L'Occitane Masque de Riz Purifiant Clarifying Rice Mask (Mattifies and Purifies) review

Generally I have a reasonably good impression about L'Occitane products- I like the brand image, product designs, most of the scents and frequency of new products. 

I've gradually tried a few more skincare products from the line, and this Masque de Riz (Clarifying Rice Mask) is one of them.

Comes in a 75ml squeeze plastic tube. The labels are all paper based and they do get damp and ruined very quickly. It retailed for about 40AUD. 

Loccitane says that this product has exclusive formula and contains a unique cocktail of red rice active ingredients Camargue and three types of natural clays; white, green and pink, to ensure skin is left clean, fresh and kept blemish-free.

Instructions on the back says this Mask purifies combination to oily skin and ensures a long lasting matte and velvet finish. To use: Apply once or twice a week to the face. avoiding the eye area. Let dry for 5-10 minutes, then rinse with cool water.

It has a rather smart cap design- you twist it and the centre hole opens, and you can squeeze out product. Once you twist the cap again, it closes and you can just rinse off any residue. It's better than having a flip top packaging I think, or having loose caps everywhere.

The masque is a soft creamy consistency. Compared to most other cleansing masks especially clay types, these are runnier and softer/ smoother. Compared to mud types these are more creamy and doesn't have that sandy feeling. There is still a bit of grains inside, going to guess it's little rice granules.  However it is not abrasive on the face.

As instruction says I apply a thin layer. Just enough to cover pores, focusing on t-zone. I have large pores on t-zone and rest of skin is ok, a bit of freckles and broken capillaries though but skin texture is quite smooth on touch so I'm not very fussed about exfoliation for areas of face other than t-zone.

After 10 min it dries like below, but doesn't feel tight on the skin.

Rinsed off:

Honestly it is really mild- so mild that I'm not really sure what it did for my skin. It probably did take some of the oils away, but not strong enough like a cleansing mask to visibly draw out the oils or make blackheads surface etc. It's honestly a bit too gentle for me. (You can also see my pores closer to nose are all still very visible there).

I've tried leaving it on for longer, and tried to use it on various skin occasions (e.g. zit days, sallow skin days , lack of sleep days), but it's one of those skincare products which I just can't really tell what it does. It doesn't make my skin worse by any means, afterwards I do see the skin with a slight more glow but that's probably just temporary like after using any face mask.

Rating is 1/5. I may end up using the rest of the tube for like back or front chest area as a mild exfoliant or body mask. There are way more cleansing masks out there which can probably do better.

L'Occitane Rose Petals Ultra Rich Body Cream (25% shea butter) review/ swatch

L'Occitane sometimes releases a whole bunch of new scents at once and they are often limited edition scents. Looks like this Rose Petals scent is still selling on the L'occitane website (however it is still labelled as limited edition). Retails for 22USD for 3.5oz, which is a really small size given most other body products typically start at 6 oz or more like 200g/200ml at least.

It's housed in a gorgeous tin:

It's sealed when opened:

You can see the cream sits inside a white plastic tub in the middle rather than the tin itself (which is a good thing as you won't have body cream getting that metal tin scent).

It's a wonderfully luscious body moisturiser- with 25% shea butter. I usually don't really specifically go for shea butter body moisturisers as they tend to be a bit thick and have that particular oil scent to it (and also leave a sticky residue on your sheets, like the Body Shop body butters at times!). 

However this one is just a spreadable, luscious consistency. It's not thin like a body lotion or emollient like a typical cream. Instead it has that semi melted body butter consistency that spreads and goes a long way easily. It has that wonderful feeling of just lightly coating your skin and nourishing it.

It leaves a slight white cast as you spread it out, but once massaged in it disappears.

It keeps my skin hydrated and not to mention the rose petals scent is divine- I think this is easily my favorite L'occitane body product lately. I prefer this over the rose neiges line as this one has a more 'real' rose petal scent. 

Hope they make it into a bigger size and better price though. If used daily this tin runs out before winter finishes here. 

L'Occitane Gel Douche Shower Gel Sweet Cherry (Cerise Gourmande) review

I took a few smaller L'occitane travel sized items with my on holidays lately, here's a belated post with review of the Sweet Cherry Shower gel.

While it has 'sweet cherry' as the scent name, it is entirely different to the Cherry Blossom line and the scents are different too.

I got a 75ml travel sized shower gel from last Christmas so the packaging is a bit different to full szied ones. 

Ingredients:

It says the shower gel is enriched with Luberon, cheery extract etc.

One thing I really don't like about L'occitane travel products is the bottle design. It has an extremely small bottle opening in a flip top design, which is really hard to snap open with either wet or dry hands in the shower and I've broke some nails whilst attempting to open it.

The shower gel is clearish yellow. It produces a soft foam after adding water and lathered up, but it's not like bubble bath sort of quality and the foams are mostly sparse.

In terms of its ability as a shower gel, it performs fine. Removes traces of my sunscreen on the body fine (but not super tough ones like Kanebo Allie waterproof sunscreens or the Shiseido Annesa waterproof ones (though these are truly crazily difficult to remove).

It doesn't really leave my skin moisturised, felt like as if I used a normal soap - skin feels softer but definitely still need a moisturiser to follow, if you have dry skin on the body.

The scent is a sweet fruity scent, I can't quite pinpoint a 'cherry' scent inside, it's quite a mild scent (as a shower gel anyway) and the scent doesn't really linger on after you rinsed off. Again, cherry blossom scent is different and a bit more feminine and lightly floral, personally I like the cherry blossom scents a lot more.

Rating is 3/5. Nice to try, not nice enough to repurchase.

L'Occitane 20% Shea Butter Honey Hand Cream (miel) 2012 review

The English name of this item is just Loccitane Honey hand cream.  I purchased the 30ml size I'm SOOO utterly excited that L'Occitane is bringing back their 'Miel" or Honey line of products (and hopefully a few more items). 

For years the Loccitane Miel Honey Gentle Water is my staple pick-me-up fragrance (it has no alcohol contents so not sure if I can characterise it as a standard perfume), it's light and refreshingly sweet with the real honey scent, without that sickening fake sweetness many honey scents tend to come with, or that slightly "alcohol" whiff that is contained in most fragrances. It's just so mild and comforting, when it was discontinued I actually bought three bottles. (And thankfully I'm still on 2 bottles of backup). Sometimes I'd spray some just before I go to bed to ensure a literally sweet dream.

Did I mention the honey hand cream comes with oh-so-cute bear and honey print on the bottom?. I just had to have this.

The re-introduced Miel line actually smells just about the same. Even in the hand cream it's such a mild light sweet scent, usually the scents in hand creams tend to be exaggerated once applied on hands since the body temperature warms the handcream up and all scents become stronger. However not this one.

Ingredient list: main contents are shea butter, glycerin and coconut oil. This particular hand cream has 20% shea butter content (L'occitane tend to emphasise how much shea butter % is in each product quite specifically) 

It comes in a soft plastic tube- I like this design more so than those toothpaste foil/ metal packaging which tends to break and leak easily.

The hand cream is a soft moisturiser consistency, still creamy. It's not runny or fluid. It feels nice and gentle on the hand. It dries like what I'd expect a shea butter hand cream to be, that feeling that your hand is gently coated in a light moisturiser. While it doesn't leave the skin oily and greasy, it's not exactly 100% dry to touch either. None that will affect whatever else I'm doing though.

Overall 5/5. I'm so glad the honey miel line is back (FYI L'Occitane actually replaced the original honey line with the honey& lemon line). I can't locate this product on the Loccitane US website, maybe it is yet to be released (I got mine from Asia). I also bought the solid miel shea butter and the mum & baby shea butter in honey scent, I'm not sure what the rest of the product line contains but certainly hope some sort of fragrance version is also back.

Definitely remember to try these if you are into light sweet scents or just love honey!

L'Occitane Concentrated Mask (Masque) 5 Essential Oils Soothing Sensitive Scalp review

To be honest I can't really tell from the packaging what is the official full name of this hair mask from L'Occitane.  In fact when I purchased it online I didn't really know what it was either =P I just like various hair products and masks so this was an easy purchase decision for me.

So, turns out this is actually a hair scalp mask. This is released in 2011, comes in 150ml squeeze plastic tube with a very thin, long nozzle.

The packaging is soft plastic, not like toothpaste foil type of packaging (I'm looking at you! crappy Aesop body scrub packaging).

The instructions says to part your hair into sections, apply the mask directly onto your scalp and slowly massage in. Leave mask on scalp for 1-5 minutes to full enjoy the soothing effects of the essential oils.

In the meantime, you can use your soothing conditioner on the ends of your hair. Then, rinse thoroughly.

Now I think scalp masks are brilliant ideas. For hair care lovers, it's sometimes such a bore waiting for your hair masque/ conditioner to sit in for the good 5 minutes, why not also take care of your scalp at the same time?

Scalp mask isn't really a brand new idea, I think Head & Shoulders does a scalp masque in Asia (with cooling menthol inside for summer), while Phyto also makes a few pre-shampoo scalp care oils where you massage in and leave for 20min before shampooing.  Basically scalp masks all have similar effects- to sort of deep cleanses your scalp and do a mini scalp spa with the cooling sensation (often they contain essential oils, because oils can melt oils, plus the other benefits of essential oils).

I expected this to be some what cooling, but it's not really, probably doesn't contain that much menthol or peppermint. FYI the essential oils in this are primarily lavender, citrus, some other citrus leaf and basil.  While it's on my head it does feel nice and soothing, not heavy and clogging.

 Here's the long thin nozzle- it's designed so that you can literally hold the nozzle to your scalp, squeeze directly along the scalp. Very neat and clean way to do it.  I part my hair in a few sections, then just stick the nozzle in and squeeze along the parted hairline.  I don't use all that much, probably 5-6 parts across the whole head.  Then I massage the mask into my head, concentrating on trying to cover all the scalp area.

The mask is just a whiteish mask looking consistency, not very thick.

I leave the mask on scalp, then rinse my hands and apply my normal hair mask or conditioner on mid sections and ends of my hair, avoiding the roots (all in the shower).

Then I scrub my face or body or do whatever else to pass the 5-10 minutes. Then I rinse everything off together.

This leaves my scalp feeling so light, and clean, it's very hard to describe. It's like giving your scalp a nice scrub or clean that feels different to a normal shampoo. It seems to lift up any product build up or the sometimes excess natural oil at the roots. At the same time, it doesn't leave my hair or scalp feel dry and taught. There's just a nice light freshness.

Overall 5/5. I really enjoy using this once or twice a week. (You probably don't need more, this isn't designed to be a daily treatment).  Not a must- have for luscious hair, but it does feel soothing and wonderful on the scalp. This is also a refreshing change from the troublesome pre-shampoo scalp treatments like Phyto (which is more like a oil product and takes 2 shampooing to remove).