Review: Neal's Yard Rehydrating Rose Daily Moisture

Free with Marie-Claire this month, which retails at £3.70, is this face moisturiser from Neal's Yard. As my Mum always says, it's only free if you actually want it, and would pay the price to get it. I wouldn't usually spend £4 on a mascara, hence why I didn't buy Elle when it had Soap & Glory's mascara free with it. I would, however, spend £3.50 at least on a face moisturiser - so I did!

On the left in this picture is the free moisturiser, and on the right the moisturiser I have been using and therefore what all the comments are made in light of, really.

First, price. Obviously this tube of the Neal's Yard moisturiser was free, for 45ml, but the full size product would cost £22.50 for 100ml. The Neutrogena costs £5 for 50ml, so would be £10 for 100ml. Because of this price difference, you would expect the Neal's Yard to definitely be the better moisturiser. But is it?

Well, it obviously smells nicer, and I do like the subtly flowery smell - though if I wore very modern non-floral scented perfume, it might clash. The Neutrogena doesn't have a smell - or, at least, it has that non-perfume 'moisturiser' smell, which I'm not a big fan of.

Next, drying time. This is very important if I'm going to use a moisturiser every day - and the Neal's Yard moisturiser was great on this. No more waiting after moisturising to apply makeup - pretty much moisturise and go. By contrast, the Neutrogena takes forever to absorb into the skin - so much so that I end up using it before I go to bed rather than in the morning.

This all sounds very good for my free moisturiser, but there are three points which mean I won't repurchase it:

1. Moisturising action. It works fine on my cheeks, sure, but actually it makes the skin on my forehead (where it is driest) feel tight. When I touch that skin it does feel soft, which makes a change to normal, so maybe the effect just takes time to filter down, or maybe the feeling tight is just my forehead muscles getting used to softer skin - yes, I know that's scientific baloney. So overall this has good moisturising action, but not great, which brings me onto my next point.
2. Price. I'm just not in the market to spend that much on a moisturiser when I have a perfectly good one already - even if the Neutrogena can't fully deal with the dry patch on my forehead, there are other moisturisers around at that price point (such as the dry skin formula of that moisturiser) which might be able to - I'll only repurchase the Neal's Yard if I can't find any moisturiser at a lower price per 100ml that I prefer.
3. Size - a 100ml bottle is fine for on the dressing table, but you can't take it on holiday very easily. Plus with its sticky-out pump handle, it doesn't look particularly robust.

Normally I'd wait for longer before publishing a skincare review, but I thought it would be helpful to publish it while the April 2012 issue of Marie Claire is on sale for a while longer. Overall - a good moisturiser, but not one I'll repurchase.

(and the magazine's pretty good this month, even if I can't afford any of the fashion)