Thanks for reading my review. With your help, I will soon be well on my way to becoming a Cosmetics and Incontinence Aids Advisor. So please return to this review early and often, whether you are a member, non-member, Communist, undocumented alien, goatherd, aboriginal, dog, worm, rotting corpse, or Neutrogena employee. And that list is in random order.

I am somewhat of a dilettante when it comes to skincare and makeup, swayed easily by packaging, prices, and the whims of myself and others. Rarely have I found a brand or product and stuck with it through better or worse, til death do us part, although I have certainly gone to bed many times with various products. Oftentimes a $2 coupon or a tastefully colored box emblazoned with one of my favorite fonts is enough to get me to try something, regardless of how appropriate for my skin type or coloring. I'm not sure if that makes me a manufacturer's dream or nightmare.

I've only begun using moisturizers in the last few years. My skin could probably be called oily (three hours after washing, a tissue pressed to my face comes away looking like it's been dipped in light sweet crude), so I figured I didn't really need to. But lately I've begun to sense that the ravages of time are just around the corner, and maybe I should be moisturizing now to ward them off. Plus, the winters here are extremely harsh and drying, and the gale force winds combined with the dry heat of my apartment I'm sure are stripping my skin of, if not essential oils, at least something valuable and youth-related.

So I've been moisturizing my face once a day, in the morning before putting makeup on. I suppose I should be doing it at night too, but right now that just seems like a waste of moisturizer. Right now I have the following moisturizers in my bathroom cupboard: Pond's Dry Skin Cream, Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion, Oil of Olay in an extremely attractive dark gray tube, and Neutrogena Combination Skin Moisture. I won't be buying the Pond's again because it's simply too rich and creamy for my already moist skin. If I put the Pond's on at 7 a.m., my face starts to glisten like a tub of Crisco by 10:30. The Clinique is fine except for a) the color, a disturbing canary yellow that makes me think of lemon frosting, and b) the delivery method, by which I mean the ease of transmitting the lotion from container to finger. The lotion is relatively thick and viscous but it sits in a square, unsqueezable bottle, so that you have to pound the upended bottle into your palm for about two minutes before you have enough lotion to spread over your face. This product clearly belongs in the "Who designed this???" department.

I bought the Neutrogena having just run out of the Oil of Olay, which I will probably be buying if I can find the exact product in a store. It's for combination skin: oil-free, fragrance-free, non-comedogenic (won't clog pores), and contains a special ingredient called Microsponges, which purport to absorb the oil that would otherwise be bubbling to your epidermis. However, it has no SPF factor. It has an excellent delivery system (a pump) which allows you to deliver the precise amount of lotion to your fingertip that you need. The texture is quite pleasing, and unlike any lotion I've tried: somewhere between thin and thick, very light, smooth but not really creamy. It goes on smoothly and seems to rapidly disappear into your skin. It's so light, in fact, that my face didn't really feel that moisturized after one application. It felt softer, but not really moister. So I put on another layer, and my skin felt just barely moist, but softer than a baby's butt. I don't think my skin had ever felt so soft. I fell in love with myself all over again!

So what's the problem with this product? When I started to put on my makeup (Clinique Almost Makeup, oil-free and one of the lighter makeup products on the market), I noticed that my skin was exfoliating onto my finger, and everywhere else. I've only had this happen with one moisturizer before, something from the Basis product line that contained alpha hydroxy. I'm not a skincare expert, but I believe alpha hydroxy is some kind of acid that acts to remove dead skin cells -- i.e., exfoliate. This is great when you want to exfoliate, like before bedtime or in the shower, but I don't want to exfoliate as I'm putting makeup on. I want the makeup, and my skin cells, to remain on my face. After using that Basis product, I made a note never to buy a moisturizer containing alpha hydroxy.

I can only conclude that either this Neutrogena product has alpha hydroxy in it and they're not listing it as an ingredient, or that the magic Microsponges are acting as an exfoliant. Either way, I can no longer use this product as a morning moisturizer. It took me twice as long to put on my makeup because I was wiping away the dead skin cells that were being shed at the same time I was applying my makeup, and then it took another five minutes to pick off all the makeup-colored clumps of dead skin cells that had fallen onto my shirt. So while I loved the way this product made my skin feel, I won't be using it under makeup again. My face did seem a little less oily than with other products, but this benefit was negated by the rapid and unexpected skin-shedding.




Recommended: No