Glow Recipe's New Watermelon Body Lotion Is A Hydrating Delight For My Dry Skin

It’s official. Glow Recipe has cracked the code to the perfect body lotion. I’ve slathered a lot of products on my scaly dinosaur legs (thanks, Dad), and keeping my skin satiny-soft has always required a rich but inconvenient cocktail of oils, balms, and creams that leave me soft but uncomfortably greasy and sticky beneath my sweats and pajama pants. Frankly, nobody has time for that anymore, and Glow Recipe co-founders Christine Chang and Sarah Lee couldn’t agree more. So, they decided to do something about it.

"We wanted it to be a sensorial body hug, but we also wanted a PJ-proof lotion," Chang told me, as I gushed over the phone about how incredibly comfortable the product had been to use.

But this isn’t just about making a new product for consumers. "We’ve all experienced the pandemic together," Chang said. "And throughout the day during the lockdown, there’s only so much Netflix you can watch. We just wanted to be positive and still reflect on how we’re feeling, so we decided to focus on a continuing self-care dialogue in the bathroom, and we’ve always prioritized the sensorial experience as a key part of the skincare ritual to encourage consistency."

This lotion has done more than just encourage consistency for me. Almost every single night for the last few weeks, I’ve been absolutely slathering myself in this wonderful baby-pink miracle cream, marveling over the cool burst of watermelon and how it dries down nearly instantly and singing its praises to anyone with a pulse. There’s fragrant and vitamin-rich watermelon and watermelon seed butter (a special blend of mango seed butter and watermelon seed oil). Multiple weights of plumping hyaluronic acid quench parched skin, holding up to 1000 times its weight in water to revitalize the skin. There’s a gentle AHA derived from hibiscus, which helps to smooth and exfoliate the skin (the little bumps on my knees have all but vanished). It’s also vegan, cruelty-free, paraben-free, mineral oil-free, and certified Sephora clean. What more could you ask for?

About My Skin: Dry AF

I have found cacti more moist and hydrated than I am. I have a huge problem with dryness, especially in the dead of winter. My usual body routine is to use a gentle sulfate-free soap, quickly slather on a layer of avocado oil on my wet skin, and then layer with lotion and another layer of avocado oil to lock everything in. And even then, I’m not as buttery and soft as I would like.

The Feel: Buttery and silky

The initial texture of the product sits somewhere between a cream and a lotion. The cream ruffles up like a ribbon upon the first pump, and it initially feels quite buttery. As it gets worked into the skin, the cream softens and melts into a more lotion-y texture. But what’s truly incredible about the lotion is how quickly it sinks in and moisturizes without any fuss. It takes maybe 15 seconds to rub a pump into my calves and arms (that’s one pump spread over four limbs) before it dries down with a satiny-matte finish. When I jumped into my PJs right after, I gasped with delight. My fleece pajama pants brushed up against my freshly-moisturized legs but didn’t cling uncomfortably; it was like I really wasn’t wearing anything at all. I curiously pulled my pant-leg up and ran ginger fingers down my leg—my skin felt slightly buttery-tacky from the lotion but didn’t feel overly greasy.

"Our skin reacts to our environment and mental state. How do you listen to your skin and give it what it needs?" Lee says. "It’s also our first body product, so we wanted it to be as efficacious as a facial skin care product. And if you think about the body market, there’s so much attention paid to sensoriality. It smells nice, but it doesn’t always give a lot of moisture. And having those dual benefits was really hard to achieve."

The Scent: Pure watermelon delight

The moment I started working it into my skin, the scent immediately transported me back to my childhood, in the midst of a scorching hot July afternoon, when my mother would split a watermelon open with and hand me a metal spoon to scoop the fruit out with. So, pretty much like the rest of the Glow Recipe watermelon line. When I asked Christine and Sarah about their choice of watermelon, their answers were similarly sentimental.

"Watermelon has been a precious childhood memory for us; our hero product is the Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask, and we wanted to try to re-create that experience with the lotion," they explain. Their watermelon line was inspired by the Korean tradition of rubbing watermelon rinds onto the skin to soothe down heat rash and irritation. "And our Glow Gang (Glow Recipe’s consumer community) have wanted to see a body product from us. We wanted to continue the story of taking care of your skin and body, and how we can extend the watermelon glow mask onto your body."

The Results: Soft, soothed skin

I used a single pump on both my calves and my arms (keep in mind, I’m quite short) and applied generously. I was anxious to forgo my usual oils and butters, but I wanted to test out the effects of the product alone. My skin was left feeling plumped with moisture, but without feeling a heavy or unpleasant residue. It dried down very quickly and left my legs and arms just slightly buttery and tacky. By morning, the lotion had completely sunken in and left me supple and silky.

In particular, I was impressed with how well it worked on body acne. I tend to deal with some bacne, mostly because I rewear hoodies and lightly worn tees. There was a particularly inflamed and persistent pimple between my shoulders, and after applying a little bit of the watermelon cream to it for 3-4 days, the inflammation had calmed down significantly and the pimple had flattened out.

"It was just frustrating to have to wait for a product to sink in, especially if you have bacne," Sarah explained over the phone. Not with this product. The lotion absorbed after a few minutes, and the hibiscus AHA helped push that pimple down. I was a little leery of buying into the exfoliation claims, but I’m always thrilled to be proven wrong.

The Value: Worth the money

Considering the product's efficacy and how wonderful the user experience is, $28 is pretty fair for 8.11 fluid ounces of watermelon moisturizing magic. Truly, this product has outperformed every single body product I have spent money on and delivers on its dual-function promises and user experience. A single pump is more than enough to cover my dry areas, and this product is sure to last me at least until the end of the year. I can’t wait to see how Glow Recipe levels up my routine next.