Origins Plantscription™ Anti-Aging Cleanser Review
My eagerly anticipated Origins order arrived a couple of hours after receiving an email that it had been despatched! ∗
The blurb
This gentle foaming cleanser with Anogeissus plus Jasmine Flowers and conditioning Oat Protein helps dissolve dirt and impurities and release dead cells. Leaves skin looking radiant, smooth and youthfully alive.
First impressions
First impressions are that there is a strong perfume emanating from the package. It's quite ghastly, like a sickly sweet, heavy unnatural fragrance. I can't work out where it's coming from but I could feel it right between the eyes.
I was eager to try this as the cleanser I'd been using had finished a week ago and I'd been experimenting with oil cleansing using olive oil. Although oil cleansing worked well for me I didn't think it would be practical when I start travelling again later in the year. So, off I went to the internet to look for a cleanser suitable for my mature skin that didn't contain any harmful chemicals and came across Origins Plantscription™ Anti-aging Cleanser.
Origins have several products in their Plantscription™ range with the 'anti-aging' theme. To say that I'm not fond of the term 'anti-ageing' is an understatement. I'm not 'anti' anything and it seems more than a little silly to claim that a product would somehow anti-age me. Why would I be anti-ageing. I'm all for ageing, in fact I quite like the fact that I'm still living in my middle years and hope that I'll continue to age for quite some time, because when I stop ageing I'll be gone. What I really want are products that are suitable for my mature skin which is different to the youthful looking skin I had years ago.
Ingredients
Formulation
- water
- myristic acid
- glycerin
- behenic acid
- palmitic acid
- potassium hydroxide
- sodium methyl cocoyl taurate
- lauric acid
- stearic acid
- rosa damascena flower oil (essential oil)
- lavandula angustifolia (lavender) oil (essential oil)
- pelargonium graveolens flower oil (essential oil)
- illicium verum (anise) oil (essential oil)
- citrus aurantium bergamia (bergamot) fruit oil (essential oil)
- carthamus tinctorius (safflower) seed oil (essential oil)
- myristica fragrans (nutmeg) kernal oil (essential oil)
- citrus aurantium dulcis (orange) oil (essential oil)
- citrus nobilis (mandarin orange) peel oil (essential oil)
- citrus medica limonum (lemon) peel oil (essential oil)
- litsea cubeba fruit oil (essential oil)
- hibiscus abelmoschus extract
- linalool
- citronellol
- limonene
- anogeissus leiocarpus bark extract
- aloe barbadensis leaf extract
- jasminum officinale (jasmine) flower wax
- sodium lauroyl oat amino acids
- peg-3 distearate
- sodium hyaluronate
- phytantriol
- methylisothiazolinone
- phenoxyethanol <iln38656>
- No parabens
- No phthalateles propolyne glycol
- No mineral oil
- No PABA
- No petrolatum
- No paraffin
- No DEA
- No animal ingredients .
Using
What completely threw me was that there are no directions on how to use it except use "AM & PM". I don't consider myself to be completely devoid of brain cells or common sense but no recommended method of cleansing left me bewildered; Do I wet face before applying cleanser or not? Do I massage into skin 'straight' or add water to create a foam? How should I remove it - with a dry cloth/cotton wool, a damp face cloth or just rinse off with water? So many questions and no clue. I tried using my reasoning. It's called a cleanser and not face wash so I should probably apply it to cotton pads and cleanse. But, it says on the back of the tube that it's a foaming cleanser so it needs water to emulsify it, right?
It's all too much for my very tired brain late at night so I splash my face with water, squeeze some cleanser onto my fingers and massage onto my face. The consistency is very thick and creamy and would obviously not rinse off with just water so I reached for the face cloth. The feeling post-wash was that it left my face feeling dry (probably the foaming ingredients) and not just an ordinary dry feeling but almost like I hadn't been able to remove the cleanser properly and a sticky substance had been left behind. Not a nice result.
As I'd concluded that with the lack of directions I'd used it wrongly, bright and early next morning I headed to the Origins website for clarification. Nothing there except "Use AM and PM as part of your Plantscription™ anti-aging regime."!
The verdict
This is the first product I've tried from the Origins brand and I have to say I was not impressed with the lack of ingredient information available before purchase or directions for use. Maybe it's just this one product that I just don't like but it has put me off trying anything else from them. Although I didn't have any horrible reactions to it I just didn't like the way my skin felt after use. I will have further cleansing sessions with it as I do hate to throw products away unless I've had adverse reactions and I'll experiment with using smaller amounts of the cleanser.
∗ I've written this review based on notes taken by me a while ago (before I started this blog) as I was documenting the products I've been trying as a way for me to keep track of what has worked for me and what has not.
