Review: Aveeno Moisturising Creamy Oil

I honestly hadn't really thought much Aveeno products until I was asked to try them. I've seen them in Boots, but had never really paid any attention to them. I got a couple of products to try out and this is the review for the Moisturising Creamy Oil with Colloidal Oatmeal.



I don't have really dry skin but I do work in a very air conditioned environment and occasionally I do get some quite dry patches of skin on my legs and arms. So I was quite interested in trying this creamy oil to see if it helped with the dry skin.

Firstly, this comes in a 300ml bottle with a pump dispenser (yay!). I haven't been able to find pricing information for this product online. The rest of the range seems to come in around £5.00-£8.00. I adore the sweet almond scent (this does contain sweet almond oil for moisturisation), it is one of my favourite scents for body product.

However, what the heck is Colloidal Oatmeal? I had to put on my science hat and do some ingredient research. A colloid is a substance that is too small to be seen with the naked eye, they are typically between 1 nanometre and 10 micrometres in size, much larger than atoms, and are dispersed in a continuous phase. The colloid remains dispersed and does not settle out. Oatmeal does not dissolve in water and larger particles would settle out, however the particles of colloidal oatmeal are so small that they remain in the suspension without settling. Milk is an example of a colloidal substance (basically, the fat remains dispersed in water despite the fact that fat/oil would not normally mix with water).

Oatmeal is quite widely used in skincare, a quick Google search reveals a large number of websites on the subject, plus a large number recommending the use of colloidal oatmeal as a treatment for eczema (I am not making a recommendation here, just mentioning what is out there on the subject. If you suffer from eczema, please do your own research on the use of colloidal oatmeal). So I can only assume it's in the creamy oil as a moisturising component.

I could go into the science of this for hours, I love science. But maybe I should tell you what I thought about it, rather than boggng you down in science.

I used it for several weeks, well I am still using it when I remember. It's quite a "runny" moisturiser as it is a moisturising creamy oil rather than a body lotion. I didn't need to use a lot as it spread out quite easily. It also soaked in very quickly and didn't feel like I needed to sit there while it soaked in. It took only a couple of minutes at the most. I tended to apply before bed or after a shower. Quite often in the past when I've used body lotions before bed, I've been aware of a layer on my skin in the morning. I didn't have that issue with this.

Did it improve the condition of my skin? Not really. My skin felt great in the morning, nicely moisturised. But it was dry again by the end of the day and this didn't change at all during the time I was testing this out for review. I'll continue to use this until the bottle has gone, but it's not something I feel like I need to purchase.

This product was sent to me free for review.