Well, friend, it’s that time again; it’s time for another dislike post. What’s funny about this one is that I actually started (and almost finished) this as a “quick look” kind of mini-review. But, the more I wrote, the more adamant I got about my underwhelmed feeling, and I realized that I didn’t just not care for the product, I actually dislike it. 

Ahhh…hype. We all fall for it sometime or another. In the beauty world, it’s extremely hard not to get swept up in the raves (or rants) that any product is getting. Especially, when everything you hear is what you want to hear; the palette of the moment only has purples in it, and you’ve been meaning to pick up some more purple eyeshadows, or the lip gloss that everyone is talking about has teeth brightening qualities, and you hate how every cup of coffee you have your teeth get a little darker. Once in a while, we all get swooped up in the hype, but it’s how we feel once we’ve used the product that really counts. 

Enter First Aid Beauty’s Ultra Repair Cream. Now, as most of you know, I have extremely dry, sensitive skin, even on the hottest summer day. I always have to moisturize really, really well to avoid getting dry patches on my face, and I always have eczema on my legs throughout the year (super attractive, I know). My skin has been suffering to the maximum degree in the last couple of weeks because, I kid you not, the warmest my area has gotten is -5 degrees Celsius. Don’t get me wrong, that part isn’t abnormal, but we’ve also been hitting at least the -20 degree mark on the daily. This lovely temperature is accompanied by hounding, chilling winds and it gets so bad sometimes that you can’t even keep your head up. Yea, it’s that cold. The local weatherpersons keep calling this the “Polar Vortex,” but pretty much everyone I know calls it the “BS Vortex,” and just wants warmer weather. 

Anyways, my point is, my skin suffers from dryness on a regular basis, but it always worsens in the winter. This winter, though, my skin’s dryness has got to be at an all time high. Thus, when I heard all of the hype for the Ultra Repair Cream by First Aid Beauty (or FAB, as some call it), I thought it was an answer to my prayers. I’ve literally heard at least 5 or 6 beauty girls on YouTube talk about how this was great for their dry skin, and it really relieves the tight, dry feeling they can often get on days that their skin is malnourished. I’ve also looked it up on the Sephora website, and with claims like “..for anyone with severely dry, scaly skin due to harsh winter weather,” “deeply hydrates with exceptional penetration, providing immediate relief and visible improvement” and a research result of “an immediate improvement in skin hydration of 169%,” I’m (more than) a little disappointed.  Thankfully, I didn’t actually purchase it. I managed to get it as a 100 point Beauty Insider Reward, and let me tell you, I am very grateful I did. If I had spent any of my hard-earned money on this product, it would have been returned within days. 

To give FAB some credit though, it is hard to know what everyone’s skin dictates. Some people think they have dry skin and and really it acts more like oily/combination skin. Sometimes people feel the slightest dry patch and they think that it’s really bad. Coming from someone who has actually been told by a dermatologist that they have dry skin, I know what it is to have truly parched skin. As you can see on the tube, it claims to be intense hydration for dry parched skin. And do you know what? I think that is the MAIN reason that I feel so let down. It’s not necessarily that the product is a BAD product, because it’s not. It’s the fact that, between people’s reviews and what I read on Sephora’s website, I expected to find gold in a tube. I thought this would be the answer to my prayers, coming from years of experience with dry skin. Alas, I did not find gold in a tube.  

What I did find is:

• A pretty expensive, thick hand/body/face cream inside of a pretty cute, well-packaged tube
• A rather small (but hey, I’ll forgive you Sephora) tube that is easy to locate in a full handbag (due to aforementioned packaging)
• A cream that has a thick, smooth texture but absorbs SO quickly that you might forget that you even put something on in the first place
• One of the ingredients is ALCOHOL!!!! Who puts ALCOHOL in a cream that is supposed to be hydrating” and “repairing”!? That just dries out the skin more…
• A scent that is somehow a combo of nondescript and plastic-y :S

 

ALCOHOL!? SAY WHAT!?

 

Overall, I must be a pain and reiterate – I am really glad that I didn’t pay for this. It’s definitely not horrible, but I would have been super disappointed if I paid for it. It absorbs really quickly, which is great, and something that most actually look for in a cream. However, it absorbs too quickly, in my opinion, and I definitely do not feel instant or intense relief when I apply it. What the worst part is, though, is that about 30 minutes to an hour after application, I have to re-apply. That, to me, isn’t wonderful, because I want a product that I can apply and not have to worry about how long it will be until I have to re-apply. Can you say pointless?

I don’t know WHO they polled when they did their research, but I in NO way, shape or form felt “an immediate improvement of skin hydration of 169%.” Uh-uh. Not even close. Honestly, I felt a slow improvement of skin hydration of about 30%, FOR AN HOUR OR TWO at most. If you are going to make such high claims about a product, please deliver for every skin type. Otherwise, lessen your claims a little bit and no one will get offended or feel ripped off.

The lesson here? Don’t listen to ANYONE from the California area when it comes to dry skin, or what they think is dry skin. Also, check the ingredients list on every product I buy in the future. I naively thought that because it’s an “Ultra Repair Cream” that it could only do more good than harm, but I was wrong. It didn’t break me out, which is fantastic, but it certainly didn’t do much else. 

 

Okay, that’s it for today! I simply don’t have anything left to say and I don’t have any negativity left in me, there’s only so much I can take, you know! Haha!