this minimal, simple range calms your skin down.  But if your skin is normal(ish) like mine, you might find it underperforms compared to other ranges you've tried before.

If you'd like to try the range yourself, sample packs cost between £14 and £16.75, with the difference being the inclusion of the moisturising lotion in the more expensive pack.  Mir products are available direct from their website, which also contains a wealth of skincare information.