[Review] Mizon All in One Snail Repair Cream

Hello pandas,

How are you doing? It suddenly started to snow again in Germany and it's so cold >____<

Today I bring you the review of a popular product. A product containing snail slime.

What they say:
This original snail mucus takes care of your all kind of skin problems in all in one skin care system on your first skin care step. It repairs tired and aging skin, leaving it refreshed. It also the first protector of your naked skin. (Konglish ftw XD)


Snail secretion filtrate, cetearyl olivate, sorbitan olivate, cetearyl alcohol, stearic acid, glyceryl stearate, hydrogenate vegetable oil, dimethicone, triethanolamine, carbomer, butylene glycol, PEG/ppg-17/6 copolymer, polyacrylate-13, polyisobutene, polysorbate 20, sodium polyacrylate, caprylyl glyocol, ethylhexyglycerin, tropolone, adenosine, sodium hyaluronate, portulaca oleracea extract, betula platyphylla japonica juice, amica Montana flower extract, Artemisia absinthium extract, achillea milefolium extract, gentian lutea root extract, alcohol, camellia sinensis leaf extract, centella asiatica extract, copper tripeptide-1, human oligopeptide-1, propylene glycol, rubus idaeus (raspberry) fruit xtract, beta-glucan, palmitoyl pentapeptide-4, disodium edta

I checked the ingredients on cosdna and two came up red:
Triethanol amine, a ph adjuster, and PEG/PPG-17/6 copolymer, a solvent. A few other ingredients are flagged as potential acne triggers and irritants as well. Since the product contains 92% snail slime, which is a safe ingredients according to cosdna, the other ingredients can't be in the product in a very high percentage.


Now onto the star ingredient in this product: Snail slime.
You may be grossed out by the thought of putting snail slime on your face. But snail slime has actually been a popular ingredient in Korean cosmetics for a while now, I must admit, I was kinda late to jump on the snail train.
Snail slime or snail mucus is said to improve skin healing, treat scars, improve wrinkles, etc.
If you think about it, it's quite logical. Snails can crawl over rocks and rough surface without suffering from major injuries and are able to heal themselves rather quickly.
But is this also proven?
According to the beauty brains, there aren't many studies that can actually prove the positive benefits of snail mucus for the skin in specific products. But they admit that there is a possibility of snail mucus to be "a powerful bioactive material."
I was able to find one study that could prove the improvement of wrinkles and fine lines in the skin of 25 women after using products containing snail mucus for 12 weeks. However they couldn't find any other improvement in the skin of the participants.
Another article mentioned a study that showed improvement in wrinkles, hydration, nourishment, softness, elasticity and pigmentation in a major part of the participants. Sadly I couldn't find the original study (and it's in Spanish so I wouldn't be able to read it anyways...)so I guess we have to believe the author of that article.
There is also a review of a study (again, I couldn't access the original study -.-) that found positive benefits of snail mucus in skin care, since "Skin care products that include the soluble serum also help to orchestrate the correct assembly of the extracellular matrix, and avoid excess or abnormal scars, included acne scarring". (thanks to skinandtonics for providing a link)


All in all, although there don't seem to be studies proving 100% the positive effect of snail mucus on the skin, there is a high possibility of it being an ingredient providing benefits for the skin. Let's just see this in a positive light and believe in the power of the snail XD

The Mizon all in one Snail Repair Cream comes in a dark brown glass container with white print. It is pretty sturdy and heavy. I like the feeling, it gives the product a sophisticated and pricey feeling. Although the glass container might be inconvinient for clumsy people (like me...thank god, I never let it fall down...until now >__<).

When you unscrew the cap you will find a plastic seal. In all honesty it is quite annoying because it always sticks to the container and you have to peel it off. I might throw it away.
The cream came without a spatula which is quite inconvinient. I may need to find some spatulas for all the products that came without one...

The cream itself is a white and has a rather slimey consistency. There is no noticable smell, which is quite nice.

I tried to capture the texture in this picture. It is runnier than a normal cream. The texture seems to reflect the main ingredient, snail slime.

It spreads easily. At first it feels a little bit sticky on the skin but it absorbs very quickly.

I tried to be a good beauty blogger and take before and after pictures but when I finally remembered to take the before pictures I was already using the cream for about 2 weeks -.-  These pictures were taken roughly 2 weeks apart.

01-12-2015 & 01-22-2015

01-12-2015 & 01-22-2015

As you can see, you can not really see much. While my acne and pigmentation seems to fade a little bit faster than before but it didn't do any miracles to my skin.
On top of that the moisturizing properties of this product are not very good. If you look at official pictures by Mizon you will see that the cream actually comes before the Ampoule and Gel in a routine. I tried using it in combination with the gel but that still wasn't enough hydration for my skin, even though I have combination/normal skin. I know use it with the moisturizing milk from Hada Labo and that seems to be enough. I can imagine that people with dry skin will have a problem with this skin.
It's sad because I expected it to be an allround product (judging from the "all in one" in the product name) and the finish of my skincare routine.
Rather than a cream I would say this more of an essence or treatment and you definitely need a moisturizer (or two) with using this product.

For some this is a holy grail product. Me, on the other hand, I'm quite undecided about this product. While it isn't a miracle product and doesn't do much for hydration it also didn't do anything bad to my skin. It also seemed to help a little with acne scarring. I still have samples of the Snail line by Missha, which seem to be rather popular as well, and once my skin gets used to the 2 newest additions to my skin care (Cosrx BHA A-Sol and Innisfree Green Tea Seed Serum) I want to try them and see if they are maybe the miracle product I was hoping for ^^
I'm really not sure if I will buy it again. But I think it was a good decision for a first time snail product since it didn't do anything bad to my skin.

Pros: helped with fading acne scars/hyperpigmentation, absorbs quickly, no smell

Cons: no spatula, no outstanding effects on my skin, not enough hydration

Overall: 2.5/5