Clarins Blue Orchid Oil

...of research, I decided that Clarins Blue Orchid Oil was my best bet. Clarins do three different skin oils, but Blue Orchid is designed specifically for dehydrated (as opposed to dry) skin. It contains 100% natural plant extracts.

The oil does not come cheap. The RRP is £26.00, I got mine for £22.50 in Duty Free and the cheapest I have found it on the internet is £19.99 including postage. This princely sum buys you just 40 ml of the ...
...comes in the normal understated Clarins packaging – white and gold with a little bit of red. The bottle inside is small, cylindrical and squat, made of glass, with a chunky white lid. For some reason I was expecting the oil, or at least the bottle, to be blue. Instead, the bottle is clear and the oil inside is yellow – a similar colour to cooking oil. In fact, the bottle does have a tendency at first glance to look like a sample bottle sitting on ... more

Not so long ago, my teenage skin formed its own natural oil slick every day and I spent much of my allowance on products to dry it out and mattify it. Now, some ten years on, my skin has gone completely the other way and is almost permanently dehydrated.

I recently had my make up professionally done for a wedding and the make up artist commented on my dehydrated skin. I said that I had tried all kinds of rich, intensive moisturisers, but to no avail. She suggested that I try an oil, informing me that oils absorb into the skin much better than moisturisers.

After a bit of research, I decided that Clarins Blue Orchid Oil was my best bet. Clarins do three different skin oils, but Blue Orchid is designed specifically for dehydrated (as opposed to dry) skin. It contains 100% natural plant extracts.

The oil does not come cheap. The RRP is £26.00, I got mine for £22.50 in Duty Free and the cheapest I have found it on the internet is £19.99 including postage. This princely sum buys you just 40 ml of the oil, but do not fear, a little goes a very, very long way (think about how much cooking oil you use if you are brushing something with oil to cook – this is the type of coverage you need on your face and it really doesn’t take very much at all).

The oil comes in the normal understated Clarins packaging – white and gold with a little bit of red. The bottle inside is small, cylindrical and squat, made of glass, with a chunky white lid. For some reason I was expecting the oil, or at least the bottle, to be blue. Instead, the bottle is clear and the oil inside is yellow – a similar colour to cooking oil. In fact, the bottle does have a tendency at first glance to look like a sample bottle sitting on the bathroom shelf!

I like to apply the oil after cleansing and toning at night, in place of a night cream, although sometimes I cleanse, tone and apply the oil in the early evening, then apply a night cream before going to bed. A face cream absorbs fantastically well into the skin a couple of hours after applying the oil. The instructions suggest that skin should be slightly moistened with toner before application in order to aid absorption, and I would go along with that. It is quite a thin consistency, slightly less viscous than cooking oil and more like an aromatherapy oil. It has quite a strong herbal smell which again is reminiscent of aromatherapy oils. I toyed with the idea of applying it with cotton wool, but decided that I did not want to waste any of this expensive oil by allowing it to soak into a cotton wool pad! In the end I decided to apply it with my fingers. The neck of the bottle is small enough that you can easily cover it with your finger in order to turn the bottle up and get a small amount onto your finger tips. Once I have a little on my finger tips, I lightly brush it all over my face, paying particular attention to problem areas, which in my case are cheeks and forehead. The instructions recommend that you avoid the eye contour area, so I tend to leave this out and use an eye cream instead.

The skin does feel oily straight after application, and for some time after that. If you suffer from oily skin anyway then this would definitely not be for you, and you would probably hate the feeling. However, when my skin spends most of the day feeling dry and tight, it is nice to feel something so hydrating and luxurious on my skin in the evening and I know it is doing it good. It would, however, be too oily to use in the mornings as it would be impossible to get good make up coverage on top of it. I prefer to apply it just before bed and give it the night to absorb.

The product claims to be hydrating, softening and nourishing, to help prevent dryness responsible for signs of ageing and to revitalise and promote more radiant-looking skin. My skin certainly feels hydrated after application and definitely feels softer and looks more radiant and healthy the morning after. I feel like the layer of oil it leaves on my skin is preventing moisture loss. You can tell from the smell of the oil that it contains some kind of nutrients that also help the skin, and it is not simply the oiliness of it that has the main effect. It’s obviously too early for me to tell whether it prevents the signs of ageing, but it is definitely reducing the dryness of my skin and I hope that it will stop me from looking too old in years to come! Despite my dehydrated skin, I am sometimes prone to spots, but I am happy to report that the Blue Orchid Oil has not caused any eruptions as yet!

I would highly recommend Blue Orchid Oil to anyone who suffers from dehydrated skin and wants to protect and nourish it. It does not come cheap, but it lasts forever as you need such a small amount to cover the face, and it is a luxurious, nourishing treatment that you can just tell is doing you good.

 

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