REVIEW: Burt's Bees Radiance Night Cream with Royal Jelly

After my pretty awesome experience with the Burt's Bees Cream Cleanser I thought I might try one of their creams to help battle my suddenly-dry skin. I know I haven't been drinking as much water as I should, and I know it's cold out and hot inside...but REALLY! My skin is pretty crazy dry.

I spent a considerable amount of time in-store reading the boxes for the various Burt's Bees moisturizers and decided to try the Radiance Night Cream with Royal Jelly.

The good folks at Burt's Bees claim that Royal Jelly is "very nourishing, royal jelly is made of nectar, pollen, flower parts, vitamins, minerals, bee hormones and other natural ingredients". To be honest, I just learned about the "bee hormones" part, which kind of gave me the giggles.

As a minor health fanatic, I have heard lots about the health benefit of Royal Jelly. If you do some research, you will learn that it does some amazing things for bees. Royal Jelly is what is fed to the Queen Bee, it is what makes her so much bigger than the other bees, and it is what makes her fertile (all other female bees are infertile). Royal Jelly is loaded with amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins B5 & B6, as well as the same anti-bacterial properties renowned in honey!

In the end, I figured since I'm the Queen Bee of my household I should try this moisturizer.

And it hasn't disappointed!

Despite a heavy load of oils in the Ingredient List (Sweet Almond Oil is second from the top, and further down you'll find Sunflower and Vegetable oils), this cream feels closer in texture to a lotion. Royal Jelly is the 9th ingredient from the top, and is followed by other awesome natural goodness, like Lemon Peel extract, Horsetail Extract, Rosemary and Pine Tree extracts, hops, etc.

The texture was very light, and even slightly sticky. The sticky feeling disappeared pretty quickly and wasn't off-putting, it just felt a little unusual at first.

The cream absorbed right in and did not feel heavy at all! My skin felt nourished, it looked beautiful and didn't feel dry! My skin has actually been so dry, that I was using this cream either (and sometimes, both) day or night!

This cream's ONLY downfall was its fragrance... it was the EIGHTH (!!!) ingredient from the top...meaning there was more perfume than Royal Jelly in this product. The smell was lovely, dont get me wrong, but surely it can't stink enough to warrant *that* much fragrance, right?

Hopefully that is something the good people over at Burt's Bees can fix sometime soon!

Also, at over $30 a jar, this product is WAY too expensive to not have tester jars out. There are Vichy, La Roche Posay, NeoStrata, etc creams at that same price range... and THEY have testers. **cough cough, are you listening Burt?**

This cream was lovely and nourishing that it actually encouraged me to buy the matching eye cream as well!!! I will review that another time...

In the meantime... TRY THIS STUFF!

My Obsession: NeoStrata Toner

This toner is my obsession. I use it once a day to remove any left-over dirt/debris/oil/dead skin cells.

This is part of NeoStrata's "Acne" line-up, but I gotta tell you that anyone can use it. It's very low in alcohol content, somewhere around the 10% mark (unlike other cheap drugstore toners that can be as much as 90% alcohol!) so it's gentle even on dryer and more dehydrated skin types.

Its crowning glory isn't the low alcohol content, it's the 8% Glycolic Acid! So when I say it removes dead skin cells I really mean it!

The beauty of Glycolic Acid is that it makes all your other skincare work better! Your serums and moisturizers absorb better because they aren't fighting to get through layers of dead skin cells. Your skin glows instantly because it's brighter, more even toned, and smoother.

Also, pimples and zits don't just happen because you're oily. Oil alone doesn't cause pimples... but Oil holding onto dead skin cells are what clog pores and cause breakouts. So eliminate the dead skin cells, and therefore the breakouts, by using this toner!

Also, glycolic acid is a wonderful anti-aging product because as it thins your upper layers of skin, it thickens the deeper layers of skin because new cells are being pushed out faster - therefore flattening wrinkles, fine lines and...ACNE SCARS!

I recommend using it at night-time. It does thin your skin a bit, so any redness or irritation that may come along with it will be gone in a couple hours (at most). You can use it every day... I have been using this product as a replacement to the more expensive Peel Solution for a few weeks now and I LOVE IT! I'm totally hooked!

At $26 for a bottle of it (and you only use a slightly damp cotton pad) it's an amazing and effective all-around treatment for all skin types...