Review: Body Shop Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil

Bah, I abandoned my blog last week, but I am armed with a legitimate and (what I think is) a reasonable excuse: I worked 70 hours last week, from Monday to Sunday. I am not really thinking straight, and I hope this week is going to be better but it’s not looking promising

ANYWAYS, I wanted to get this blog post up. After hearing rave reviews online, I bought the Body Shop Camomile Cleansing Oil a few months ago in hopes that it could replace my longtime and very expensive love, the MAC Cleanse Off Oil.

The Caamomile Cleansing Oil costs $16 for 200 mL and the MAC Cleanse Off Oil costs $38 for 150 mL. This is $0.08/mL for the Body Shop oil, as compared to the $0.25/mL for the MAC oil – obviously, the Camomile Cleansing Oil is much less expensive!

I used the Camomile Cleansing Oil for two weeks, and would say the performance is very comparable to the MAC Cleanse Off Oil. It takes off my makeup off with absolutely no struggle or tugging at my eye area. Similar to the MAC Cleanse Off Oil, I found that it was able to take my makeup off completely without needing any other product, and it also rinses off without leaving an oily residue. I liked that the Camomile Cleansing Oil didn’t seem to cloud my vision, which happens temporarily with the MAC Cleanse Off Oil until I wash it off.

In terms of scent, I like the scent of the Cleanse Off Oil more – I can’t discern the scent, but it’s only very lightly fragranced and I find the smell refreshing. On the other hand, the Camomile Cleansing Oil smells heavily of what I’m guessing is camomile. It’s a little too strong for my personal taste, but I don’t find it problematic because the scent washes off with the oil anyway.

HOWEVER (and this is a big however), my skin broke out when I used the Camomile Cleansing Oil. I ended up getting tons of tiny bumps on my forehead and cheek area that I think may have been clogged pores. The oil was the only thing that I had changed in my skincare routine, but I still wasn’t sure if it was the cause of my breakouts as it could have been diet or hormone-related. I stopped using the Cleansing Oil for two weeks, got my Clarisonic out until my skin cleared up, then I tried the oil for a second time during Christmas when I knew there wouldn’t be anything affecting my skin. And I broke out again.

So, I’m pretty sure this product was the cause of my breakouts, which was a huge disappointment considering all of the rave reviews online, as well as my hope that it would be able to replace the MAC Cleanse Off Oil. I know it’s hard with skincare – just because it reacted badly with one person doesn’t mean it’ll react the same to everyone’s skin. Sigh, I guess this means that I will just have to continue forking out the cash to buy the MAC Cleanse Off Oil!

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the rest of the bottle, but one time after doing swatches on my arm for the blog, my arm got splotchy and red from scrubbing the swatches off with soap, and the redness took FOREVER to fade. The lightbulb went off inside my head – I can use the Caamomile Cleansing Oil to take swatches off. So far, it’s worked pretty well for that.

The thing is, I bought TWO bottles of the Caamomile Cleansing Oil because it was a buy one, get one free deal at the time. I think it’ll take me forever to get through the first bottle, so I have no use for the second – I’m not sure what to do with it. I’m thinking about giving it away to a friend, but how do I sell the product convincingly? “Hey, this oil gave me a breakout – you want to try it?” Haha!

This was my experience with the Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil – not great. However, I do believe that skincare is very personal. just because it didn’t work on me doesn’t mean it’s a bad product. It could very well be a great cleansing oil for someone else.

I almost forgot: stashmatters is having a giveaway on her blog! Please follow her blog and check out her giveaway! She’s one of my favourite bloggers 🙂