Alright, to business.
My first experience with the Burt's Bees Natural face essentials soap bark and Chamomile deep cleansing cream(woah! what a mouthful.) was about two years ago. I got a sampler kit for Christmas that had chapstick, body wash, lotion, etc....and one of the samples was a little bottle of the face wash. I have this thing for face wash. I seriously enjoy just looking at it all at the store, reading all the labels and seeing what they all claim to do. I also really like trying new things, but my skin would beg to differ. My face doesn't like change, which is apparently not uncommon.
But, like any good face wash fanatic, I threw common sense out the window and tried it anyway :) Yay me!
My first impression of this product was, frankly, not good. Not good at all. It came out as a cream, which was suggested in the name, but I'm used to my soaps foaming, ya know? So that was disconcerting. But apart from that, I felt like it was making me break out more! To be honest, the only reason I kept using it was because it was a present from my mom and I didn't want her to know I didn't like it.
But boy am I glad I stuck with it. Suddenly my skin started clearing up in a big way! Here's the thing with face soap. When you switch from something you've been using for years, your skin is going to freak out, and the Burt's Bees soap was doing even more than that. It was purging my skin. It was drawing out all the crap, then getting rid of it! Which was hard to live with while it was happening, but once it got rid of all the nasty, my skin looked better than it ever did, and it stayed clear! My breakouts started getting way less, or sometimes not at all! And my skin itself just looked healthier and smoother and all around great!
Unfortunately, that was a tiny bottle and I made the mistake of letting my mom try it. Bad idea. That puppy got used up reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaalllll quick, and when we went to the store to buy a normal size bottle, the price about gave mom a heart attack. A full size bottle of this stuff is between $8-$10, depending on where you buy it(Target, Walmart, ULTA, just to name a few) and even though that's not expensive, it's WAY more than the $3 we were paying for our go-to face soap. So, in agony and dispair, we went back to old faithful.
Eventually my skin got better and more regulated as I got older, but it was just never as nice as it had been when I had my beloved Burt's bees soap bark and Chamomile deep cleansing cream *SIGH* And very recently, I had a bad(very, very bad!) experience with another face soap. I had a bad reaction and I had more pimples than I did when I was fifteen and hormonal........Not cute. This got me thinking, though, and remembering how good my skin was when I was using the Burt's bees stuff. I decided right there(having a job, and subsequently, money, will do that to you) that I was going to just grit my teeth and buy that face soap. I was talking to my mom about it, and she said she really wanted to go back to using it too, and maybe we could split the cost. Even better.
So we bought it, and, just like last time, I had several bad skin days. But this time I can't blame it entirely on the face soap. I was coming from another face soap that I was allergic to, so I was already starting from bad. Anywho, I had several bad skin days...like a week. Then, right on schedule, my skin cleared right up! At this point, it's been about a month since I switched back to good old Burt's Bees. Now, let's weigh the pros and cons:
*Large Bottle. It's like the size of a normal squeeze bottle of lotion, so pretty big, especially for this kind of product. Face washes, not to mention organic face washes, are generally quite small.
*You don't need much. Like at all. Mom and I both have been using this every day(I use it twice a day) for a month, and we're maybe half done with it? Probably not even half. I mean, you have to experiment to see how much YOU will need, but I use about a dime size, and I think mom uses a little less. This is great! You get a large bottle, and you don't need much! That $8 price tag's looking a little more reasonable.
*The smell is good. Mom says it reminds her of juicy fruit gum, but not so artificial. I don't really agree, but as I can't describe what it smells like to me, we're just gonna stick with that description. I can say though that the small is not at all overpowering or lingering. Basically the moment you put it on your face, the smell goes away, and you don't walk around all day with a face smelling like juicy fruit gum ;) The product also has a really great cooling sensation!
*Let's face it. It works. My skin is clear and smooth, and it stays that way, even in stress or other things that would make me break out. I'm not breakout free, but it's so drastically diminished that the one or two zits I get don't even bother me, because the rest of my skin is perfect.
*It's all natural. This isn't really super important to me. I mean, I don't dismiss products because they're not organic or natural, but I must say it is a bonus!
Now let's talk about the cons:
*It's expensive. Like I said before, it can range between $8-$10 dollars, depending on where you buy it. For a lot of people, the price is a huge issue. It was for me! It's not like I'd never see Burt's Bees products before getting that Christmas present! But I always cringed at the price, because if I didn't like it, I was stuck with a $5 chapstick. But trust me, this product is worth the money, and like I talked about in the "pros", you definitely get your money's worth!
now, before we wrap this up I do have to add in a few personal notes(because apparently this whole thing isn't a personal note) I had to give my skin a little longer before it started to calm down, because I was coming from a soap that was actually making me break out more. I had to give this product a good week, week and a half before it really started to work. Obviously, everybody's skin is different, so it may take less time, it may take more time, but the important thing is to GIVE IT TIME.
I'm also at the tail end of hormonal breakouts, and my skin is therefore just generally easier to manage. HOWEVER, I did try this several years ago, like I said before, so you teenagers will still see results!
I must also say that I have never had acne. I had my share of pimples, for sure, but never acne. I never needed, like, proactiv or anything. Just your everyday, run-of-the-mill zits. Not cute, but it could have been worse. Therefore, I don't know what this product will do for those that have acne-prone skin. I'd say it's worth a try, though. It's more easily accessable and cheaper than products like proactiv, and because it's natural, it won't be as harsh as some of the less expensive face products formulated for acne.
K you guys! Try this. It's good ;)
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