La Roche-Posay Cicaplast Mains Review

Every winter, my hands get incredibly dry. So dry in fact, that they crack up and bleed. A lot.

(I was considering adding a "Before" picture to this post, but decided against it, since I do not want to subject my readers to the mess that is my hands, so you will just have to take my word for them having been in a really, really bad state!)

Because of this, I have tried a lot of hand creams over the years, and while some of them have been significantly better than others, none of them really cured the problem completely.

My local pharmacy started carrying the great French drugstore brand La Roche-Posay recently (yay!!), however, and since I had been incredibly happy with the only La Roche-Posay products I had tried up until now (read my reviews of those here, in order to see why I liked them so much), I picked up not only the Effaclar Foaming Cleanser I have been using for quite some time now to clean my face, but also a new product, their Cicaplast Mains hand cream. This hand cream appealed to me since it was said to fit damaged hands. And what are my hands if not damaged?

I did not have very high hopes for the hand cream, to be honest, as I had been using other hand creams for months in order to make them less dry, and nothing seemed to help. And the first time I put some Cicaplast Mains on, I was not too thrilled either. There was no cool scent, like some other hand creams have, instead this was a very neutral product, like all other La Roche-Posay products I have tried up until now.

I also immediately felt some stinging when I put the hand cream on, which was not all that nice (later I did remember, however, that I experienced the same kind of stinging with the La Roche-Posay Substiane eye cream, so maybe this is something that a lot of La Roche-Posay products do?). In fact, my hands turned quite red, and heated up, for some reason, so I honestly started worrying that I might have had an allergic reaction to the cream or something.

I also did feel that the cream was rather greasy, and did not absorb very fast, a pet peeve of mine with hand creams.

So I basically thought the Cicaplast Mains was a waste of money, and then went to sleep, having put the cream on right before bedtime.

So imagine my surprise in the morning when I noticed a significant improvement on my hands! Nothing else had worked, even if I had applied creams multiple times a day, but the Cicaplast Mains had made my hands look pretty good! So this cream must be doing something right!

This is why I decided to put it on the next evening as well, again, right before bedtime, since the cream does make your hands very greasy, like I mentioned, so I cannot put this on when I still have other things to do. And the next morning: my hands were completely "healed"! I could not believe it! No other hand cream has ever come close to this, making me completely flabbergasted regarding how the French do this. But who cares, as long as it works, right?

I do think, however, that this hand cream has some downsides (mainly the long time it takes for it to absorb and the greasiness), so I think I would mostly recommend it for those who have severe issues with dryness etc., not just your "average hand cream user". But if your hands get really, really dry like mine, this cream can surely be a true lifesaver!

Review: La Roche-Posay Effaclar Duo

When I bought my La Roche-Posay moisturizer mentioned in the previous post, the saleslady was kind enough to give me two sample size tubes of La Roche-Posay's most famous product: the Effaclar Duo. I was actually really happy about that, since I had been wanting to try this product anyway, and believe me or not, two sample size tubes is actually enough to have an opinion about it, since this is definitely a product that goes a long way. The saleslady that gave these to me also mentioned that you can use them only as spot treatments if you want, which is what I have been doing, since my chin is my problem area, but the rest of my face has been problem free lately, so I have used the Toleriane Ultra for it, while I used the Effaclar Duo only on my chin.

The first thing I have to say about the Effaclar Duo is that it kind of stings. So it is not a pleasant cream to use, and I also did not see any immediate effects from it. Meaning it did not clear my skin or improve it a lot, but on the other hand, it did not make it worse either.

So I cannot say I saw any of the really positive effects I have been reading about, but I also did not see any drying out of the skin, any purging etc.

So while I am happy I got a chance to try the Effaclar Duo (which has a harmless, neutral scent, by the way, in case you were wondering), I don't think I would actually buy this product, since it seems like a product that has gotten a lot of hype, but it also seems like a product that just works for some people, and not for everyone.

I will say that I have tried some other La Roche-Posay Effaclar products, and those were awesome, however. So I definitely would not say that the whole range is inefficient or anything, it just seems this particular product was not for me.

Review: La Roche-Posay Toleriane Ultra Moisturizer

I am a lucky girl these days, because a pharmacy pretty close to me has started selling a skincare brand I discovered and fell in love with on a recent trip to Paris: La Roche-Posay. So I have been buying my La Roche-Posay Effaclar Cleanser there lately, and since I had ran out of moisturizer, yet seem to be in great need of it, due to the weather being so cold where I live lately, I asked the sales lady, who actually seemed to know all the La Roche-Posay products pretty well, for a recommendation regarding a La Roche-Posay moisturizer.

She recommended the Toleriane Ultra, which is good for those with sensitive skin, and has minimal amounts of weird ingredients in it. It is also preservative-free, paraben-free, fragrance-free, alcohol-free, colourant-free and lanolin-free, which is something I am paying attention to these days, being pregnant and all (even though I have not mentioned it on any of my blogs until now!).

Another great thing about this moisturizer is that you can use it both on your face and around your eyes, so I did not have to buy a separate eye cream either!

As for the scent: I am not blown away, as this product has a very minimal, discreet and kind of medical scent, which is not something I am really into, but I do believe a lot of people are, so I should not complain too much about that.

The moisturizer does add a lot of moisture, though, without causing any breakouts or other nasties, which is exactly what I was after. I must say that the moisturizer makes my face look rather shiny, though, so I only use this moisturizer at night, when I will not be seeing too many people anyway.

Other than that, though, the Toleriane Ultra really has no downsides, so I have to say I really like this product, and will definitely be getting it again!

Review: La Roche-Posay Substiane Eyes

La Roche-Posay is a brand that I discovered only quite recently (read some of my first impressions of the brand here and here), but since I do like it, I wanted to try some more products by this brand. So since I needed a new eye cream when I went to Paris anyway, I decided to stop by a local pharmacy and pick up a La Roche-Posay one. They only had one called Substiane Eyes, so I have been giving that a try for some time now.

I have to admit that the first time I tried this cream, it gave me a bit of a stinging sensation, which was a bit worrying. But I had not been using any eye cream for quite some time (at least for several weeks) before that, and I remembered that this is something that had happened to me in the past as well, when I started using eye cream after not having used it for a while, so I decided to try it again, and then there was no stinging sensation! So I guess that was just something very temporary, because now I have no side effects when using this cream at all, but I still want to mention it, in case anyone reading this has very sensitive eyes and is considering getting this eye cream. It might sting for you too, after all.

Other than that first small glitch, I find this eye cream to be really good, though. The texture is lovely, thick, but not too thick, if you get what I mean, and it also absorbs very fast, which is a main issue that I often have with other eye creams.

The scent is nothing special, though, this cream feels very clinical, like a lot of other La Roche-Posay, and while I might have preferred this product with a really cool scent or packaging, the very basic scent and packaging does not bother me, and since I really like what this cream does to the skin around my eyes, I totally think I would get it again!

Review: La Roche-Posay Effaclar Mat moisturizer

I wrote a review of an La Roche-Posay Effaclar foaming cleanser a while ago, but I actually also got a moisturizer from the same range, since I like to try several products from one line at the same time, since I think products from the same range are often designed to work best together. The La Roche-Posay Effaclar Mat moisturizer was also really good, just like the foaming cleanser, but while the cleanser seems to last for quite some time, I ran out of the moisturizer really, really fast. So it's hardly a long lasting product in any way.

But other than that, this moisturizer is really great. It's very light weight, so it's perfect for summer, and it does seem to mattify my skin, which is great. It also moisturizes my skin pretty nicely, but I should add that I don't really have the type of skin that needs a lot of moisture, I mostly moisturize in order to avoid breakouts due to dryness (yes, that's a thing, believe it or not!) as well as wrinkles. So if your skin needs a lot of moisture, this might not be a product that is enough for you.

The scent is nothing special, though, it's very light and natural, I would say, which is a shame, since I love products with stronger, nice scents, but like the cleanser from the same line, the Effaclar Mat moisturizer seems to do wonders for my skin, making it smooth, less shiny and generally pretty, and that is after all the most important thing with skin care. So I will definitely be buying this moisturizer again. And again. And again. Well, you get the picture...

Review: La Roche-Posay Effaclar Purifying Foaming Gel

I have been hearing a lot of good stuff about the French skincare brand La Roche-Posay lately. This is a brand sold in French pharmacies, and since I have had pretty good experiences with pharmacy brands in the past (Swedish ACO products are excellent, for instance), but never tried French pharmacy brands before, I really wanted to try something by La Roche-Posay.

Since my skin is a typical oily skin, I quickly understood La Roche-Posay's Effaclar line would probably fit me the best, so one of the first La Roche-Posay products I had to get was their Effaclar Purifying Foaming Gel.

The first thing I noticed when I started using this was the amazing scent. It smells very clean, very natural and really nice, so it's really a joy to use, scent-wise. It also foams up just a little bit, but not too much, so it becomes annoying to use, and is basically a pretty basic cleansing gel, which is pretty much what you would expect from a pharmacy cleanser, I guess.

But it does clear up my skin really nicely, yet without irritating it. So my skin definitely improved after I started using this! I haven't been using it for that long though, just for a couple of weeks, and people say the long term results are even better. So I think I will really stick to using only this gel for a while now, and see if the long term results really are that impressive.

I will definitely buy this again, as well as other products from this brand, because I was that impressed! I would almost say that this is the best cleanser I know of, if it wasn't for the lovely scent that Soap & Glory facial cleansers (namely Peaches and Clean and Face Soap and Clarity) have and which I slightly prefer to the scent of the Effaclar Purifying Foaming Gel.

But this was definitely a really good purchase for me, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone with acne prone or oily skin, since a lot of people seem to get really amazing results with this!