Avène Cleanance Hydra Soothing Cream Review

I bought this soothing cream a few weeks ago with my cleanance gel and I did a little review of the cleanance range.

What it says: Restores skin comfort. For skin left dry and irritated by medical treatments.

Aimed at: Oily, blemish prone skin as is the rest of the cleanance range.

Quantity: 40ml

Now I’ve got the important specs aside, I want to get into the details. This soothing cream comes in a 40ml tube and is enriched with avene thermal spring water which is also in every product of the cleanance range.When I first got this I opened it and squeezed a little bit out the first evening after washing my face and a clear serum like liquid came out of the tube. It got me really confused because the box read “cream” so that’s what I was expecting on contrary to a gel/serum. I immediately thought there might be some mistake.

I squeezed it a good 3-4 times and a clear serum is all that came out of the tube. I put it on my face just to test it and it did feel very rich and moisturizing and didn’t smell bad so I was confused what went wrong with it. Instantly I started panicking wondering if I had got a really bad batch and I’ve ruined my skin by putting on cream that has gone bad. It was a natural reaction to put it on because I had squeezed a fair bit of it and it didn’t feel right to waste it because this stuff is expensive for only 40ml. 

Only people with blemish prone/sensitive skin can understand the horror of that moment. I was frantically searching on the internet and read so many reviews and watched youtube videos but not one of them had mentioned this problem. I was honestly scared for my skin. I also went onto the Avene website where their model was doing a demo of the range and I saw that when she squeezed it out onto her fingers, it came out as a thick, white cream something that I would generally expect from a squeezy tube like that.

After a good half an hour of searching on the internet and not getting one answer. I was dumbfounded. I can’t possibly be the only person to have had this problem now..can I? The answer to my problems came on the 30-40 page of google results. I had stumbled onto a couple of drugstore websites that sell this product and real people had left reviews on it.  I saw three people mention having the same problem with their cream. Some people also claimed they had the same experience with Avene’s Cicalfate Restorative Cream as well. 

They said that they tried to use up the product by giving the tube a good shake as this often happens when the product goes through shipping and is exposed to too much heat, the thermal water separates out from the cream. There’s a fair chance of this happening to anyone unless you buy it in France. I tried shaking it up and finally some cream bits started coming out but it was still a bit cloudy and floating about in the thermal water..not thick and creamy like it’s supposed to be. This time I took the water and cream, mixed it around on my palm and then applied it to my face.

Now onto the actual product, I have combination/oily skin with dry patches on my cheeks and other parts of my face especially during the colder/drier months. However, when I’ve used too rich creams it always breaks me out which is why I have only used really matte creams for almost all of my life and that doesn’t really help with my dry patches at all. That’s why I decided to try this one out. Although I don’t take any acne medication but I do topically apply some lotions on the occasional spot/ spots that I get around that time of the month and it tends to dry out my skin a fair bit.

I applied it at night time after cleansing my face and as soon as the serum version went onto my skin, I found it to be very rich, moisturizing and actually felt like my dry cheeks were drinking it up immediately but it looked pretty greasy everywhere else. When I actually could get the water + cream to mix and used it, it was an amazing experience. The cream had this instant cooling feeling for a second or two and it can only be described as the feeling I get when I spray my face mist ( by Vichy) and that sudden cooling sensation is what I felt. It was something I had never experienced from a cream product before so I loved it. 

I woke up the next day with my skin looking really soft, supple and glowy. My Tzone still looked greasy though and was greasy to touch so I was convinced I couldn't use this during the day time which is why I bought it in the first place. I have been using this as my daily night cream ever since and it works so well for oily skin in the sense that it doesn’t clog my pores, moisturizes oily skin without breaking me out and I noticed that the dry patches on my face have considerably improved ever since I’ve started using this.

All in all, this product is definitely a hit or miss product for me. I didn’t get the proper texture that it originally comes in and wasted so much of it already trying to get the cream out. I had to mix it up every day which is a bit weird for me. It definitely doesn’t keep oily skin oil free so this is a strict no during the day or under makeup because I feel like it will slip right off.  However, the formula and the feeling of this product is amazing, so luxurious and actually moisturized by skin which other rich creams cannot do without breaking me out. I will probably stick to the Cleanance Mattyfying emulsion for day time and this product for night time only.

Update: It’s been 3 weeks of using this product and FINALLY the cream has started to come out as it should. The consistency is like a thick cream and now when I apply it it doesn’t make my face as greasy anymore. The weather has gotten considerably drier too and my skin is just soaking it all up and loving it. I think I can definitely make this my winter day cream.