When I moved to California, I have all sorts of skin problems like minor allergies, and out breaks, all of which can be traced back to dry skin.

A bath with hotel soaps will kill me if I don't apply any body moisturizer afterwards. Any body wash isn't much better. Bubble bath is out of the question. Before I came to CA, I can do any of the above, except using soaps, without any problems. I just shower and bath everyday and walk out of the bathroom. But not in CA.

I then use body wash with lots of moisturizers, like Dove. But soon I gave in. I apply body moisturizers just as my wife has done for years. Sometimes I may go on a day or two without body moisturizers, but of course you notice the big difference they way the skin looks and feels. If I go on too long with Dove only, I feel itchy.

So I use those huge bottles of body lotions with a pump. Those traditional brands that doctors' recommended, and others. I used them all. The main difference is the thicker or thinner feel after application.

I'm embarrassed to say that often I got compliments from women about my skin.

The problem is that, spreading the lotions all over my body is too tedious, even with a pump. I like the silky smooth feeling and the protection against allergies. But I still skip the lotion often because I just want to wash and go. That's why I tried Olay.

It was surprisingly good compared to the reviews. It's a water based moisturizer. Doctors don't recommend oil based lotions because they are superficial. It goes something like this. The skin don't absorb oil. The water based product can add moisture and possibly nutrients to your skin.

But oil based lotions isn't bad. I sometimes apply massage oils and bath oils and then rinse off, when I'm lazy. The skin looks very good and feels very good in the short term. Just may be a little more sticky initially than I liked. The skin is rehydrate after shower so additional moisture isn't needed. And I think oil helps to seal in the moisture, as used by many people in various cultures. If that's sufficient for you it's a good alternative. But I feel better with water based products.

Olay has some of the familiar ingredients, such as petrolatum, and exotic form of alcohols. I think petrolatum are sort of oily for the silky smooth feeling. Therefore you need alcohol to mix oil and water solvable ingredients.

It's much easier to spread compared to the standard moisturizers. It's thinner and don't cling to the skin that much as standard moisturizers. So I spent a lot less amount of lotion to spread all over my body, particularly easy to apply over the toes. Due to physics, ordinary lotions tend to stick on the skin rather than spread around. If it's easy to spread around than it wouldn't last.

After applying, you rinse it off. I think it helps to use weak shower pressure. As for the pat dry, I didn't pay too much attention to that. I dry myself normally, of course without rubbing hard with the towel.

The freshly applied feeling is not as smooth as ordinary moisturizers. But the feeling is about the same for the rest of the day. It seems to last throughout the day just as the other moisturizers.

The bath is already very slippery with the Dove alone so I didn't notice any worse. I did away with the Dove and I didn't feel any worse. So now I can enjoy bubble bath again to wash the bath at the same time as my body. I like bubble bath again because I don't need to apply the body wash all over.

The only disadvantage is that when, say, your elbow need more lotions, you cannot do that with Olay. But you can apply ordinary lotions a few times on the same area and all seems to stay put. But precisely this is the disadvantage of ordinary moisturizers. You can't spread a thin layer and you can't spread uniformly. That's too much of a good thing. Really as long as the allergies don't come back, I don't need compliments from women about my skin. Olay is sufficient for me. And if I need some more moisture here and there, I can always add a handful or two ordinary moisturizers.

Recommended: Yes