Monday, November 24, 2014

Product Review: Vaseline Intensive Care Advanced Repair Lotion, Fragrance Free

As I mentioned a week or so back, I was chosen by Influenster recently to do a review on some lotion.

Yes, I have to admit: being a fitness / wellness focused blog, it may seem a little odd to throw a lotion review into the mix.  But hang with me here:

      You work out a lot?  Check.
      You shower a lot?  Check.
      You have dry, winter skin as a result?  Check.

Yep, I hit all three.  And I have check mark #3 REALLY bad right now, being that the air temps are dropping to the 20/30s now in my area.

*Warning - depressing note: some nights we're even in the teens or lower now.  (Silent scream)

Anyway, given my winter skin has been itching like CRAZY lately, I thought I'd give this lotion a go.


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Arrival


A week or two after I had been notified my sample was shipped, I came home to see this box in the mail:

 




I was a little surprised the box wasn't more notable, since it kind of blended in with my other mail.  The only thing that made it stand out was the label on the back:





That was OK, though, because... this:




Oh, and this:




Yeah, it may seem weird, but it's a dry skin tester.  LOL!  One of the postcards in the box included some peel and stick strips to test how dry your skin was pre/post lotion application. 




I screwed my first one up on the "pre" test, so did the "pre" test twice and didn't do a post.  Whoops.  Oh well.  Either way, I did get some not so surprising results:





You might not be able to tell in that photo, but I'm between dry and super dry.  No surprises there.

Ok, let's start lotioning.


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Day One


I decided to apply the lotion ASAP on Tuesday night.  Like I said above, I've been having terribly itchy, dry skin lately - especially on my shins (I always seem to get that this time of year - you know the kind, once you itch you cant stop?  Yeah, that).  I wanted to see how the lotion would help with that.

I was impressed that the extreme desire to itch subsided almost immediately.  Plus, the lotion sunk right in and I didn't feel super greasy afterwards.  Win!


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Days Two-Five


Since I wanted to give this lotion a fair go, I decided that beyond treating just my super dry areas with this lotion, that I would do a full body application post shower ... when I could, anyway - some days I got rushed and didn't have time.  In doing so, I learned that a full application probably wasn't necessary for my skin type; while some areas of my skin loved the hydration, other areas where my skin wasn't super dry ended up feeling a bit over saturated (and I noticed a some breakouts a few days later, more on this in bit). 

Overall, though, my skin was starting to look better and itch way less, too.  Hooray!


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My Overall Thoughts


I've been using this lotion now, off and on (meaning - not daily), for a couple of weeks.  Obviously this means that it works and it's pretty OK, or I wouldn't keep coming back, right?  Right.

I do also want to say that it's a pretty big deal that I'm still using this lotion simply due to my sensitive skin.  I have a tendency to break out when I use certain lotions on my skin, especially when they are really rich, winter hydration types of lotions.  This lotion did make me break out ... but only on the places where I was already pretty "normal"; on the areas where I was super dry and itchy - no issues with breakouts.  That tells me it was just too heavy for my non-dry skin.

And now, rather than droning on (this is a lotion review after all), let's just cut to some bullet points.

Things I like about this lotion:

- Hydrates immediately
- Takes away winter itch
- No greasy feeling
- Affordable price point

Things I don't like about this lotion:

- Unscented (I prefer something with a scent to it)
- Too rich for all over, daily application
- Could use more naturally based ingredients


So what says the great Oz Natalie?  Given that this lotion can take away my winter itchy skin and not cause breakouts, I'm guessing the bottle will likely stay in my mix of lotions for some time to come.  But will be used in limited applications, to avoid the breakout issue.



 
 
**I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.  All opinions expressed are my own, and were not influenced by any other incentives or people.**

3 comments:

  1. Absolutely love my sample received from influenster of vaseline intensive care advanced repair. works wonderful. my hands are nice and smooth. No signs of any cracks and dry skin that my skin usually gets in the winter time. It is wonderful will continue buying!!

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    Replies
    1. That's great! I'm so glad to hear you liked it.

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