I’m back this lovely Monday morning with another Drive-by Samples. This installment is a bit half/half. I was super excited about two of these products and sort of ‘meh’ about the other two. Of course, the two I liked were more expensive! Isn’t that the way it goes?
On with the reviews!
L’Occitane Immortelle Precious Cream, $58 for 1.7 ounces
Thus far, I have never been disappointed with a L’Occitane product. Their website doesn’t tell me much about the science behind this product, only that it contains one of their patented formulas that aids your skin in correcting deep wrinkles and maintain elasticity and smoothness. I don’t have wrinkle or elasticity issues (yet), but I did feel like my skin was smoother. The thing that I love about L’Occitane moisturizers is that they just sink into the skin and make it feel plumped and moisturized and healthy. They feel absolutely beautiful. I got about four conservative uses out of this sample, and I was extremely pleased with the way my skin felt the morning after. (this was actually a day cream, but I prefer to test moisturizers at night)
In my opinion, there’s not a good way to really test skincare items like this with such a small sample. And by that I mean, you don’t know if the long-term benefits of said skincare item will have an effect on your until you, well, use it long-term. Basically, the things that I’m looking for within the few days that I test something like a moisturizer or skin treatment are:
-Does it break me out? You’ll know if a moisturizer is too heavy for your skin if you develop whiteheads after using it. (Sadly, I’m going through that right now with an Ole Henriksen moisturizer I tried a couple days ago)
-Does it make my skin feel good? Is it too heavy or too drying for my skin type?
-Does it smell good? Moisturizer has to smell good. If it’s going near my nose, I don’t want to hate the smell.
That’s basically it. There are few moisturizers/skin treatments that I’ve sampled that have made me want to immediately purchase the full-size. Recently, there actually was one skin treatment that I purchased after trying the sample once. ONCE! So, you know it had to be good. I’ll be writing about that product later this month.
Dove Nourishing Oil Leave-In Smoothing Cream, $4 for 4 ounces
This sample has been in my cabinet for a while. I thought it would be worth mentioning, since I spent the time to try it out. This is a leave-in conditioning cream for your hair. It’s supposed to nourish (mostly) the ends of your hair, but it did say that you can work up towards your roots. It didn’t do much for my hair, and my ends are dry. If anything, I thought my ends would feel maybe a little smoother. Sadly, this product was a disappointment. So sad, because it’s cheap!
Seventh Generation Lavender Moisturizing Lotion, $7.99 for 8 ounces
One day, when I was taking my lunch hour and wandering around the Walgreens beauty section, the lady who works at the beauty counter asked me if I wanted samples. Uh, yaw! I was expecting, you know, just a couple of shampoo samples or whatever. But, no. She came back with a freakin’ bag of samples. This was one of them. In fact, she gave me three!
Anyways. This was a nice moisturizer. I think $8 is a bit much for a drugstore lotion, but it was nice, not sticky, and had a faint lavender scent. Since heavily-scented lotions aren’t my thang, the faint scent was pleasant. I don’t think that this will replace my Jergens or Nivea lotions (I used them on my hands), but it was nice!
Josie Maran Argan Cleansing Oil, $32 for 6 ounces
My goodness, my goodness. This little sample was another one that was stuck in my cabinet for a while. In fact, I had three by the time I got around to trying it. This is a cleansing oil. It will remove your makeup and cleanse your face at the same time; although, if I wear makeup I do wash my face twice at night. So, this would be my first step in the washing process and I would follow it up with my Boots Hot Cloth Cleanser. This oil did all it was supposed to do, and it felt so lovely on my face. The smell is delicious, too. Don’t even ask me to describe it, because I can’t. It just smelled gorgeous. This is the first cleansing oil I’ve ever tried, and it was surprisingly easy to rinse off. My face felt very clean and refreshed after using it. I really enjoyed it, and it’s been jumping in and out of my cart on Sephora’s site. 😛
I’m linking up with Molly and Carly for #YOLOMonday.
Rebecca has been writing about style, beauty, and lifestyle topics since 2011. Thank you so much for reading this post! Feel free to leave any questions or comments below. I love hearing from you!
