I was sent a few bits from the Body Shop Nutriganics range before Christmas to have a go with. I also bought myself the eye cream.
This is a fairly new skin care line from the Body Shop and is aimed at skin which is showing the first signs of aging. So I'm guessing that's going to be mid/late 20s onwards. I'm now firmly placed into the "late 20s" category so I figured that this skin care would be worth a go. I quite often turn down offers of skin care freebies as they rarely suit my skin type.
The Nutriganics line contains a percentage of organic ingredients. The value varies with each product. The packaging also states that there is a high percentage (98%) of natural ingredients. I'm not certain there is any legal definition of natural ingredients as there is for organic. The ingredients for each item are listed on the Body Shop website. One thing I have noticed is that they explain what each ingredient is. For example, Cocamidopropyl Betaine is a surfactant (that means it lowers the surface tension of liquid, so the cleanser and water will mix much easier).
I found that to an initial impression this line appears to be a "natural" range. It clearly isn't. There are still a lot of chemicals in this. Yes, I'm aware that dihydrogen monxide is also a chemical but I'm talking about all the extra emulsifiers, surfactants, preservatives and conditioning agents. I can't help but compare this line to Lush, another "natural" skin care line. Lush do use a few preservatives in their products, I won't deny that. But does your cleanser actually need to foam? I don't think it does at all. Foaming doesn't make your skin clean, it just makes you think it does. After all, sodium lauryl sulphate is added to several types of products just to make them foam so you think they are doing a better job of cleansing.
I'm not going to say that natural/organic is better than synthetic at all. But the whole appearance of this line is that of natural products. These individual chemicals may have been derived at some point from a natural product, but does that really make the resulting moisturiser a natural product? Oh, I have Google open while I'm writing this and I've been Googling ingredients. I found out that there is no legal definition of a natural skin care product. It appears the only legal definition of natural anything applies to flavouring ingredients. That's an interesting point. Calling something "strawberry flavour" doesn't mean that strawberries have been anywhere near it, but "strawberry flavoured" must contain strawberries (in the UK, at least). I digress.
This line contains Community Trade Organic Babassu Oil. I hadn't heard of Babassu Oil before, what is it? It's an oil extracted from the seeds of the Babassu Palm, found in South America. It's moisturising and non-greasy.
What did I try?
*-Foaming Face Wash £8.00 150ml
*-Smoothing Serum £13.00 30ml
*-Smoothing Day Cream £12.00 50ml
-Smoothing Eye Cream £10.00 15ml
The three products marked with a star (*) were sent to me by a PR contact to test out. I bought the eye cream myself to round out the skin care system.
-Foaming Face Wash - I used this first. I wasn't sure if I should be using it on dry or wet skin as it isn't clear on the packaging. I tried out both and found it worked best on dry skin. This has quite a pleasant smell. I can't place it but it's quite gentle and slightly herbal. This is a very foamy cleanser. I thought it would come out as a gel and them foam as I massaged into the skin. It is actually a liquid and comes out of the pump as foam. I only needed two pumps to create enough foam for my whole face. The foam felt very thick and creamy as I applied, but when washed off my skin felt extremely dry and tight. This has been the least used out of my Nutriganics products as I began to experience some flaking after I had been using this foaming cleanser for a week or so. I used it sporadically over my trial after the initial week but my experience with it didn't improve. I believe the scent is Thyme.
-Smoothing Serum - Ingredients wise, this contains a lot more organic products than the other products I had tried in this line (the serum has 34% organic ingredients) and contains a lot of plant oils and extracts. This is a smooth white liquid that is very, very quickly absorbed into my skin. I'm really not certain how this has been benefiting my skin. It's supposed to add an extra boost of hydration (from the instructions on the Body Shop website) but I haven't noticed any difference between when I use the serum and when I don't. My skin felt exactly the same in both cases. A few minutes after application, it was like I hadn't applied any at all. I didn't notice any smoothing or improved texture in any way.
-Smoothing Day Cream - This is a very light moisturiser. Not enough for me to use after a shower (my skin is quite dry after a shower) and only really worked well enough if I applied this in the morning before make up. It wasn't even enough to use just as a day moisturiser, to be honest. About an hour after using, I always felt like I needed to moisturise again. My skin just soaked this straight up. I think though, that this is going to be the only product I'll carry on using from the line. While I'll be using a different day cream, I'll be using this just as a quick moisturiser before my make up primer as it does soak in so quickly.
-Smoothing Eye Cream - I *really* didn't like this. Like the serum, this has a higher level of organic ingredients (this one has 30%) and lots of plant extracts. However, no matter how small an amount I used I felt like it never soaked in. The skin around your eyes is much thinner than the rest of your face and needs a much lighter product. This felt thicker than the day cream. There's no way I could have applied make up after using this, it would have just slid off the eye cream. I stopped using it as I was concerned about using a product that was too heavy around my eye area.
So, this skin care line is supposed to be for skin that's showing the first signs of aging. Basically anyone over a certain age. But that means every type of skin care. Those with dry skin are not going to need the same things from their skin care as those with oilier skin. So I'm not sure that this line is going to be good for everyone at all. For the record, I used this with what I call my "Winter skin". I have combination skin usually. In the winter it veers slightly towards the dry end, and is oilier in the summer. The skin around my eyes is starting to show fine lines and is becoming more oily on my lids.
I gave this a good go but I haven't noticed any improvement in the fine lines that are starting to appear, or any improvement in the texture or hydration of my skin. I'm going to discontinue use of this line now (except the day cream) and instead, once again, use Lush as my base skin care.
Still, I keep meaning to try Liz Earle....
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