A light skinned Black woman stands in a room full of windows. They are wearing a white headscarf and a white dress. They have a lip piercing, a nose piercing, and they are wearing black lipstick.
Note: This review contains affiliate links for products I use and love. If you make a purchase through these links, the earned commission goes into the just femme & dandy cash fund to pay future contributors.
Look, I’m not good at skincare. I’m broke, I’m lazy, I have ADHD that’s not exactly under control. But I turned 30 last year, and now I have to, like, make an effort in order to remain devastatingly beautiful.
Enter Urban Hydration, a Black family-owned clean skincare company I became aware of during that phase in 2020 where corporations pretended they cared about Black lives long enough to highlight all the melanated business owners they work with.
Founded by Vontoba and Psyche Terry as a line of natural sugar scrubs, Urban Foundation has expanded to include body lotion, spot treatment, micellar water, and more, all with super gentle natural ingredients. Not sold yet? For every purchase, the Terrys donate a gallon of clean water in partnership with WATERisLIFE.
Urban Hydration offers products for the face, hair, and body, but for the purposes of this review I’ll be reviewing the following products:
Olive & Rosehip Cleansing Oil ($14.99)
Olive & Tea Tree Cleansing Oil ($14.99)
Kiwi & Pomegranate Micellar Water ($9.99)
Pink Clay Whipped Mud Facial Mask ($9.99)
Aloe Vera Leaf Spot Cream ($9.99)
Aloe Vera Leaf Daily Gel Moisturizer ($9.99)
Micellar Water
Makeup wearers, y’all already know about micellar water. On a particularly lazy day, I go with my good ol’ Neutrogena makeup remover wipes, but in a genuine effort to establish a skincare routine, I usually wet a cotton pad with micellar water to cut through the products on my face. Although I wouldn’t say UH’s offering works any better than my previous brand, this particular type has no fragrance and cuts through makeup like a dream. Also, the bottle is super cute.
RATING: ★★★★☆
Mud Mask
Twice a week, I follow up my makeup removal with the pink clay mud mask, which feels very gentle on my dry-as-hell-but-also-oily acne-prone skin. I leave it on for an episode of Pen15 and rinse with the cleansing oil.
RATING: ★★★★☆
Cleansing Oil
The olive and rosehip cleansing oil was the first Urban Hydration product I ever purchased, and I’ll admit I wasn’t initially sold on it. I noticed my skin looked a bit brighter after using it, but I’ve had more success with the tea tree iteration. Fellow acne sufferers probably know tea tree oil has long been used as a blemish treatment, and I find this works particularly well either after using a mild exfoliant or after the mud mask. The rosehip works well for fading acne scars–hence the increased brightness. This is an extremely gentle, moisturizing cleanser. I’d recommend it for those with sensitive skin.
RATING: ★★★★☆
Spot Cream
After cleansing, I follow up with the aloe vera spot cream. Because it contains no harsh chemicals, it’s light enough to spread on my entire face. I also use a little on my upper back, where the Shame Wizard cursed my adolescent self with violent bacne. The flip side of having no harsh chemicals, though? This will not shrink your planet-sized zit the night before a major event. Slow and steady is the name of UH’s game.
RATING: ★★★☆☆
Moisturizer
Y’all. If I could make love to a moisturizer–I wouldn’t, but this stuff is still great. I’ve spent most of my adulthood on a seemingly unending quest for facial cream that neither clogs my pores nor is too light to combat my dryness. I would never have considered that a gel-type moisturizer was the answer, but this is now among my holy grail products. Seriously. No notes.
RATING: ★★★★★
Highlights
Urban Hydration’s products are extremely gentle. This is great for those with sensitive skin or those looking to get away from parabens and other additives, but those with cystic acne or other hard-to-treat conditions may find that these products aren’t quite up to the job.
Their site offers curated bundles based on ingredient type or skin concern, but my only real quibble is with the website itself, which is just disorganized enough for it to be annoying. The search function is inconsistent, as are its skincare subheadings. The pink clay mask, for example, doesn’t appear under “facial masks,” but does appear after a search for “pink mask.” A search for “spot cream” brings up every product with “cream” in the description.
PROS
Black woman-owned
Affordable
Gentle ingredients
No added fragrance
Free Shipping over $35
CONS
Website UI/UX are inconsistent
Products may not be effective for cystic acne
So, does it work? Here’s a side-by-side of my biggest problem area after one week of use.
A side-by-side before-and-after image of Sarah’s right cheek and jaw. In the before image, various scars and pimples are visible. In the after image, several pimples are still visible, but there are fewer than before. Acne scars have also faded.
Final Thoughts
Using cruelty-free and paraben-free ingredients, Urban Hydration has absolutely succeeded in creating quality natural skincare. And with extremely affordable pricing, Urban Hydration makes natural skincare accessible without picking a bitch’s pocket. Times is hard out here, okay?
Urban Hydration is currently available nationwide. Purchases can be made via their website, as well as at retailers including Ulta, Target, Sally Beauty, Walgreens, and CVS.
Sarah Sheppeck (they/she) is a graduate of U.C. Riverside’s Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. They are the co-Editor-in-Chief of just femme & dandy, and their work has most recently been featured in Writers Resist and The Coachella Review. Born and raised in upstate New York with stints in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and the woods of northern Maine, they are now back in their hometown with their dog, Chloe, and their cat, Rita Moreno. Find them on Twitter @EpicSheppeck if you like thirst traps and loud opinions.