white tea & plum roses

Naruko is a Taiwanese skincare brand that promotes cruelty-free, paraben-free, and eco-friendly products. Most of their products are floral based with flowers like roses, magnolia, and narcissus, etc. The products are all mostly reasonably priced and nicely packaged.

In Toronto, Naruko is a brand that you can actually find in some T&T Supermarkets. Most locations carry more than half their product lines and are at middle ground prices ($15~30 before tax) when not on sale. From seeing the brand in the supermarkets, I decided to look into them online for more information. At that time I was relatively interested in their Rose line because I wanted to try more rose-based products.

Honestly, I don't remember why I ended up choosing the Narcissus over the Rose night gelly when I was intentionally looking to try a rose product. It might've been that the Narcissus product had more reviews and more info on Sasa so I felt more justified and safe to purchase it. For some reason, when I search up reviews for this product online, some of the reviewers used this one as if it were a (night) cream or cream in general. I've had this product for four months now, and I can definitely say it shouldn't be used as a normal cream but works lovely as a sleeping mask. I'm pretty sure it's main function is to be used as a sleeping mask.


I bought this product on Sasa.com when they had a Naruko promotion along with the respective Night Eye Gelly. I like the Night Repairing Gelly much more than the Eye Gelly, as I found the latter not very effective. The packaging is a lovely lavender colour and is more than meets the eyes. When I first took off the plastic wrap from the products, I was surprised to have the box kind of dismantle by itself. It didn't fall apart or anything but it uncurled? Um. Either way, when you open the box, there are instructions of using the box to create something out of it. The Eye Gelly box has instructions for a small basket organizer and the Night Gelly has instructions for a business card holder. The pattern on the inside of the box are very beautiful and depicts the main flower of the product.

The jar is made of purple glass, it's heavy but looks very minimalistic. I really like jars that are perfectly cylinder compared to bottleneck, teardrop, or other curved shapes, so I really liked the design of their packaging. The only downside to this packaging is that the actual product jar and lid are 1:1 in size and is also somewhat on the chunkier side as lids go.


When newly opened, it comes with a plastic tab covering the jar opening with a spatula. Depending on how rough the travel is for the item to get to you, the tab has a chance of actually falling into the jar making it kind of useless. I actually did have the tab fall into the jar and it was really messy when I opened the product. There's a part that sticks out on the tab that holds the spatula in place and the spatula itself has certain crevices too that made salvaging the loose product messy and difficult. I haven't really heard anyone else having had this problem but I guess it's worth noting just in case.

The Gelly itself is translucent, almost clear, gel type cream. The smell somewhat reminds me of medicine of some sort. If I have to guess, then I would say it's a herbal-floral smell, more on the musky side though.


The cream applies super smoothly and a little goes a long way because of this. The directions indicates that two pea-sized amounts would be adequate for the face, I tend to use a little bit more because I have a high and wide forehead. Less is better with this product because I found that if you apply a little too much, it doesn't absorb well (as with all other products) and leaves a stickier texture on your face. It already has a slightly sticky finish when you apply it in the evening, it takes a a short while to completely absorb depending on your regular skincare routine prior to applying it.

After using this product nightly for a couple of weeks, I found my skin tone a lot more consistent and held a slightly healthier brightness. It also reduced breakouts and calmed my skin well. I got this product in the fall and it worked alright, it was slightly too light textured when we transitioned into winter though. If you have dry skin, it might not be moisturizing enough and you might feel like it disappears into your skin. For me, it was much too light in the cold weather and if I slept in more than usual, my skin would start feeling dry in the morning.

While it indicates that it is for "all skin types, especially for prematurely aging skin", I find that it doesn't do much for wrinkles or fine lines. I suppose it's more for prevention than reduction.

Ingredients list.

A lot of people seem to compare this to the Laneige Water Sleeping Pack EX as they are both gel type sleeping packs. I find the Water EX slightly more moisturizing than the Night Gelly, just slightly. The Water EX also absorbs a lot better than the Night Gelly and has a nice cooling effect. The scent of the Water EX lingers longer than the Night Gelly, but is supposed to aid in sleeping well. Honestly, I like both of them but prefer one over the other depending on the season. The Water EX tends to work better in summer due to the cooling sensation and the constant air conditioning requires more moisture. In spring and autumn, the Night Gelly works well because of the calming effect and light texture.

Though neither of them are especially impressive, they both do nicely to improve your skin condition during the appropriate seasons.

Pros:
- Calms skin while hydrating and brightening
- Free of parabens, artificial fragrance, colouring
- No Animal-Testing
- Eco-friendly minimalist packaging

Cons:
- Too light textured for dry skin/weather
- Packaging is defective sometimes
- Strong scent

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This post has been in the drafts for a month now and I've been writing and rewriting it so I apologize if some things don't sound very consistent. It tends to happen when I write things over a long period of time. I've started working since my last post so I haven't really had the time or energy to write lately. With Epik High coming to Toronto this summer, I'm taking more shifts so I can get tickets to see them.

I didn't have the time to put together a Favourites post for March so I'll hopefully be doing a collective one for March and April. I also ordered almost the entire Dreaming Swan collection from Etude House so I'll hopefully find time to do a post on those when they come in. I wanted to get the Spring Fantastic Color Eyes palettes but they never went on sale on the global site so that didn't happen. It's too bad because I was literally stalking the item's page everyday and it never became available. I should've just bought them at another site I guess.

There are still drafts in my queue so I'll get to writing those as soon as possible, to be honest I'm just too lazy to edit the photos. May spring be kind to you and have a lovely day!