My Favourite Heimish Products

Heimish is a Korean skincare brand that’s best known for their cleansing balm, which has a cult following (and well deserved – more on that later). But they have a whole bunch of other great gems too! Here are my picks from their range so far.

The video is sponsored by StyleKorean, but this blog post isn’t. StyleKorean currently have 30-50% off Heimish, including 49% off their full size All Clean Balm, which comes to $9.99 USD – I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this discounted before! (These links aren’t affiliate links, I’m just really excited about this bargain.)

Heimish All Clean Balm

All Clean Balm is Heimish’s most popular product. Lots of people have this as their all-time favourite cleansing balm, and for good reason! I’ve been using this for years – it’s definitely high up on my list of favourites (a future post, no doubt).

Cleansing balms are great for quickly getting makeup and waterproof sunscreen off your face. As I mentioned in my cleansing myths post, you don’t need to use an oil-based cleanser to remove makeup and sunscreen – a lot of the time, regular cleansers will work fine. You can even remove them with microfiber cloths and plain water. But a lot of people (including me) really like using oil-based cleansers for that, because it’s pretty effortless and the oil massage is relaxing.

Related post: How Do Cleansing Balms Work? The Science!

To use a cleansing balm, you scoop out a small amount, then massage it over your dry, dirty face at the start of your cleansing routine. The solid balm will melt on your skin as you rub and turn into an oil. Then you rinse it off with warm water – you’ll see the water go milky as it emulsifies, with the oil droplets dispersing into the water (I personally rub the balm on my face before I get into the shower and rinse it off).

You can follow up with a regular cleanser (I do this if I’m wearing makeup), or if you think your skin is clean enough, you can just leave it (I do this if I didn’t leave the house, and I didn’t wear sunscreen or makeup that day).

The All Clean Balm is a really good all-round, relatively affordable cleansing balm that works well to get rid of waterproof makeup, including mascara, and it rinses off cleanly. Some cleansing balms will leave a bit of oil on your face, which you can treat like a moisturiser, but I’ve found that the oil from some balms can cause my skin to break out unless I follow up with a second cleanser. This doesn’t leave that oil layer, so you don’t have to worry!

Related post: Cleansing Balm reviews: Farmacy, Pixi, Emma Hardie, Ole Henriksen, Caolion

It’s lightly scented, and comes in a tub with a flip top lid, and you can store the spatula on the inside seal (or you can be like me and just shove the spatula into the body of the product, or just dig it out with your fingers).

This product does have polyethylene in it – I’ll talk more about it in a future post because it’s a bit of a complicated topic! Very briefly, there are lots of different types of polyethylene in cosmetics. The type in cleansing balms is probably somewhat biodegradable, and it’s a less solid form than microbeads, so the environmental impacts are quite different.

The amount in cleansing balms is also really small compared to the other microplastics most people produce in the rest of their lives. While I’d like it if brands replaced it with more degradable ingredients, it isn’t a big dealbreaker for me.

Heimish All Clean Green Foam

I tried a bunch of Heimish’s cleansers, and the All Clean Green Foam and All Clean White Clay Foam were my favourites.

All Clean Green Foam Cleanser has a low, skin-friendly pH of 5.5. I really like this because a lot of Asian cleansers tend to have really high pHs. High pH will disrupt your skin a bit more than a lower pH that matches your skin’s pH.

Related post: Are You Washing Your Face Wrong? Busting Cleanser Myths (with video)

This forms a pleasantly bubbly lather, cleanses nicely and it doesn’t leave my skin feeling tight afterwards. It’s fragrance-free, and it smells a bit plasticky (I prefer a mild fragrance in my cleansers to hide that sort of smell).

The All Clean Green Foam cleanser is just very functional, and I think it’s a great option for a lot of people. I personally find it a bit boring, but this would be a great no-frills cleanser that would suit a lot of people.

Heimish All Clean White Clay Foam

All Clean White Clay Foam Cleanser is the cleanser I prefer. It’s a lightly scented foaming cleanser with a mix of kaolin and bentonite clay, so it soaks up oil as you clean. It’s like a lazy way of getting the benefits of a clay mask while you’re cleansing!

This does have a high pH of 8-9, but this is probably the nicest feeling high pH cleanser I’ve ever tried. It’s soap-based, but there are also other non-soap surfactants in it which should reduce skin disruption.

It also contains glycerin, hydrolysed silk and hyaluronic acid which stop your skin from getting too dehydrated while cleansing (I’ve talked about how formulations can make surfactants work gently in my cleansing myths post as well).

I didn’t find this drying or tight, but I did try it during a humid Australian summer, and I have oily skin. I did try some other high pH soap-based cleansers over the last few months though, and they haven’t worked as well as this, so I do think this is actually gentler. I was particularly impressed that it didn’t feel tight despite the clay in it. I’d recommend this for people with oily skin who aren’t sensitive to fragrance.

Watermelon Moisture Soothing Gel Cream

Watermelon Moisture Soothing Gel Cream is a very affordably priced gel cream. One thing I love about Asian skincare is that there are a lot of gel moisturisers available – these are really good for oily, dehydration-prone skin, and hot weather.

Standard moisturisers are usually creams or lotions that are oil-in-water emulsions. These use traditional emulsifiers to keep oil droplets suspended in the product, which can sometimes feel pretty heavy. In a gel cream, the oil droplets are suspended using a network of special polymers, which ends up feeling a lot lighter on your skin.

Gel creams are a lot more popular in Asia than Western countries, so despite the hot weather in Australia, there aren’t a ton of gel cream options available at a lower price point.

The Watermelon Moisture Soothing Gel Cream used to be called the Moisture Surge Gel Cream, and it’s very similar to the Clinique version. It has a very lightweight texture, but is really hydrating, with lots of glycerin.

It leaves a satiny, hydrated-looking finish on my skin, and doesn’t pill. It’s fragrance-free, with a smell that’s barely noticeable for a fragrance-free product.

All Clean Vitamin Blemish Spot Clear Cream

All Clean Vitamin Blemish Spot Clear Cream is a slightly heavier, more moisturising cream. It’s very hydrating, with lots of glycerin, and feels really cooling when you apply it on your skin. I think I could still probably use it as a heavier day cream in winter.

This has a light scent, and has 5% niacinamide and vitamin C (within Kakadu plum extract). It’s actually approved as a functional cosmetic in South Korea for brightening and anti-wrinkle claims, which I think is because it contains 2-5% niacinamide and 0.04% adenosine. It also has clinical testing results on the box, showing a modest decrease in pigment. There are also some before and after photos on the Heimish website. The box also shows irritation testing.

I love that this is a nice moisturiser with a pretty high concentration of niacinamide, so you can kind of spend your serums on other ingredients.

Marine Care Cream Toner

Marine Care Cream Toner is a newer sort of product for me. It’s a toner with a very watery texture that moisturises more like a lotion, thanks to the tiny oil droplets dispersed in it.

It’s very similar to the Laneige Cream Skin which I also love – they both have very similar top line moisturising ingredients (butylene glycol and glycerin as humectants, meadowfoam seed oil).

It’s also approved as a functional cosmetic for brightening and anti-wrinkle in South Korea, which I’m guessing means that the niacinamide in this is at 2-5% and the adenosine is at 0.04%. It also has marine extracts in it, in liposomal form – this means they’re bundled up in little packets which deliver better into skin.

In comparison to the Laneige Cream Skin, this also has a very mild scent while the Laneige is fragrance-free. The Laneige doesn’t have the niacinamide, adenosine or marine extracts. On my skin, the moisturising effect is pretty much the same for both.

Marine Care Eye Cream

Marine Care Eye Cream is a thickly textured eye cream. I usually don’t use eye creams because I wear Ortho-K contact lenses at night, and if product gets into my eyes I have to go through the whole contact lens removal and reinsertion process which is a massive pain. But because of the thicker texture, I figured this probably wouldn’t travel as much, and I was right.

This hydrates my undereye area nicely. It also has the niacinamide and adenosine combo that makes it a functional cosmetic, and like the Marine Care Cream Toner, it also has liposomal marine extracts, along with peptides.

This has a moderate scent, but because you don’t use much product it’s not super noticeable. It comes with a metal de-puffing massage stick, which is quite soothing. I found myself using it during the day in front of the computer when my eyes were getting a bit tired.

I apply the cream by warming it then pressing it in with my fingers, since the thick cream is a bit difficult to spread with the stick, but it’s nice for massaging in afterwards.

I don’t think you necessarily need a separate eye cream unless you have the same problem as me, where your face likes products that your eyes don’t. I’m not really an eye cream connoisseur because I haven’t tried that many, but I did find myself really enjoying this, and reaching for it a lot more than I expected.

Black Tea Mask Pack

Black Tea Mask Pack is a hydrating mask with a really fluffy, puree-ish sorbet sort of texture. It’s moderately strongly scented, with quite a floral scent.

The instructions tell you to apply it for 5-10 minutes before washing it off (I wipe it off with a damp cloth or cotton pad). Some people prefer to leave this on overnight.

I wasn’t expecting a lot from this product since it’s only meant to be on your skin for 5-10 minutes, with the short use time, but I was really impressed by how hydrating it was in such a short amount of time. The hydrating, skin smoothing effect is a lot like a sheet mask, without being a sheet mask.

I don’t really like sheet masks because they’re kind of fussy for me. A lot of people like to relax with a sheet mask on, but I like to do things while I relax (read, crochet) and I don’t like the distraction of the sheet mask sliding down. A layer of this mask feels just like moisturiser. This is a really low effort mask that still delivers a lot of benefits.

So those are my favorite Heimish products so far! Have you tried any of these products before? What did you think?

The video is sponsored by StyleKorean, although the blog post is not. This post may contain automated affiliate links – if you decide to click through and support Lab Muffin financially (at no extra cost to you), thank you! For more information, see Disclosure Policy.