review: palmer's cocoa butter formula for dry, ashy skin

(yes, i know it's been a couple weeks since i last wrote.... so sorry! i've been super busy and stressed about my senior recital. pictures from that later! i'm feeling less stressed out now, so i couldn't wait to get back to my blog :)

ok ok, i know it's funny. why would a VERY WHITE girl like me need a lotion for ashy skin? actually, my husband thinks this is pretty darn hilarious. 

well, the reason i'm using this is because it contains AHAs, which keeps my chicken skin on my arms under control. my old favorite (lubriderm triple therapy lotion) is MIA. i've been to umpteen different drugstores, not to mention several targets and walmarts..... nothing. but ironically, at the walmart about a mile away from my house, i found another lotion with the same ingredient, that's even cheaper. score!

i believe it was less than $6. in a huge bottle. and just fyi, the bottle i bought doesn't have a slightly scandalous female form on the front :P.


so does it work as well as my lubriderm stuff? yes, i think so. it's really light and milky feeling. and i think it keeps the chicken skin away on the backs of my arms.


BUT....


the smell! oh my! it's very (as my husband said) pungent. so much so that he has stopped cuddling with me when we're trying to fall asleep. eep :S. so i guess i'm still looking for a new body lotion with AHA for my arms....

Review: Lubriderm Advanced Therapy Triple Smoothing Body Lotion

How can I explain how much I love this stuff? For as long as I can remember, I've had chicken skin (Keratosis Pilaris is the spiffy science-y word) on my arms. You know, that bumpy stuff. I used to put acne medication on it, and that only helped slightly. But I read online that the ingredient in this lotion (AHA) chemically exfoliates skin and gets rid of the bumps. I bought this stuff for around $7 at Walmart (where else?) and have been using it for about a month. Can I just say that my arms are somehow smooth now? They've never felt smooth before. And the red bumps are mostly gone. If I don't use it twice a day though, the bumps come back a little. But it's really great. It smells good too, kind of light and flower-esque.

Let me also say that this lotion has many a purpose. Like I said yesterday, you can use it on your face to make it really smooth and even. And at the risk of getting too personal, I also use it on my bikini line after I shave it, because it exfoliates and keeps it from getting irritated. Problem solved!

So here's the bottom line: This stuff is all-purpose and just plain awesome. Oh yeah, and cheap!

Review: Noxzema Plus Moisturizers

Because my face is so dry, I always wash it with something mild (like Cetaphil, or my Dial White Tea Hand Soap, which I wrote about earlier). But then I always worry that my face isn't actually getting clean. Like maybe I'm just rubbing warm water over my face every day. So, because of good reviews, I went out and bought Noxzema (hey, it was only $3 at Walmart!). I thought I'd be really tricky and buy the kind with moisturizers, that way my skin wouldn't know I was trying to deep clean it and dry it out. Alas, my efforts were to no avail. My skin didn't exactly feel dry and flaky like it does when I use something harsh, but it didn't feel good either.

When I got out of the shower and looked at my skin, I had magically morphed into a 48-year-old. My skin had moon craters for pores, and it felt kind of rough. But, it didn't exactly dry it out either. So confused. Maybe it just opened up all of my pores to get all the gunk out? Not sure. All I know is that it made my makeup look cakey that day. At any rate, I'm still using it a couple times a week, followed by my Lubriderm Advanced Therapy Triple Smoothing Body Lotion (phew, long name). Yes, it's body lotion, but it has AHA to "smooth dry, flaky skin", and I occasionally use it on my face and it really makes it look glowy and even. Hey, a lot of facial cleansers have AHA these days (aka glycolic acid), so I figure, what's the difference?

More about the Lubriderm tomorrow. As a body lotion, I mean.