Review: Jolen Creme Bleach

Hola chickadees, another beauty product up for review today. Jolen Creme Bleach* is one of those classics, though I have to admit to never trying it before. It's a gentle bleaching product that can be used on the face to lighten unwanted hair. A great alternative to more permanent solutions such as lasering or waxing and it can also be used to lighten eyebrows.

It comes boxed, with a 125ml jar of creme and 30g accelerator powder in a tub. There's instructions inside and a plastic spatula and mixing mat. It's easy to follow; mix 1/4 teaspoon of powder to 1/2 teaspoon creme or basically 1:2 (powder:creme). Though it's simple, I do find it a little bit of a fiddle mixing the two together on the card provided. It's easy enough to measure out the correct quantities, it's just the mixing part I'm not keen on. That could be due to me doing it in the bathroom with nowhere to sit and balancing all the products in different places!
Once you have your mixture, it's a mousse type texture. You apply it using the spatula and leave on for 10 minutes (cue rubbish phone photos of the process below). There's absolutely no stinging on the skin as it lightens the hair and I have no redness or irritation afterwards, which is brilliant. I did find where I was more heavy handed, the creme began to slip and slide off during the 10 minutes, so I had to adjust that. Obviously it's something you'd have to be very careful with if you were bleaching your brows (you don't want this slipping into your eyes), though I suspect the mass of hairs in your brow would hold the creme better.
I have lightened my brows before (not using this), when I had bleached blonde hair. My brows though thin, are very dark and dense, so they looked silly with the lighter hair colour. I chose to keep the mixture on very briefly to just lighten them a few shades. However if it's that editorial 'no brow' look you want, then you'd leave it for the full 10 minutes. You would just have to play around to get the look you want. As for my face, well this side-by-side before and after looks pretty impressive. I wouldn't usually let the hair get so dark and obvious beforehand, but I really wanted to put this product to the test. As you can see, it worked brilliantly.
I felt it looked pretty natural, turning the hairs to the colour of the really tiny baby hairs around my bottom lip or elsewhere, rather than glowing yellow or something! The shorter hairs practically disappear into the skin, the longer ones at the corner of my mouth are more visible, but a million times better than they looked before. I did see the odd...well I can't tell if it is a missed hair or the root of the hair that didn't quite turn when the rest did. Very sporadic though. I find it doesn't last too long, maybe 5 days, but it varies massively depending on the light you're standing in. I was ready to apply more today because it looked so terrible, yet in another room, there was nothing to see. I suppose if you've been bleaching your brows, it's good it doesn't last too long, if it's for a special shoot or party and you want your real brows back quickly.
So overall I think the product works well, I do wish there was an easier way of mixing the two ingredients together, though the steps are simple enough to follow, the powder especially feels fiddly. The fact this is so gentle and non-irritating on the skin, would have me buy it again. I wish the results were a little longer lasting, but it does what it says. I like that it's an alternative (and completely painless) to removing the hair entirely, especially if you're using it around the hairline, where at some point you may no longer wish to hide that hair or of course if you're using it to lighten your brows temporarily.  I wish I didn't have to use it all to be honest, but nobody tells you these things will become part of your regular routine when you're younger!  If you're under 30, you have no idea that your chin will start producing very dark and thick random hairs, which when plucked, magically reappear to embarrass you the following day (honestly I swear this happened the moment I turned 30).  It's tough being a woman, right?  Have you used this before? How do you remove unwanted hair? You can buy Jolen here or here.  

Item provided for review, all opinions my own. Post contains affiliate links.