Cor Silver Soap Review: Is This £115 Bar Worth It?

I was sent a sample size of Cor Silver soap to try a while back (thanks Cor!). I used it for a while and had mixed emotions about it. I’ll tell you why in a mo. Cor Skincare is based on their Silver technologies and a fuss free, scientific approach to skincare. The founder Jennifer McKinley has suffered with sun damage and cystic acne. She wanted to create skincare that is effective and easy to work with. I like her thinking. Cor has won Best Cleanser in the Beauty Shortlist awards two years running.

Claims- 

It’s suitable for aging skin, acne, eczema and sensitivity.

The Cor Silver Soap comes in 3 sizes- the 10g Trial size which is £16, 30g Travel size is £39 and 120g Signature size is £135. Trial size will last you around a month, this will give you a good inclination as to whether you’re going to get on with it. The travel size will last about 3 months and £135 signature size will last up to 9 months when used according to instructions, no leaving it dissolving at the side of the sink. Imagine if your boyfriend used it in the bath, you’d be livid!

The advantages of having a cleanser in bar form are convenience and the lack of water. Absence of water means that there is no need to add chemical preservatives. Adversely, most soaps are usually made with a saponification process making it alkaline, so it’s usually in advisable to use them on the face. An alkaline pH is bad for the skin, more on that below. Cor soap is not made with a saponification process.

Cor Silver Soap- The Active Ingredients

Contains-

• Silver has long been known as one of the best natural anti-bacterial agents. Silver blocks the bacteria’s ability to transfer oxygen through the cell wall.
• Silica is a mineral found in sand and can be useful in skincare because it increases absorption of other ingredients. The sponge-like nature of Silica draws the Silver and Cor’s active natural ingredients into its particles to richly nourish the skin.
• Marine Collagen– Collagen is not absorbed through the skin, it’s too big. It may, very possibly have some wound healing effects.
• Sericin– aka silk protein. Sericin binds moisture and, unsurprisingly, it gives Skincare a silky feel. It may have antioxidant effects.
• Chitosan– A polysaccharide derived from shellfish shells (try saying that after a drink or two) it has fat binding properties.
• Hyaluronic Acid– An excellent moisture binder which helps the skin to heal.
• Jojoba– a great cleansing and moisturising oil suitable for acneic skin.
• Aloe Vera– well known skin soother derived from a succulent plant.
• Avocado– moisturising and packed with vitamins.

How To Use Cor Silver Soap

Cor claims that the silver soap can be used as an all in one makeup remover, cleanser, toner and moisturiser. There’s no need to use anything apart from the soap when cleansing.

• Create a foam by massaging between your hands for 15 seconds
• Massage over face. You can also use elsewhere- some reviewers have found Cor soap effective for back and chest acne.
• Leave the soap on the face for 2 minutes as a mask.
• Do not use more than twice a day or for any longer than 2 minutes, it may cause dryness.
• Rinse of with warm water or use a cloth or muslin for extra exfoliation
• Try and keep the bar as dry as possible, it will last longer. I have been putting mine straight back in the cardboard box it came in. The bigger bars come in plastic cases for storage.

How I Got on with Cor Silver Soap

I had the trial size bar to try and used it for about 3 weeks to see how my skin responded. It’s a disc of translucent soap about the size of a medal. It looks a bit like Pears Translucent soap. Cor soap has a lovely light clean fragrance that I really like. It easily creates a nice foam.

I found the soap stung quite a bit when I was washing. Leaving it on for 2 minutes really didn’t feel like the right thing to do. It feels a bit wrong to use bar soap on your face, but Cor gives assurances that it is safe. Immediately after rinsing and drying my skin feels really tight and dried out.

After a few days my skin felt great, really clear and bright. But as the days wore on things were not right. The skin around my eyes became crinkly, my lower face was flaky and spots started erupting all over the shop. Cutting down the amount of time I left on for didn’t seem to help. I stopped using the Cor Silver Soap and everything went back to its normal state (oily T zone, normal elsewhere, a couple of chin spots FYI).

I wrote to Cor to ask them if this was right. They suggested shortening the time the foam is left on the skin and adding a moisturiser, it could just be my skin finding its own moisture balance. It might be that I just need to wean myself through an adjustment period.  I also had concerns about the pH of Cor Silver Soap.

A bit about pH and skin– Human skin has two protective layers called the Acid Mantle and the Lipid Barrier. The acid mantle creates a layer that wards off acne producing bacteria and protects the skin from infection and the lipid barrier prevents water loss. Anything that disrupts this will cause unholy chaos to the front of your head. You have to be very careful with the pH of skin products as an alkaline pH will disrupt the protective Acid layer and make an acne outbreak much more likely.

Bar soap normally has a a pH of around 9, making it pretty alkaline and not face friendly. Being the odd bod that I am, I have some pH paper in my bathroom to double check my Skincare. I found the pH of Cor Silver Soap to be around 8 (Cor advised me that the pH is 7.2), so better than most soap bars-

I can’t be certain, but it could be that the pH of Cor soap is what screwed my face up. To be honest I didn’t try and push through to see if the dryness went away, I couldn’t face it.

The trial size of Cor Silver Soap went a long way. There was still loads left after three weeks. If you’re careful I reckon it could last a couple of months. So even though £115 for a bar of soap is pretty ludicrous, if it works for you and replaces other cleansing steps, it’s not that insane a price for a possible years worth of use.

My skin didn’t like Cor Silver Soap, I looked so bad after using it for a few weeks that I had to stop using it. Cor Silver Soap has some great reviews online and has won awards so I’m sure that it can work well. You might not get the same reaction as I did, I would definitely get the trial size of the bar first to do a skin test.

I like the science behind Cor Silver Soap but for me it’s a no.