review: bio oil

I recently agreed to trial Bio Oil. By this time of the year, having just made it through yet another summer under the brutal Australian sun, my skin is in need of all the help it can get. Pale skin and extreme UV just aren’t friends, no matter how much sunscreen, shade and covering up I bring to the party!

The product
Bio Oil tells us it is specialist skincare for scars, stretchmarks, uneven skin tone, ageing skin and dehydrated skin; it contains vitamins A and E, and essential oils including Lavender and Chamomile; it is non-greasy, hypoallergenic and suitable for all skin types.

This is good for me – I keep my skincare as simple as possible and while I enjoy fancy products in fancy packaging that smell, well, beautiful and fancy from time to time, I really like to use the straightforward workhorses. And they don’t have to be fancy.

Bio Oil, however, does smell nice. I did not react badly to it, whereas I have reacted badly to other oils, such as grape seed oil, which is reported to work wonders on skin. I used the Bio Oil liberally on my face, neck, shoulders and arms – after the past few months of daily UV onslaught, I wanted to help them recover.

Did it work? What did I think?
There are two parts to this. The first bit is what I think everyone really wants to know: does it remove all signs of scars and stretchmarks? My answer is I don’t know. I don’t have any fresh battle scars to go to work on, and the instructions say to use the oil twice a day for a minimum of three months. As I was using it over a fairly large area I ran out before the three months was up. And, well, I’m not a scientist; I can’t measure accurately any changes in the war wounds of life with any sort of reliable control for comparison! So no, I don’t know, I can’t help you with this bit.

But what CAN I tell you? I am happy – thrilled, really – to tell you that my face and arms are looking really good – well, I mean at least the skin is! Two things for me in summer: I stopped wearing foundation as it was too hot for it, and it just melted off. Instead I used a little powder, so I wanted my skin to be as good as possible underneath it. It was really good, as far as my temperamental skin goes! Smooth and glowing. The second thing is my poor arms copped a lot of UV over the past two months, and no matter how good I tried to be with sunscreen – and I am pretty fanatical about it – I still got a little burnt a few times. And even when not actually burnt, my arms still got way too much exposure. So I have, for possibly the first time in my life, a suntan on my arms. And patchy, stripy tanned and white shoulders, too. I think the Bio Oil has been wonderful, and has soothed, and smoothed, my parched skin.

Overall verdict – would I buy this product?
One big resounding yes! The skin on my arms has never felt better! I think it's an affordable, effective product for everyday use.