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I really don’t like using soap on my face. Ever since I discovered face wash at the age of 12, I haven’t really looked back apart from some brief and unhappy encounters with bars of soap that promised to cleanse but only made my face feel icky.

Enter Aura Crafts’ Strawberry Cleansing Bar. You can call it a cleansing bar, but what it really is is a bar of soap. One that smells great and doesn’t make me want to chuck it out the window.

When Aura Crafts sent us a package of their products, I wasn’t very enthused at the sight of the soap. I don’t like the feel of soap on my face — it leaves a rubbery feeling that makes me want to go in with a liquid face wash. I’ve also never really felt like soap cleans my face.

But I was determined to be a proper reviewer and actually review the soap, despite my aversion to it. And what I found was interesting. It still gave my skin that slightly rubbery texture, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. In fact, I’ve actually started using the soap in place of my CeraVe gentle cleanser — to give my skin a break, I alternate between a stronger cleanser and a gentle one. Aura Crafts’ Cleansing Bar was good enough to use to take off my sunscreen and the general dirt that builds up throughout the day and leave my skin feeling clean.

The bar may seem low, but for me it was the floor when it came to soaps.

It’s priced at Rs630 but is currently on sale for Rs567. But even at the original price, I think it’s an absolute steal. I’ve been using the bar for about three weeks now and I haven’t really made much of a dent in it. Granted, I don’t use a lot.

One thing that might be off-putting to people is the scent. Personally, I quite like the strawberry scent but my entire bathroom now smells like it 24/7. I can definitely see someone getting tired of this everlasting smell pretty soon.

The brand says their soap is 100 per cent natural and handcrafted and recommends this one in particular for combination skin. “This Strawberry Soap Bar is high in antioxidant content and works like a natural brightener. This soap lightens blemishes and scars, fights acne and regenerates skin cells,” it claims on its website. I don’t know about fighting acne and lightening blemishes, but it does have a brightening effect, which I quite liked.

The ingredients listen on the website include a lot of oils, beeswax, lye and aqua. I don’t know how the composition of soap works, to be very honest, but one thing I’d love would be for them to use a little less lye, just to remove that slightly rubbery feeling. But that’s me nitpicking.

Four and a half stars rounded down to four because it’s soap after all.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

This article is part of an ongoing series on supporting local products. All the products are independently evaluated and reviewed by a member of the Images team and reflect their personal opinions. If you’re a local business and would like to be featured, reach out to us at imagesdawndotcom@gmail.com.